IMPROVEMENTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VIII, Issue 417, 8 April 1881, Page 4 (Supplement)

IMPROVEMENTS.

The city of Borne has been greatly altered, few will say improved,, since 1870. The population has vastly increased, and hundreds of new streets and thousands of new houses have ~be«a built. The new houses were hastily erected, and for the most part are badly con* structed, and already exhibit signs of insecurity. The foundations of many of them hare given way, and the staircases and interior floors were renewed. Cracks in the outer walls testify to the bad quality of the mason work. These new buildings have a shabby appearance, and are occupied by persons who do their washing at home, and are not ashamed to hang out their clothes to dry from the front windows. One new bridge over the Tiber has been built, and the bridge of Ponte Sisto bas been enlarged. Both bridges, the new one and tbealtered one, are a disgrace to the city. The beautiful fountain at Ponte Sisto and the ancient groves of the Farnesina were destroyed in order to carry out certain alleged improvements of the liber — improvements which have caused some houses to fall into the river and produced malaria and fever in the Trastevere. Tranpways were laid down on the road from Porta del Popolo to Ponte Molle, and; from Piazza Yenezia to Piazza dell' Independent. These tramways interfere greatly with the circulation of carriages. The streets of Borne are daily "blocked with carts conveying pozzolana and masses of tufa. The police appear to take little interest in the maintenance of order, and the drivers of carts are permitted to feed their horses in the most crowded thoroughfares, thus still further impeding thetraffic. Newspapers tending to inculcate sedition and immorality are printed and sold in Borne in great numbers at a cheap rate. Borne of these newspapers are so filthy that even the newsvendors protested against selling them. Some new theatres have been built in Borne, and in many of them the performances are such as topromote immorality and irreligion. Some twenty or twenty-five schools and preaching-houses have been opened under favour of the Government for the purpose of perverting the faith of Catholics and spreading the doctrines of Protestantism under various forms. An ex-convent was sold by the Municipality to form a site for the erec- - tion of a Protestant church, and several Catholic churches were actually demolished by the Government to make room for public offices. Tbe altars of these churches, of pr«cious marbles, were - offered by public auction for small sums. The universities, colleges, and seminaries, built and established for the promotion of religion and learning, were turned into godless institutions, and the chairs of philosophy and theology were given to infidel professors. The Catholic clergy were deprived of all right of interference with the public schools, which are cow wholly under the management o£ Government officials, who are bent on the banishment of religiousinstruction and the introduction of lay teachers, into whose moral or religious qualifications no inqniry is made.