present especially offensive. One man whom
I knew, with a jolly round beard, was
compelled to shave it, and to present himself every
morning at eight o'clock, for two years, at the
police-office. The authorities wished to know
how the barber had done his duty. Another
had his imperial cut off. " Why do you wear
that? " he was gruffly asked, by a Sbirro in
the street. " Follow me! " So, obeying the
Jack, he was conducted to a police station,
where other unfortunates like himself were
seated. A barber was sent for, to perform
the necessary operation; and the quondam
wearer of beard was sent to prison, to digest
his mortification. Further, he was ordered
for transportation to Traniti, when some
superior influence stepped in and saved him.
The officials, funny fellows, sometimes mix
a little jocoseness with their duties: thus,
some sailors-- rough enough, it may be well
imagined, after a long voyage-- were had up
for a shave. It was too good an opportunity
for a practical joke to be permitted to pass
by; and soap was prohibited. They are
wonderfully pleasant fellows, are those Neapolitan
Sbirri. There is, however, a refined ingenuity
about the following joke, which is vastly
entertaining.

A gentleman of the servants' hall, in the
service of an English friend of mine was
leisurely taking his afternoon stroll on the
Mola, when a lynx-eyed policeman laid
hold of his hat; nay farther, cut it up before
his eyes. It so happened that a friend of the
victim was also walking in the same direction;
and, seeing a crowd collected, eagerly
joined it. His first movement was to
partake in the laugh against his hatless friend:
but, whilst enjoying his chuckle, he was
tapped on the shoulder by a policeman.

"What is the matter ? " inquired the man,
with offended dignity.

"Oh. a trifle! Follow me!"

"But what for ? " remonstrated the lacquey.

"Follow me!"

To hear was to obey, and, in a few
minutes he was taken off to the prefecture
of police, and there quickly relieved of his
beard. " How much handsomer you are
now," observed the officer; " why, really you
are not a bad-looking fellow."

Things are not, however, always conducted
in this pleasant manner; for policemen are as
liable to be bilious as men, and not
unfrequently they give a tug to the beard, and a
tweak to the moustache; and, when the skin
has been delicate, the hair has sometimes
come away. But-- what business had the
people to wear such beards? It was all their
own fault.

It must be highly gratifying to king Bomba
to know, that history presents a parallel to
himself, and that in the case of a Russian
despot. Dr. Giles Fletcher, in his Treatise
on Russia, observes," The Russian nobility
and gentry nourished and spread their beards
to have them long and broad. This fashion
continued among them till the time of Peter
the Great, who compelled them to part with
these ornaments; sometimes by laying a
swingeing tax upon them, and at others by
ordering those whom he found with beards
to have them plucked up by the roots, or
shaved by a blunt razor which drew the skin
after it." Thus Ferdinand the Second is as
Russian as he could desire to be. One
exception has been made, and one only, to
the Imperial prohibition; and that is in
the case of Cardinal Carafa, Syndic of Naples,
and by virtue of his office, a grandee of Spain;
he is permitted, by a special act of royal grace,
to wear a Napoleone.

What else may not a Neapolitan wear?
Ah! that requires much consideration; for
he may not certainly dress according to his
own taste, or that of his wife, or that of his
tailor; not, at all events, as to combination
of colours. He must avoid an union of
green, white and red; or blue, white, and
red. They are Unitarian or Muratish:
horribly revolutionary. So, that unless a poor
fellow be very careful, the change of a cravat
or a waistcoat, a coloured summer shirt, or a
pink bordered handkerchief may consign him
to the prisons of Vicaria, and thence to exile.
Blue-stockings should equally shun the kingdom
of the Two Sicilies, for a white petticoat
and a red scarf in addition would put all the
gallantry of Bomba to flight. This very summer
two brothers were arrested because two
bonnets with ribbons of three colours were found
in their house; and, within the last few days,
a man has been arrested for flying a kite
with three colours on the top of his house.
I have heard of some poor fellows who, for
the sake of peace and quietness, had
determined to be on the right side, abjured all
varieties of colours, and clothed themselves
in a suit of one sad colour. Worse and worse!
The change was doubly treasonable—they
were Unitarj—and might just as well have
worn the entire beard. A trinity and an
unity of colours being equally prohibited,
must the lieges of the kingdom of Naples
revert to a state of nature? The remote
possibility of such a change was anticipated
by her late majesty, of very pious memory:
who was such a determined enemy of even
the very colour of flesh, that she imposed an
order on all opera dancers to wear blue
pantaloons: an order which is still enforced.
The last attack I have heard of for the sake
of colours was, not on a person, but on a
coffee-house recently opened in the Strada di
Chiaja. It was shut up and was repainted
in the night by order of the police.

If I have not exhausted the prohibitions laid
on the external man, I have touched, I
believe, on those which are essential, and may
now proceed to those which affect the inner
man; for this government is of so paternal a
character, that it regulates mind as well as
matter, and prescribes what a man may
speak, read, or think. As to reading, Naples