TUMBLING ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 5, 31 October 1890, Page 15

TUMBLING ROME.

The Roman correspondent of the Corrieri di Napoli thus talks of Roman buildings aud Roman speculation : " The nope of seeing finished these quarters, badly sketched out by a speculation greedy as idiouc, t»nd so ill-compieted, is insane. The capacity of expansion f.f Rome is exhausted. What will become of so many buildings half-finish, d or crumbling, and of entire qmrters abandoned ? No one can reply. A witty friend said to me some time back that there was no other remedy than to cover all these buildu gs with climbing plants, so representing the ruins of the third Rome. But tnero are so many. Following the outer walls from Forta Salano to Porta 8. Lorenzo an by the Prati di Ca«t*llo makes one's heart ache. It is impossible to have a more complete realisation of human greed and human stupidi y. They did what they wished, and as they wished it ; neither architectural rule nor taste, nor hygiene, nor deliberation. They went headlong, and all is now ruined and bandon^d or the home of the very poverty-stricken. In fact, one could not find in all the world a municipaiity moro incap.ble or more senseless than the municipality of Rome for tho last ten years, hiving for its apathetic accomplice and passive witness the Government ; and now we are suffering the coutequences But even with tbe new sacrifices which the State makes, it will neither provide for the ruins in the new quarUrs nor for the deranged fiuancts <f the entire city. The finances of the Commune will De brought to a balance, the expenses of the capital will be divided from ihoseof ihecity, but in a few years all will have to be repeated. To judge by the prevalent feeling, we may be Bure ttiat the new Commuual Council will not differ trom that which has been dissolved."