The Holy Father personally came
to their rescue. "Ah, Mr. Engineer, have mercy on my poor Lazarists!
The good souls are given to prayer and meditation; and your
locomotives do make such a hideous din!" So Mr. Engineer is fain to
try the neighbouring convent. New difficulties there. The next attack
is made upon a little nunnery founded by the Princess de Bauffremont.
But I have neither time nor space for episodical details. It suffices
for our purpose to state that the construction of railways will be a
terribly long-winded affair, and that in the meantime trade languishes
for want of crossroads. The budget of public works is devoted to the
repair of churches, and the building of basilicas. Nearly
half-a-million sterling has already been sunk in the erection of a
very grey and very ugly edifice on the Ostia road.[15] As much more
will be required to finish it, and the commerce of the country will be
none the better.
Half a million sterling! Why the entire capital of the bank of Rome is
but L400,000; and when merchants go there to have their bills
discounted, they can get no money. They are obliged to apply to
usurers and monopolists, and the governor of the bank is one. Rome has
an Exchange. I discovered its existence by mere chance, in turning
over a Roman almanack. This public establishment opens _once a week_,
a fact which gives some idea of the amount of business transacted
there.
If trade and manufactures offer but small resources to the subjects of
his Holiness, they fortunately find some compensation in agriculture.
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