THE next few days were anxious ones for Italy. The straw-weavers of Tuscany were marching into Florence with the cry, ‘_Pane o lavore!_‘—‘Bread or work!‘—and in the north not bread, but revolution was openly the watchword. Timid tourists who had no desire to be mixed up in another ‘49 were scurrying across the frontiers into France and Switzerland; adventurous gentlemen from the Riviera, eager to enjoy the fun and not unwilling to take advantage of a universal tumult, were gaily scrambling in. The ministry, jostled from its usual apathy, had vigorously set itself to suppressing real and imaginary plots. Opposition newspapers were sequestered and the editors thrown into jail; telegrams and letters were withheld, public meetings broken up, and men arrested in the streets for singing the ‘Hymn of Labour.’ The secret police worked night and day. Every café and theatre and crowd had its spies disguised as loungers; and none dared speak the truth to his neighbour for fear his neighbour was in the pay of the premier. In Milan the rioters had been lashed into a frenzy by their first taste of blood, and for three days the future of United Italy looked dark. Wagons and tramcars were overturned in the streets to make barricades. Roofs and windows rained down tiles and stones, and the soldiers obeyed but sullenly when ordered to fire upon the mob. In their hearts many of them sympathized. The socialists were out in force and working hard, and their motto was, ‘Spread the discontent!’ Priests and students from the universities were stirring up the peasants in the fields and urging them on to revolt. All dissatisfied classes were for the moment united in their desire to overthrow the existing government; what should take its place could be decided later. When Savoy was ousted, then the others—the republicans, the priests, the socialists, the hungry mob in the streets—could fight it out among themselves. And as each faction in its heart believed itself to be the strongest, the fight, if it should come, was like to prove the end of Italy. * * * * *