the presence of which would be least cared for by the Italian, would be a garden. On that charmingly sheltered hill-side in front of the house, on that magnificent terrace on either side of it, situations that seem calculated to inspire the idea of creating a little paradise, if it had never occurred to any man before, no inhabitant of Bella Luce has ever dreamed of creating anything of the kind. Profit has been neglected, as well as pleasure, in this direction. There are no more onions than roses. Strawberries have been as little thought of as gilly-flowers! There is an old fig-tree near one corner of the house; and there is a grape-vine trained over the pilasters and walls of the loggia. There may be also a patch of potatoes among other farm crops, and certainly there will be a crop of some kind of beans, which will contribute to the sustenance of the Bella Luce family. But that is all. Nothing is more a matter of surprise to an Englishman in Italy, than to find houses and townlets in the country unable to produce a morsel of fruit or vegetable,—sometimes not even a potato.
Another large department of rural comforts and luxuries was almost as much neglected at Bella Luce as the horticultural. Cheese was the only form of dairy produce used or cared for by the inmates. They made no butter, and drank no milk, giving to the pigs all that was not converted into cheese.
The Scriptural and classical catalogue, in short, of the oriental cultivator’s needs and desires, pretty nearly completed those of Paolo Vanni and his family. Corn, wine, and oil were the main articles on which they subsisted. Meat in no very large proportion, and eggs in somewhat greater abundance, may be added, it is true. And certain moderate supplies of coffee and sugar were brought from neighbouring Fano,—sufficient to give the male heads of the family a little cup of muddy black coffee after their dinner on high days and holidays. The women took none; and the men took it rather as a symbol of feasting and luxury, than because they cared anything about it.
For all that, Paolo Vanni was a warm man,—quite warm enough to have bought up many an English small farmer, who would have most amazingly turned up his nose at the Romagnole farmer’s mode of life.
As for the question, however, which of the two,—the English farmer, or the Romagnole agriculturist,—lived the happier life, and got the greatest amount of satisfaction out of it,—why that would probably have little to do with the absence or the presence of all that the Englishman could so ill do without; but rather upon matters of a more intimately personal nature;—with some of which, as regards Paolo Vanni, it is time that the reader should be made acquainted.
A FEW WORDS ON OUR MEAT.
What is it that makes the butcher’s bill so heavy of late years? This is a question which every one is asking, and to which no satisfactory reply can be obtained. We find by the annual imports that the live stock of the island is being very largely increased, and the natural result we should fancy would be that meat would fall in price; but if you ask any housekeeper, the answer is, that on the average throughout the country meat is a penny a pound dearer than it was twenty years ago. The reply to the question housekeepers have so often asked in vain, has been at length given in the Fifth Report of the Medical Officer of Health to the Privy Council. The growing reports of the increasing consumption of diseased meat having led “my lords” of the Privy Council to order an inquiry to be made into a matter so closely concerning the public health, Mr. Gamgee, the president of the Edinburgh New Veterinary College, was deputed to report upon the subject, and this report throws a light upon the whole question, which not only explains the reason of the dearness of meat, but gives us hints with respect to the quality of some of it, which will astonish and alarm the public. We have all heard incidentally of a fatal disease among horned cattle, but few will be prepared for the enormous mortality that has been going on for years, decimating these beasts. Mr. Gamgee tells us that in the year 1860 no less than 374,048 horned cattle, worth 3,805,938l., perished of disease, and that during the six years ending in 1860, the total loss was 2,255,000, valued at 25,934,650l. Taking this tremendous mortality into consideration, we think we need not complain at having to pay a penny a pound dearer for our beef than we used do. The reduction of the tariff, which gave Sir Robert Peel such undying fame, and which was to have made England the market of the world for corn and cattle, has unfortunately totally failed to fulfil the promises of free-traders in respect to the latter item, as far as the consumers are concerned, inasmuch as we imported what we did not bargain for—a disease hitherto unknown to our stock-breeders, which has actually swept off four times as many beasts as have been imported into these islands. One half of this tremendous mortality is due to pleuro-pneumonia, or lung fever, which is infectious to the last degree, especially where the cattle are crowded in sheds, under cover. Thus out of a total of 1839 milking-cows kept in 88 dairies in Edinburgh, in the year ending 1st January, 1862, no less than 1075 fell victims to this disease. In Dublin, again, we find the mortality, taking the average of the last twenty years, was nearly as high, for out of 315 dairy cows kept within that period, 161 became diseased and were obliged to be killed. The annual loss among sheep, through disease, is estimated at 1,600,000l.; and among pigs, at 1,209,000l.
What becomes of all these diseased beasts? Fully one-fifth of them are sold to the butchers, the major portion for human consumption, and the remainder to feed, and, in many cases, to disease pigs. Every now and then we hear through the newspapers that some unprincipled butcher is fined for exposing diseased or tainted meat for sale in Newgate Market; but these proceedings give not the faintest idea of the trade that is being carried on in animal food that is not fit for human consumption. In fact many of the butchers themselves are unaware of the poisonous stuff they are