you are not a very wonderful fellow after all—if
any such momentary misgivings should seize you,
you must crush them and trample them down as
you would sparks in the neighbourhood of a
powder-magazine. Repress all tendency to curiosity
about the great man's appearance or conversation.
Pretend not to notice him. Imply that such
men as he are your ordinary associates, and that
your own intellect is rather the better of the
two, especially in practical matters; and mind
you stick to that, because you know perfectly
well that a few beggarly facts, a good memory, a
sturdy constitution, and an utterly earthly and
unspeculative mind, are your strong points. A
slight look of surprise will be useful, too, if
you find that you must listen to something which
the great man says; an expression which says
very plainly—"what queer, half-cracked
creatures these geniuses are!"

There is nothing like being disagreeable,
depend upon it. Be disagreeable—it is almost as
successful as being rich, while if you are disagreeable
and rich—the world is at your feet. As to
being civil to strangers—but, no, there is no need
to caution you on that head, or else I should warn
you that if you behave with common courtesy
to people whom you meet for the first time, they
will absolutely view you with suspicion as well
as contempt: while, if you conduct yourself with
proper brutality and decline to answer when a
stranger, in the simplicity of his heart, addresses
you, you will be regarded with awe and respect.
Never mind whether you are liked or not—get
yourself feared.

And now to speak seriously for a moment.
There certainly is less of politeness among us
than there used to be. There was more bowing
and scraping in the days when men wore powder
and carried swords. Prettier speeches were made,
and compliments passed more freely, even when
gentlemen appeared at a dinner-party in under-
waistcoats, and had recourse to the curling-
tongs before a great banquet. We have ceased
to send our compliments to each other now, and
get on just as well without expressing our feelings
of regard. Different virtues, like different
colours, are in fashion at different times, and yet
modesty is not in vogue just now. Perhaps
boldness is the better quality of the two:
at all events, it implies energy and diligence,
the virtues which we have seen all along are
needed pre-eminently in these days. It is true,
on the other hand, that courage and energy,
those noble qualities, are too often found mixed
up with egotism and rudeness. Egotism that
crushes you, in order that it may rise. And it does
rise. The disagreeable man has it all his own way
in public places, in society, and at home. In all
places, and all times, he is cajoled and petted
that he may be kept in a tolerable humour—and
as to his wife! What an obedient, docile,
devoted creature she is invariably. How eagerly
she watches her lord and master when they are
in company. How she leads the talk on the
subject which will give him an opportunity of
boasting and laying down the law, happy if she
gets rewarded by a moment's transient good
humour afterwards. Yes, it pays in this world
to be disagreeable.

AN ITALIAN INSTITUTION.

WHEN the traveller, only a few years ago,
entered Naples from the sea, he was struck
by the circumstance that as he handed the
boatman his fare, a man suddenly appeared,
who looked on at the payment, and then,
receiving a certain small part of it, went his
way without a word. The same ceremony,
with a different individual for the actor,
occurred as the traveller paid his cab-fare to the
hotel, and paid the porter who took down his
luggage; and, doubtless, had he been able to see
it, he would have recognised a similar agency at
work when he discharged the bill of his
landlord. The servitore di piazza who accompanied
him to the Opera was met by one of these
mysterious figures. Even down to the itinerant
orange vendor, or the fabricator of cooling drinks
on the Chiaja, all were visited, all were alike
subject to this strange supervision. If, tempted
by the curiosity natural on such a theme, the
stranger asked for an explanation, he was told,
with a significance which implied that further
elucidation was better avoided, "La Camorra."

What does La Camorra mean? Etymologically,
it is not easy to say. The word would
seem to have come from a Spanish origin, as the
practice which it commemorates, lovers of Italy
are fain to believe, was also derived from Spain.
It is, to use the simplest of all illustrations, a
system of black mail, so extended and organised
as to apply to every walk in life, and every condition
of human industry. From the affluent
merchant with his argosies on the seas, to the
humblest faquino on the Mole—all are its victims.
From the minister in his cabinet, or the professor
in his chair, down to him who asks alms at the
door of the church, or the very galley-slave whose
chains clank as he moves in his weary labour—
all pay their quota of this iniquitous exaction,
and all recognise in its infliction the existence
of a system which no Bourbon government ever
dared to grapple with, and for the success
against which, of the present rulers of South
Italy, I am very far indeed from confident.

Corruptions of a government are very speedily
propagated through every class, and for a
long series of years the sway of the Neapolitan
Bourbons has been little else than
an organised intimidation. Every one was
under the influence of terror, and the dread of
being "denounced" was universal. The
oppressed were not slow to learn the lesson of the
oppressors, and thus grew up crops of secret
societies, which, ostensibly organised for self-
protection, soon became agents of the most
oppressive and cruel tyranny. Of these the
Camorra was the chief, representing within its
limits all that Thuggee is to the Bengalese,
Whiteboyism to the Irish, and the old Highland
system of black mail to the natives of the north
of Scotland.