benefits conferred by a high foreign protector,
who introduces some secret article in their
favour into all his treaties of finance. In short,
they bear in mind that if Rome is purgatory,
Leghorn is paradise.

The reign of Pius the Ninth also exempted
Israel from defraying the cost of the Carnival.
In the middle ages they took part in it personally.
The municipality treated the people to
the spectacle of a Jew-race. Benedict the
Fourteenth replaced the Hebrews by horses without
riders, which run much better, beyond all
comparison, but which cost the Jews eight hundred
crowns per annum. The heads of the tribe carried
that sum, with great ceremony, to the senator,
who received them most unceremoniously.

"Who are you?"

"Hebrews of Rome."

"I don't know you; be off with you!" To
this affable speech, only ten years ago, the first
municipal magistrate used to add a significant
movement of the foot.

The embassy, thus dismissed, betook itself to
one of the conservators of the town. " Who
are you?" he asked.

"Hebrews of Rome."

"What do you want?"

"We humbly implore of your lordship the
favour to dwell here another year."

The permission was granted, seasoned with
sundry insults; and, in token of their gratitude,
they offered their eight hundred crowns, which
the official person vouchsafed to take. The
present sovereign has freed them both from the
expense and the humiliation.

But there is another, from which they are not
yet exempt. At the accession of every new
Pope, deputies of the Jewish people range
themselves along the passage of the Holy Father,
close to the Arch of Titus. The Pope asks
what they are doing there? They present a
Bible, saying, " We beg the favour of offering
to your Holiness a copy of our law." The Pope
accepts it, with the observation, "Excellent
law; detestable race!"

At the entrance of the Ghetto, at the end of
the bridge of the Four Heads, stands a little
church where the Jews were forced to go every
Saturday after dinner, to the number of one
hundred and fifty. A preacher, paid at their
expense, treated them to a good scolding about
their obstinacy. The hundred and fifty auditors
were punctual, because the community had to
pay a crown per every absent head. An old
ew said: "For five-aud-twenty years, signore,
I never once missed the sermon." But they are
a stiff-necked people; not to be compulsorily
converted. Pius the Ninth dispensed the Jews
from their homily, and the church has been
deserted ever since. Some preachments by the
Abbé Ratisbonne were attempted, but nobody
came to hear him. Nevertheless, an annual
conversion takes place on Easier Saturday. The
Baptistery of Constantino opens wide its folding-
doors to receive an old Jewess, who thereby
earns eighty crowns and paradise. The people
of Rome have little faith in the sincerity of these
catechumens. "Now-o'-days," they say, "all
the Jews turn Turks."

It is needless to repeat the story of young
Mortara. It proves that men well practised in
showing an example of tolerance sometimes
forget their part. The Padova affair, less generally
known, deserves an equal notoriety. Signor
Padova, an Israelite merchant of Cento, in the
province of Ferrara, had a wife and two children.
A Catholic clerk seduced Madame Padova.
Caught and turned out of doors by his master,
he made his escape to Bologna. Madame
Padova followed him, and brought her children
with her. The husband hastened to Bologna
and demanded the restoration at least of his
children. The authorities replied that the children
had been baptised as well as their mother,
and that between him and his family a great
gulf had been opened. At the same time, they
recognised his right to make them an allowance,
on which they all lived, Madame Padova's lover
included. A few months afterwards he might,
had he chosen, have been present at the
marriage of his lawful wife with the clerk who had
seduced her. The officiating minister was his
Eminence Cardinal Oppizoni, Archbishop of Bologna.

In all Rome, there does not exist a
comfortable bath establishment. Strangers bathe
at their hotel, and gran signori in their
palaces. The great majority of the population is
deprived of this little pleasure, which, moreover,
costs very dear. They wash their dead
in warm water. For what numbers of Romans
is this their only bath. " What do you take me
for?" exclaimed a young Roman woman. "I
am a respectable girl, and never soak my body
in water." Public baths, cleanly and within
popular reach, would excite the same astonishment
as lighting by gas, fixing the electric telegraph,
the first locomotive from Rome to Frascati,
or the first revolving waxworks, which attracted
the whole town to a hairdresser's in the Corso.

These detached jottings of Rome are chiefly
derived from the pages of M. About's new book.

             Now ready, price FOURPENCE,
                SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE.
                            FORMING
             THE EXTRA DOUBLE NUMBER
                      FOR CHRISTMAS.
    CONTENTS: His Leaving it till called for. His Boots.
His Umbrella. His Black Bag. His Writing-Desk. His
Dressing-Case. His Brown-Paper Parcel. His
Portmanteau. His Hat-Box. His Wonderful End.

     Early in January NO NAME will be completed; when
a New Story by the Authoress of " MARY BARTON" will be
commenced, entitled
                     A DARK NIGHT'S WORK,
  This will be followed, in March, by a New Serial Work
                                of Fiction by
                      CHARLES READE, D.C.L.,
     Author of "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."