Presently, fifteen
or twenty others come upon you, chanting a canticle to the glory of
Mary. Perhaps you think they are yielding to a natural inspiration,
and freely working out their salvation. I thought so myself, till I
was told that they were paid fifteen-pence for thus edifying the
bystanders. This comedy in the open air is subsidized by the
Government. And the Government does its duty.
The streets and roads swarm with beggars. Under lay governments the
poor either receive succour in their own homes, or are admitted to
houses of public charity; they are not allowed to obstruct the public
thoroughfares, and tyrannize over the passengers. But we are in an
ecclesiastical country. On the one hand, poverty is dear to God; on
the other, alms-giving is a deed of piety. If the Pope could make one
half of his subjects hold out their hands, and the other half put a
halfpenny into each extended palm, he would effect the salvation of an
entire people.
Mendicity, which lay sovereigns regard as an ugly sore in the State,
to be healed, is tended and watered as a fair flower by a clerical
government. Pray give something to yonder sham cripple; give to that
cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and be sure you don't forget
that blind young man leaning on his father's arm! A medical man of my
acquaintance offered yesterday to restore his sight, by operating for
the cataract. The father cried aloud with indignant horror at the
proposal; the boy is a fortune to him.
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