BAYARD TAYLOR ON ROME, UNDER PIUS IX.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 56, 23 May 1874, Page 12

BAYARD TAYLOR ON ROME, UNDER PIUS IX.

Batabp Tatlob, the great traveller, who has written so many books about the countries he has visited, a good many years ago published the following in regard to Rome, as it was under Popa Pius IX. The contrast between Rome under the Pope, and Home under Victor Emmanuel, is wonderful indeed. Bayard Taylor said : " I have read, during the past week, in various papers, that the Papal States are the worst governed in Europe. I have read it often. The precise nature and extent of tnis despotism I am a little in the dark about. Our generous enlighteners, the editors, do not condescend to come down to the particulars. Still a plain man may ba permitted to ask a few questions. In what does this despotism of the Papal Government consist ? '* Is it that clergymen hold office ? For many years there has been a smaller proportion of clergymen holding office in the Roman S States than in some of the States of this Union, and their salaries have been in a still smaller proportion to those of secular officers. la it in the expense of the government ? It is on«* of the most economical in Europe. The salaries of the higher officers of State do not exceed $3,000 a year ; and the whole civil list cost about $60,000. " Are the people ground down with taxes ! The taxes in Koine are far less than in England, France, or New York. Are they derived of the benefits of education ? The Papal States with a population of less than 3,000,000, have seven universities; and the city of Rome has more free public schools than New York in proportion to her population, and what is still better, a larger proportion of children attend them. " Perhaps the poor are uncared for, and their sufferings treated with neglect ? There are more and free hospitals for the sick, the poor and aaed, the suffering of every class, in Rome, in proportion to the population, than in any other city in the world. It is not asked in Rome what is a man's country or creed. Perhaps the bad Government has reduced the people to pauperism ? Holland, France, and other free and enlightened countries, hare from three to tea times as much pauperism in proportion to the population. Where, then, is the horrible despotism ? The Government is an elective monarchy. It has a liberal constitution, light taxation, very little pauperism, an economical administration, a cheap or tree education for all classes, and abundant institutions of charity for the needy and suffering. I venture to assert that the single city of New York pays more taxes, is more plundered by dishonest official-*, supports more paupers, has more uneducated children, tolerates more vice and drunkenness, rowdyism, &c, and suffers from more crime, year by year, than the whole (nearly 3,000,000) of the people of the States of the Church."