when on the Piazza della Signora, at Florence, I happened to ask a well-dressed gentleman my way to a neighbouring street; he at once offered to guide me thither, observing that he was going himself that way. Having reached the street, I was about taking my leave with a “Grazie, Signor,” when he held out his hand for a donation, and I put a 20-centime piece into it.
The rough picture I have drawn above of the character and conduct of the beggars is, however, frequently softened by some mild and humane traits in the character of some of the younger generation. I was sitting before a café at Genoa, leisurely sipping my cup of coffee (the Italians can drink that beverage at any hour in the day), when a cripple, quite a child, approached my table for some alms; I gave him the four lumps of sugar remaining on the waiter or salver before me, with which he limped away to the three other cripples close by, still younger than himself, and put a lump into each of the ugly mouths of his companions, keeping one for himself. I saw by the likeness of their features that they were all brothers and sisters. He then pointed me out to them with the finger, and they looked so gratefully and smilingly at me, and smacked their lips all the while with the sweet food in their mouths, that I resolved to gratify them with the gift as often as they made their appearance. Next day I found them at their post before the café, and having received their four lumps, they moved away without asking for anything else.
On arriving at some of the villages which have acquired a name amongst the tourists for some architectural beauty or fine scenery, the whole population, men, women, and children, and even able-bodied and good-looking people, are out begging. They surround the unfortunate traveller in large numbers, each and all putting forth their hands for alms, and do not stir from the spot, despite all the “andante al diavolos” he may tell them, until he has complied with their demand. I went in company of a friend to Fiesole, near Florence, which commands a view of the whole of the Arno valley and the city of Dante, a scenery of unparalleled beauty. We were ten times stopped on the way, though but a short distance, by intrusive beggars, and my friend told me a story, how he had once, near Candenabbia, been stopped, within half an hour, six times by beggars in the very hottest mid-day hour, when the more decent of the fraternity usually keep their siesta. He had just come to the end of his story, when we arrived at Fiesole, and halted on the square before the Basilica, whence we were about to ascend the steep footpath leading to the Capuchin cloister, when we were in a moment surrounded by men, women, and children, each house furnishing its contingent of beggars, and in whose company we were compelled to ascend to the cloister. All had some straw-work and plattings to offer for sale. They would accept of no excuse or assurance that they were of no use to us. I was particularly pressed to buy for a franc a straw plumage; I might present it, they said, to my Signora; I might stick it in my hat, or carry it in my hand as an ornament, &c., &c. But when they saw that all persuasive suggestions for purchase were unavailable, they turned beggars in the strictest sense of the term, held out their hands, and demanded their usual tax of alms. Not one of them accompanied their request with the customary “povero infelice,” or even “povero” alone, but actually demanded a five-centime piece a head. We at last ransomed our freedom by handing for distribution to a black-eyed, pretty girl a few copper coins, and telling the others to go “al diavolo,” at which they all burst into a loud, merry laughter, apparently well pleased with the “beggar’s comedy” they had been playing.
CURIOSITIES IN NATURAL HISTORY.
There are a thousand curious facts and circumstances in natural history, in this and other countries, which escape being recorded either from their being thought too trivial, or from a want of a ready mode of communicating them.
For instance, it is well known to persons who have resided in Portugal, that the peasantry when they bring their eggs to market are so well aware, from their shape, that some eggs will produce pullets and others cock-birds, that they separate them when wanted to be set under hens, asking more money for those which will produce pullets than they do for the others, as pullets are in much greater request than cocks. This fact cannot fail of reminding our classical readers of the following passage in Horace, who, curiously enough, seems to have been aware—like the good women of Portugal—of the difference between eggs producing pullets and others of a different shape, hatching cocks only, and giving his preference to the former:
“Longa quibus facies ovis erit, illa memento,
Ut succi melioris et ut magis alba rotundis
Ponere: namque marem cohibent callosa vitellum.”
Satyra iv. liber ii.
Which may thus be translated: Mind and serve up those eggs that are of an oblong make, as being of sweeter flavour and finer colour than the round ones; these, from being tough-shelled, contain a male yoke.
An interesting circumstance was lately communicated to me by an agreeable and hospitable family in Surrey, with whom I was on a visit, and who had previously resided for some years in Oporto. The fact was vouched for by three persons there present, all of whom had witnessed it.
A room in a house of one of the principal ecclesiastics in Oporto was set apart for the reception of a quantity of maize, or Indian corn, which had been thrashed out. It is well known that each of these grains of wheat must be at least as heavy as three or four grains of our common wheat. On visiting this room one day, its owner perceived a grain of the maize suspended from the ceiling of the room by a single thread thrown out by a spider, and which was, from time to time, gradually but slowly drawn upwards. Surprised at this very unusual sight, he invited several persons to witness it, and amongst others my three informants. What the motive of the spider was, in endeavouring to secure this heavy grain of wheat, and draw it up to its nest on the ceiling, I will not attempt to account for, as it is so contrary to the