we pursue our statement.

Antonelli supported his note,--that note which ratified the banishment
of the arts from Italy, and gave barbarism an eternal infeftment in the
soil,--by affirming that it was passed in order to encourage l'industria
dello Stato; which is as if one should say that he had cut his
neighbour's throat to protect his life; for certainly Antonelli's note
cut the throat of industry. Well, one would think, seeing this
legislation was meant to protect the industry of the State and the
interests of the iron-workmen, that these iron-workmen must be a large
body. How many iron-workmen are there in the Papal States? An hundred
thousand? One thousand? There are not more in all than one hundred and
fifty! And for these one hundred and fifty iron-workmen (to which we may
add the seventy cardinals, the most of whom are speculators in iron),
the rest of the community is put beyond the pale of civilization, the
ordinary arts and utensils are proscribed, improvement is at a
stand-still, and the country is doomed to remain from age to age in
barbarism.

And what is the aspect of the country? It is decidedly that of a
barbarous land. Everything has an old-world look, as if it belonged to
the era of the Flood. Iron being so enormously dear, its use is
dispensed with wherever it is possible. Almost all implements of
agriculture, of carriage, almost all domestic utensils, and many tools
of trade, are made of wood. In consequence, they do very little work;
and that little but indifferently well. Nothing could be more primitive
than the _plough_ of the Romans. It consists of a single stick or lever,
fixed to a block having the form of a sock or coulter, with a projection
behind, on which the ploughman puts his foot, and assists the bullocks
over a difficulty. The work done by this implement we would not call
ploughing: it simply scratches the surface to the depth of some three or
four inches, with which the poor husbandman is content. The soil is in
general light, but it might be otherwise tilled; and, were it so, would
yield far other harvests than those now known in Italy. Their _carts_,
too, are of the rudest construction, and may be regarded as ingenious
models of the form which should combine the largest bulk with the least
possible use. They have high wheels, and as wide-set as those in our
country, with nothing to fill the dreary space between but an
uncouth-looking nut-shell of a box. The infallible Government of