No. 412.
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Evarts.

No. 865.]

Sir: The usual ceremonial receptions and festivities of the New Year at Rome have taken place without any noteworthy incident, except the absence of the Queen, who was spared the fatigues of the season by a prolonged stay at Bordighera on the Riviera, but returned to the capital early in January in, as is hoped, permanently improved health.

The two legislative chambers have resumed their parliamentary labors after a short vacation, the Senate having commenced its debates before the reassembling of the Deputies, and closed them with a vote whereby action on the ministerial project for the abolition of the grist-tax was postponed by a majority of forty-two. Upon the announcement of this ministerial defeat, Parliament was prorogued. It is now said that it will be dissolved and a new election ordered, and it is also reported that the ministry has advised His Majesty to nominate thirty or forty new senators, with the view of securing a majority for the ministry when Parliament is again convened.

The year 1879 was remarkable for the general failure of all the crops, for the appearance of the phylloxera in Italian vineyards, for destructive inundations and volcanic eruptions, and for an autumn and (thus far) winter of almost unexampled rigor, naturally attended with extreme destitution and suffering among the laboring classes throughout the kingdom. It was thought by many that this latter circumstance would have weight with the Senate in inducing it to assent to the abolition [Page 646] of the grist-tax, a measure which promised some, though inadequate, relief to the peasantry, but it does not appear to have had any influence on the vote of the upper house, although there is some reason to believe that if the Chamber of Deputies persists in pressing the abolition of the tax, the Senate will at last yield the point and concur with the deputies.

There has been, I am sorry to add, a great increase in the number of crimes of violence, which, however, is not to be ascribed to the physical misery and want of the people—for, as a general rule, it is not the suffering poor in Italy who plunder and assassinate—but in a great degree to a vicious system of criminal law, which is fast destroying the moral sense of the nation, by virtually making passion an excuse for every violence, even those committed after long premeditation, and has already gone far to extinguish in the people the feeling of righteous indignation against crime, however atrocious. The motive of homicide is generally revenge or jealousy; of robbery, not want, but to obtain the means of gratifying some criminal passion. The influence of the octroi and the government monopolies is highly demoralizing, but of the causes of the increase of crime special to the year the most pernicious I believe to be the general amnesty proclaimed by advice of the ministry on the accession of King Humbert, which extended not merely to political offenses, abuses of the press, and other transgressions of a less grave character, but which turned loose upon society a large number of the most depraved and dangerous inmates of the prisons. Some, indeed, of these criminals were rearrested for new offenses in the course of a few months, but very many of them are still at liberty, and not only swelling the number of criminals at large, but adding new recruits to the enemies of society by the corrupting influence of example. This deplorable state of things is especially noticeable in the provinces formerly belonging to the Bourbons and to the States of the Church.

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In spite of these unfavorable circumstances it is not to be denied that the general condition of many branches of industry, of the public finances, and of public morals, has, on the whole, very considably improved in Italy since the dynasty of Savoy has occupied the throne. This improvement, however, I believe, is not to be mainly ascribed to the wisdom of the special legislation of Parliament, but is due to the general influence of the liberal character of the fundamental law, which, by permitting and encouraging the individual initiative of the citizen and protecting him against illegal oppression and exaction by favored classes, has conferred on Italy a fair measure of the advantages of a govern ment founded on the principles of freedom and equality.

I have, &c.,

GEORGE P. MARSH.