the bargain, and several authorities on | steamboats, and international commuagricultural questions will tell you that nication. He hankers after a large the system must be modified or cease extent of land on which to grow wheat to exist. In the good old days of light taxation it answered admirably; but now that the unfortunate landowner pays a third or more of his net moiety to government, he has little left to live upon or to spend in improvements.

enough to provide bread for the whole year, and is inclined to regard other crops as accessories. With the actual low price of corn this does not suit the owner, particularly as it is customary in Tuscany to grow wheat two years running on the same land with little or no manure. So soon as the corn is carried (early in July) the stubble is ploughed up, and maize or millet is grown for early autumn cutting as green fodder. The yield of wheat is of course wretched, from six to thirteen fold; and enlightened proprietors who possess the requisite capital are dividing their larger farms and building the necessary farmhouses.

A farm (podere) ranges, generally speaking, from eight to thirty acres, regulated very much according to the numerical strength of the peasant's family. Each farm has a house with stables and outbuildings, for which the peasant pays no rent, and which are kept in repair by the landlord. The latter provides capital for buying oxen, cows, horses, or donkeys, and all gain or loss on the animals is divided between him and the peasant. Accounts Time, patience, and judicious firmare kept by the proprietor or his fac- ness are necessary to induce the untor; and every month the head man educated peasant to understand that (capoccio) of each peasant family brings wheat no longer pays. It never occurs his book to be written up and the to him to calculate the cost of preparmoney he has encashed for milk, vege-ing the land, of sowing, reaping, and tables, fruit, and other minor products. threshing. He will tell you that the Grain of all kinds, pulse, wine, and oil, are divided in kind. If silkworms are reared on the property, the landlord arranges the sale of the cocoons, and either pays the peasant his half share or passes it to his credit. The gain on silkworms generally goes to the women for household linen and their own and the children's dress. Once a year the books are audited by a certified accountant, who reads over the monthly statements of debit and credit to each peasant, and in whose presence the books are signed by master and man. Many of the peasants can neither read nor write, but their memory is absolutely unfailing, and a mistake of a halfpenny is instantly detected.

labor of his family costs nothing;
whereas if his farm is reduced in size
he would be obliged to spend money
(a thing no peasant likes doing), in
order to buy the corn necessary for
making bread for a year.
In vain you
argue that the sale of wine and other
crops will buy wheat cheaper than he
can produce it. "My forbears grew
their own corn; what was good for
them is good for me," will be the un-
failing answer. Bread is the staple
food of the Tuscan peasant, and he is
particular as to its quality, which is
generally excellent.

A farm (I speak only of Tuscany) is generally divided into three portions, one of which is dug by the spade every

well manured. No one will deny that the less land a peasant has the better it is cultivated. Every square yard is turned to account; he becomes, in short, rather a gardener than a husbandman.

In Tuscany you will often find peas-year, when all the vines and olives are ants whose families have been on the same farm for two or three hundred years. They talk of themselves as gente (the Roman gens), of the padrone (landlord), and take an affectionate interest in him and his family. But the Tuscan peasant is a thorough Conservative; he has not yet grasped the changes brought about by railroads,

Notice to quit is given by the proprietor to the peasant (and vice versâ) in July, but should there be reason to

think the latter will deal unfairly by | fermentation of grapes, and the large the land, sow more grain of various earthenware vases for clearing the oil, kinds than he is entitled to do, or not all belong to the landowner, the peasmanure properly, the proprietor can auts contributing a certain quantity for delay giving notice until the 30th of every hundred litres (22.01 gallons) of November. This, however, seldom their share of wine and oil to pay for happens, unless the peasant has be- wear and tear. Every large estate has haved badly and forfeited all right to its own bye-laws (patti colonici), which be treated with consideration. The date from time immemorial and vary new family enters into possession on considerably. Sometimes the peasant the 3rd of March, when the headman is bound to give a certain number of receives in consignment the animals days of labor and haulage free. If he (stime vive), the farm implements, hay is allowed to keep poultry, ducks, turand straw, the stakes for vines and keys, or guinea fowl, he has to give so young fruit and olive trees, the grow-many head and so many dozen of eggs ing crops of forage, and the manure in compensation of the damage done (stime morte). All these are valued by to the grain, grapes, etc. Every year two sworn valuers, one for the incomer, he has to trench from fifty to two hunone for the outgoer. I should remark that every peasant is bound to hand over to his successor the same stime he received when he entered on the farm. If there is a diminution he must make it good; if there is any increase the incomer pays him. From the moment a peasant has received (or given) notice to quit, he cannot plant or prune, though he can sow wheat and forage. His successor comes to graft, prune the vines, and clear the ditches, and has a right to a room in the farmhouse after the 30th of November. wheat belongs to the dismissed man, and he returns in June to reap, and in July to thresh. Only the grain is his (his half share, of course); the straw goes to the new peasant and the prietor for the use of the animals.

