see such an
army enter Rome as never before invaded it. I assert that within three
miles of this place, at the gates of this capital of Christendom, human
beings are living lives more abject than that of savage man.

"Housed in huts of straw, sleeping on mattresses of leaves, clothed in
rags or nearly nude, fed on maize and chestnuts and acorns, worked
eighteen hours a day, and sweated by the tyranny of the overseers, to
whom landlords lease their lands while they idle their days in the
_salons_ of Rome and Paris, men and women and children are being treated
worse than slaves, and beaten more than dogs."

At that there was a terrific uproar, shouts of "It's a lie!" and
"Traitor!" followed by a loud outbreak of jeers and laughter. Then, for
the first time, David Rossi lost control of himself, and, turning upon
Parliament with flaming eyes and quivering voice, he cried:

"You take these statements lightly--you that don't know what it is to be
hungry, you that have food enough to eat, and only want sleep to digest
it. But _I_ know these things by bitter knowledge--by experience. Don't
talk to me, you who had fathers and mothers to care for you, and
comfortable homes to live in. I had none of these. I was nursed in a
poorhouse and brought up in a hut on the Campagna. Because of the
miserable laws of your predecessors my mother drowned herself in the
Tiber, and I knew what it was to starve. And I am only one of many. At
the very door of Rome, under a Christian Government, the poor are living
lives of moral anaemia and physical atrophy more terrible by far than
those which made the pagan poet say two thousand years ago--_Paucis
vivit humanum genus_--the human race exists for the benefit of the few."

The silence was breathless while the speaker made this personal
reference, and when he sat down, after a denunciation of the militarism
which was consuming the heart of the civilised world, the House was too
dazed to make any manifestation.

In the dead hush that followed, the President put the necessary
questions, but the amendment fell through without a vote being taken,
and the printed reply was passed.

Then the Minister of War rose to give notice of his bill for increased
military expenditure, and proposed to hand it over to the general
committee of the budget.

The Baron Bonelli rose next as Minister of the Interior, and gave notice
of his bill for the greater security of the public, and the remodelling
of the laws