Poverty In Sicily

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29192, 30 April 1960, Page 3

Poverty In Sicily

To Feed the Hungry: Enquiry in Palermo. By Danilo Dolci. Mac Gibbon and Kee. 327 pp. There is always something sad to come out of Sicily Dolci’s book is intended “as a small contribution to the initial stages of a study of the unemployed in the province of Palermo.” The first half is made up of personal stories collected from those whom Dolci calls his witnesses. These people are all faced with the same problem. There is no work for them to do, and they have to live by their wits. Some sell black-market cigarettes, which involves endless walking to avoid attracting the attention of the police. Others will keep places in queues, or help people to fill in unfamiliar forms at Government offices. There are organ-grinders, casually-employed fishermen, fruit hawkers, snailgatherers. They rarely get enough to eat and have to live in terribly congested conditions. It is quite common for two families to share a room, so that eight or nine people may be living together. Sanitation is primitive, and only occasionally is water laid on. No wonder typhus is a constant menace and tubercular disease rife. Signor Dolci has lived among these unfortunate people and has won their confidence and regard. The stories they tell him are tragic. But he has not been content to listen. He formed the opinion that work is not only men's right, it is their duty. So he began to strike in reverse. One morning he took a group of Unemployed men and began Working for nothing on a road that needed repairing. The police immediately arrested these pub- | lie benefactors, and Dolci received | the first of his prison sentences. | But his work continued and still Igoes on. Palermo is a city of more | than a million inhabitants, and lof these perhaps 100,000 live m I what has been called “Asiatic I Poverty." Dolci, with a few I helpers, Is doing what he can Ito improve the life of those living ■in his vicinity. “To Feed the ■Hungry” is directed towards a ■wider public, and it is an attempt Ito set out in its entirety the ■horrifying problem of unemploy■*kiit and starvation in Sicily. ■The boo kshould startle and ■terrify New Zealanders.