dred yards, according to the size of his farm, for planting vines and olives. The landlord plants and stakes the vines and attends to them for three years at least; an intelligent proprietor who can afford it will keep them in his own hands for five or six; they are then given over to the peasant and all future stakes are passed to the common account, that is, half-and-half shares.

The late Marquis Gino Capponi, in a paper read in 1833 at a meeting of the Royal Academy of Georgofili in The Florence, said: "The Florentine landowner, who originally sprang from the people and was always by the very nature of the government most desirous to keep well with them, was not, pro-and could not be, a tyrannical master. Some writers have asserted that the All this is very complicated and so-called patti colonici are a remnant of inconvenient. Sometimes the peasant feudalism. But whoso examines the comes from, or goes to, a farm many nature of these patti will see that they miles away, and much time is lost in are a compensation for what the conpassing backwards and forwards for tadino takes from the land in addition months. The land always suffers when to his lawful half share a kind of there is a change of tenant. Even the rent for the minor products which canmost honest will put a good deal under not be divided," — that is, vegetables, green crops for forage and be sparing fruit, milk, etc., consumed by the of manure, to increase their stime peasant and his family which are never morte; and until the valuers have reg- taken into account. Some years later, istered their valuations, the new man in 1855, the late Marquis Cosimo Ricannot dig or manure the vines, fruit, dolfi, a well-known authority on agriand olive trees. An old proverb says: culture, condemned mezzeria, praised in Ogni muta, una caduta (Every change such eloquent and glowing terms by M. is a disaster). de Sismondi, and, contrasting the yield per acre of land in England with that

Presses for wine and oil, vats for the

|

in Tuscany, advocated a return to la and generally brings her husband a bed grande culture. Signor Lambruschini with two or more pairs of linen sheets unhesitatingly took up the defence of the half-and-half tenure, pointing out that the day-laborer having no interest in, or love for, the land he cultivates, begins and leaves off work at stated hours and cares little or nothing for the success of the crops. If mezzeria is abolished, Signor Lambruschini continues : "All these families who, though poor, have a roof they can call their own, a field they can call theirs, who have a master they love and bless, and who, toiling and watching under rain and sun, hope and pray to God for abundant crops for themselves and for their master; all these, I say, will for the first time feel the pangs of envy and hatred, the shame and despair of being forced to beg and to wait for work. We at the same time shall learn to dread meetings and strikes such as we see in France and in England, the destruction of agricultural machines, the burning of ricks, barefaced robbery, and as the last and miserable remedy the poor-tax."

and a wadded coverlet, a chest (cassone), and from £10 to £25 in money. She has usually a good stock of body linen, two winter working dresses, several cotton ones for summer, and at least one holiday dress besides her black silk wedding gown. Every peasant girl has earrings and a necklace (vezzo) of several rows of irregularly shaped pearls, or of red coral. The richer ones have a gold chain and watch. Before the marriage a valuer (stimatore) is called in, who makes out a list of her possessions on stamped paper, which is given to the headman of her future husband's family. Should she be left a childless widow he returns the dower, and she generally leaves the house. By old-established custom the landlord helps the peasant if by reason of illness or a bad harvest he should be in straits. There is between them what may be called an account current without interest. Sometimes a peasant leaves several hundreds, or even thousands, of francs in the landlord's hands; sometimes he is in his debt, and this is paid off in kind as the various crops come in.

