THE CONDITION OF FLORENCE.

THE CONDITION OF FLORENCE.

1067 The times of rising and of the morning prayer and meditation were the same as on weekdays, but the Mass was followed by religious instruction. Wo...

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1067 The times of rising and of the morning prayer and meditation were the same as on weekdays, but the Mass was followed by religious instruction. Work began at 7. It is unnecessary, and it would be tedious, even to follow the hours of study. The whole day, as Renan told his mother, was spent in continuous pious exercises and the studies were devoted to religion and the catechism, instruction was received and analyses were made on these subjects, and these duties occupied the whole of the time except that which was spent in learning by heart the Gospel and the catechism. Presumably the working hours at Saint-Nicolas were longer than those at similar establishments in France at the time and than those now prevailing in religious seminaries there or elsewhere ; but it is quite possible that the length of time devoted to study has counted for something in the ineffectiveness of such institutions. Boys trained in this way ought, if there were nothing radically wrong in the system, to become the intellectual giants of the world. It is notorious that this has not been the usual case.

THE

BATTLE

OF THE CLUBS: THE AT CHESTERFIELD.

DISPUTE

THE Derbyshire Courier of Saturday, Oct. 11th, contains a reply from the representatives of the friendly societies to the article by our Special Commissioner which appeared in THE LANCET of Sept. 27th (p 895). The representatives of the friendly societies state that our article is I I a series of mis-

statements " ; that married

women who have children should "be allowed to make an honest arrangement to protect themselves against heavy doctor’s bills, which in many cases have brought families to ruin and pauperism " ; and that they will " shortly introduce into Chesterfield a medical gentleman who will be quite able to hold his own both as regards the qualification and social position." We may have to refer to this funny document again ; for the present we have only to say that we do not envy the medical man who takes office under its writers.

the general strike referred to and the discredit incurred by its promoters, is about the last place in Italy where the aggressor, anarchic or other, dares to enter an appearance, as may be seen by any visitor who paces its bright, cheerful thoroughfares en route to its architectonic ekefs d’æuvre or picture galleries already thronged with the votaries of plastic or reproductive genius. ’ Our Lady of Flowers,’ in truth, has rarely been more attractive than in the day now passing, certainly has never been healthier since her mediaeval walls have been replaced by ample viali or boulevards, and since her streets can no longer be described, as they were a generation ago by the late Dr. King Chambers, as mainly aseries of Hanway passages bordered by Newgate prisons.’ Now that the agitation against the English practitioner and his professional activity has died a natural death in Italy, Florence, like others of her Italian sisters, requires little more than a better organised, more punctual postal service to be an ideal resort for the northern pilgrim, whether his presence be motiv6 by medical or by artistic, literary, or even social considerations. For the average Englishman, however, residence in the most congenial of cities becomes rather a chastened joy when he gets his cherished English newspapers at the good pleasure or the private convenience of an undermanned and overworked postal personnel-a state of things which on the outbreak of the South African war occasioned quite a stampede of the English-speaking arrivals, eager to have news from the front in their own journals and irritated rather than satisfied by the meagre, ill-spelt, and not benevolent ’despatches’ of the local press.""

always

THE

PREVENTION

OF

BABY-FARMING.

IT is at least disappointing to find that notwithstanding all the trouble that has been taken to secure its abolition the practice of baby-farming still continues to exist, even though it be with an impaired vitality. That it can live at all is by no means creditable to our system of social administration. We acknowledge that the energy put forth by local authorities for its prevention has increased and is THE CONDITION OF FLORENCE. increasing. The officers of the Society for the Prevention of AN Italian correspondent writes, under date Oct. 6th :— Cruelty to Children have also done much, and with no " Competition, like every other incentive, has its bad as well small measure of success, towards the same purpose. as its good bide, and the approach of the autumnal season, Public opinion, too, is certainly better informed and more when the sun-traps and winter-cities of Southern Europe awake to its duty in this connexion than it was some begin to attract the health-seeker from the north, is always years ago. We may quote in illustration of this fact the prolic of self-assertive rivalry between the many caterers recent finding of a Dublin jury which affords a significant for that money-bringing clientèle. The Riviera Ponente, example of wholesome plain-speaking. The foreman, on through the agents interested in its prosperity, is apt his own behalf and on that of his fellow jurors, expressed to advertise itself at the expense of the Riviera his detestation of "this most inhuman practice of babyLevante which in its turn, again through similarly which was nothing short of murder," and he farming, interested agents, vaunts its special advantage over the desired to state their collective opinion that no respectable Neapolitan Riviera ; until, like Tennyson’s swallow flying, newspaper should publish such advertisements as that flying South,’ depreciation and disparagement (both which appeared to have attracted the accused (and subof themeconomists of truth’) alight with exhausted sequently convicted) nurse. In this case, as in many wing on the Algerian seaboard or the banks of the Nile. others of the same class, the victim was a singly nursed Florence is at this moment chafing under a more than child and was therefore not protected by the defence usually severe visitation of this periodical scourge. Having afforded by registration. Numerous protests have been nothing to say against her sanitary or hygienic condition, levelled at this anomaly of legislation. By what cross-wind her detractors, like the irate goddess in Virgil’sÆneid’— of argument it was originally inspired we know not. Its ’Flectere si nequeo Superos, Acheronta movebo’that of a mischievous has often been effect too practical descend to politics and on the strength of a recent abortive concession in favour of the wrongdoer. It is true that regissciopero generale (general strike) give out that she is tration does not provide a perfect remedy but it nevertheless the prey of an aggressive Socialism,’ if, indeed, the must act as a check upon malpractice. We trust that a Anglophobe and the Anarchist have not marked her for contemplated amendment which will make it operative in their own. Like all ridiculous exaggerations this latest every case without exception in which a young child is specimen of self-interested misrepresentation has overshot nursed for hire will, before long, be embodied in the statuteits aim and fallen harmlessly-a telum imcbelle sine ictu book. Nor should those who honestly desire the extirpainto the back of beyond. So far from being ’honeycombed tion of this evil rest content at this point. Registration, in with revolution’ and ’perfectly unsafe for the law-abiding I order to he effectual, must be supported by a system of resident,’ Florence, thanks to themonumental failure’ of regular and conscientious inspection. This we believe to be