of words supplies illustrations of national peculiarities and
specialties of character. The Church has dedicated the day in question
to the commemoration "_omnium animarum"_--of all _souls_. And we others,
people of a Teutonic race, have taken and used the phrase in its proper
Christian sense: we talk of "All _Souls_' Day." But with the peoples of
the Latin stock all thought or question of "souls" is very speedily lost
sight of. With them the day is simply the "Giorno dei _Morti_"--the day
of _the dead_. And their observance of it is to all intents and purposes
what it might have been two thousand years ago.

The very ancient church of San Lorenzo, one of the four extramural
basilicas, is situated some ten minutes' walk outside the gate of the
same name on the road to Tivoli; and around and behind this church is
the vast cemetery to which all the Roman dead are carried. It was first
used as an extramural cemetery at the time of the first French
occupation, but has been very greatly extended since that time. Clergy,
nobles and monks were at first, and as long as Papal rule lasted,
exempted from the decree which forbade interment within the city. Now
all must be taken to San Lorenzo, and the greatly increased population
of the city has already very thickly filled an immense area. The first
thing that strikes the visitor to this huge necropolis is the very
marked division between the poor and the rich quarters of this city of
the dead. The _fashionable_ districts are quite as unmistakably divided
and separated from those occupied by "the lower classes" as they are in
any city of the living; as is perhaps but right and natural in the case
of a population among which it is held that the condition and prospects
of the dead may be very materially influenced by a _quantum sufficit_ of
masses said for them, and where these can be purchased in any quantity
for cash. A very large parallelogram, for the most part surrounded by
cloisters, is first entered from the gates which open on the road. But
this has been but little used as yet. Beyond it, to the right, is the
vast space occupied by the graves of the multitude. Let the reader
picture to himself a huge flat space extending as far as the eye can
see, thickly planted with little black wooden crosses, with inscriptions
on them in white letters. The sameness of all these fragile memorials
produces a strange and depressing effect. The undistinguished thousands
of them make all the s