Though, as I have said before,

This is eloquent special pleading in favor of mezzeria, but the author omits to mention the large class of day-laborers (braccianti) whose existence is precarious and wretched. At harvest-mezzeria is undoubtedly a bar to agritime they get high wages, from two cultural progress, it establishes a comshillings to half-a-crown a day; during munity of interests and kindly relations. fine weather, in spring and autumn, between the proprietor and the peasthey find pretty constant work at about ant, and encourages honesty. A man one shilling to eighteen pence a day; who is convicted of theft can be sent. but in winter when the peasant can do away at once, and is not likely to find all that is necessary on the land him- another farm. He sinks to the condiself, their lot is a hard one. They tion of a day-laborer, and the prospects. generally marry young and have large of his whole family are ruined. Like families; whereas among the peasants all human institutions it has two sides, it is a recognized custom that the eld- and may be lauded as beneficial and est son marries first, his brothers wait- wholesome or condemned as ing until the sisters' marriage-portions grade. Lately it has been introduced can be spared from the family budget. | into some parts of Sicily where it Then they marry, if the farm is large seems to work well. John Stuart Mill, enough to support extra mouths; if not, they remain bachelors, or leave the paternal roof. The consent of the padrone is necessary in any of these

cases.

A girl is always allowed a certain time per week to work for her dower,

retro

after weighing the evidence on both sides, remarks, in Principles of Political Economy": "The fixity of tenure which the metayer, so long as he fulfils his own obligations, possesses by usage, though not by law, gives him the local attachments, and

almost the strong sense of personal interest, characteristic of a proprietor.” JANET Ross.

From The Revue Bleue.

TENDENCIES OF MODERN ART.

and nobler artistic vision. But the tendency is not enough. It should find life in brains sufficiently inventive to express it in works. It is precisely this which impresses us the too manifest lack of proportion between the ambition of artists and their powers of expression. For the representation of certain subjects a rare spiritual culture It appears to us that sincerity, the is necessary. An eye accustomed to supreme reason for the existence of regard paintings is soon able to discern art, is that which makes a man address whether a composition corresponds to others because he has something to say the intimate and spontaneous desires to them. True artists paint in order to of the artist who produced it, or express outwardly their spontaneous whether, on the contrary, it is only a emotions, to give pleasure to them- manifestation of an artificial state of selves. They are the representatives mind which conforms to the taste of of the doctrine, judiciously understood, the moment, to the fashion, to the of art for art's sake. And as we use appetite for success. From such tenthis expression, it seems well to us to dencies, from such disfigurements of pause and search for the reason of its the true artistic ideal, we turn with present disfavor. This is only an ex- envy to the time when the worship of cessive reaction, and will probably the beautiful was its own sufficient have but a short duration, but it is so reason and its justification. We are significant of our times that it merits perfectly willing to resign all pretenattention. The mania of lecturing, sion to be considered modern rather which has become a veritable plague, than accept the idea of art which is furnishes a striking example of the implied by the phrase. If it is necesmanner in which art is disfigured sary to choose between the two exthrough its submission to the idea. tremes, we shall accept the one which The mania of the sermon has been de- refuses to acknowledge that art has veloped side by side with the resurrec- any other mission than that of expresstion of the mystical and idealistic ing beauty. The day will come, we tendencies which, in painting, as in have an inward conviction, when the literature, are a consequence of the doctrine of art for art's sake, broadly extreme reaction from the too long understood, disengaged from exaggeromnipotence of the realistic move-ations, will regain its rights, when it ment. In itself the reaction is only will again be thought that the highest good and praiseworthy since it shows function of the artist will be to express a spiritual ambition of a higher order beautiful things.

WHAT ENGLAND'S INDUSTRIAL WEALTH | Country, and gave employment to large OWES TO FOREIGNERS. — Much has been written about the benefits brought to England by the French refugees expelled from their native land at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the later years of the reign of Louis XIV. The manufacture of silks, lace, velvet, cambric, and many textile fabrics, then introduced, not in London alone but throughout the kingdom, were new industries to this

numbers of the population. But before
that period England had been largely in-
debted to foreigners. In the persecution of
the time of Alva and Philip II. the refugee
Flemings brought to the country where
they found an asylum their skill in cloth-
working, dyeing, and horticulture.
Dutch were also our great instructors in
mechanical engineering; and the draining
of the Fens was due to them.

The

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