Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/475

 STATISTICS.] I T A L Y 455 iliinoiite, 1750, which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed before the end of the century. The first place now be longs to the Delia Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis Carlo Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind down to about 1860 ; but since then they hare not kept pace with their younger rivals in other lands. They still, however, are commercially successful, producing to the value of 700,000 or 800,000 lire, and employing 600 workers. Other cities where the ceramic industries keep their ground are Pesaro, Gubbio, Fuenza (whose name long ago became the distinctive term for the finer kind of potter s work in France, faience], Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cunco, Castellamonte (more than 30 establish ments, 500 workmen), Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imoln, Rimini, Perugia, Castelli, &e. It is estimated that the total production of the finer wares amounts on the average to 10,000,000 lire per annum. Tli3 ruder branches of the art the making of tiles and common wares is pretty generally diffused. (For further details see Giuseppe Corona s Report on (he French Exhibition of J878, Class XX., &quot;Ceramica,&quot; Rome, 1880.) The jeweller s art as a matter of course received large encourage ment in a country which had so many independent courts ; but nowhere has it attained a fuller development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinkets in coral, glass, lava, &c. is exported from Italy, or carried away by the annual host of tourists. In 1877, for example, while 388 quintals of raw coral were imported, 563 quintals of wrought coral were exported, and in the same year no less than 22,891 quintals of imitation jewellery in glass. The copying of the paintings of the old masters is becoming an art in dustry of no small mercantile importance in some of the larger cities. 1 The production of mosaics is an art industry still carried on with much success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in the department. The great works of the Vatican are especially famous (more than 17,000 distinct tints are employed in their productions),, and there are many other establishments in Rome. The Florentine mosaics are perhaps better known abroad ; they are composed of larger pieces than the Roman. Those of the Venetian artists are remarkable for the boldness of their colouring. The small amount of capital accumulated in the country, the heavy expenses involved in the importation of much of the machinery necessary for the larger industries, tho comparative in- expertness of the mass of the operatives, and the difficulty con sequent upon these and other circumstances of competing with foreign manufacturers who can produce at a cheaper rite these are some of the reasons of the backward state of Italian manufacturing industry. The iuexpertness of the operatives due to lack of ex perience and of education is the more noteworthy because it counteracts the advantage to be derived from the cheapness of labour. The principle, of the division of labour has comparatively limited application. From the same factory, for instance, may be obtained ploughshares and theodolites. Fisheries. As the coast-lino of Italy extends to about 3937 miles (of which 1048 belong to the islands), the prosecution of the fisheries in the neighbouring seas is carried on from a great many points. The following table (XIX.) gives the principal statistics of date 1879, for the various &quot; compartimenti &quot; or districts into which the coast is usually divided: Districts. Total number of Boats. Tor Fisheries proper. For Coral. No. Men. No. Men. No. Men. Genoa C2 113 40 433 5 290 1(1 6 63 43 J Vfi 283 805 24 4,114 1,137 25 1,301 81 689 9,038 G2 113 123 290 1 &quot;I 43!) 36 2G2 300 24 321 1,137 1,301 SI 195 4/,59 3 378 lo 4 Ill &quot;i .&amp;gt; 45 Spczia Leghorn Porto Ferruio Gaeta Naples liari liimini Venice Caviar! La Madilalenn Porto Empedocli 1 Trapani... 1,221 785 110 4,1108 To complete the total for Trapani, it is necessary to add 26 boats with 471 hands, which are employed in the sponge fishery off Tunis. For Italy, as for the other Mediterranean nations, the tunny fishing is of considerable moment. The more important stations are those in Sicily, Sardinia, and Elba. Apart from local con sumption the annual value of the Sardinian fishery is estimated at 4,000,000 lire, and that of Sicily at about half as much. The anchovy and sardine fisheries are carried on by Italian loats, not only on the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts, but on those of France, Spain, Uarbary, Dalmatia, and Istria. Among the stations which take an active share in this department are Sestri and Rivn, 1 Sec, for example, the notice of Venice, in British Cvntufar Jti-ports, 1S7. . Cecina and Castiglione, Porto Ercolo, Porto Longone in Elba, Ancona, and Chioggia. The success of the fishermen is now seldom so great as it was before 1868 ; and 2 lire per day is the most that can br&amp;gt; gained in the best months at the better stations. The annual value of the sardines brought to Terracina is stated at 6300 lire, nnd that of the anchovies at 7000 ; and the corresponding figures for Porto d Anzio and Palermo are respectively 98,000 and 32,000 lire 200,000 and 400,000. Civita Vccchia has a total for the two kinds, of 15, 000 lire. Sword-fish (Xifhias glad inn) arc not only constantly caught in the nets of the tunny-fishers, but from time immemorial have been the object of special pursuit, the weapon mainly used against them being a species of harpoon or drarfineria. As many as fifty fish may be caught in a single day off the coast of Sicily, and twenty off the coasts of Calabria. Each fish weighs on an average from 220 to 440 Ib ; and the quantity captured in the season in the two dis tricts indicated may amount to 308,000 1T&amp;gt;. Coral is obtained in various parts of the Italian waters, more especially in the neighbourhood of the island of Elba and the Gulf of Naples, and the Italian coral fishers extend their voyages to tho African coast and the islands of Cape Vcrd. In 1869 it was stated that upwards of 430 vessels, of 2712 tons total burden, were em ployed in the department, by far the greater proportion of them belonging to Torre del Greco. The statistics given in Table XIX. show but little change. The hardships endured by the more ad venturous fishers are extremely severe, and the gain is compara tively slight. (Compare Green s Stray Studies, 1879, for a descrip tion of the coral fishers of Capri.) Of special importance are the lagoon fisheries of Orbetello, of the Mare Piccolo of Taranto, the Lago Verziminoor Salpi, and the Lago di Varano, and more particularly of Comacchio. Eels, soles, mullets, and various other kinds of fish are there obtained in enor mous quantities. 2 Condition of (Jic Luw?i- Cla-tscft. Though mitigated to some degree by the mildness of the climate and the cheapness of certain articles of food, pauperism in its most painful forms is a wide spread evil in Italy. At Venice, out of a total population of 130,000, 36,000 are regular recipients of official charity. The slums of Naples are foul and overcrowded as the slums of London. Nor is the destitution confined to the cities. The condition of the agricultural labourers is in many cases deplorable. In the districts of Como, Milan, Pa via, and Lodi, the food of the contadino. according to F. Cardani and F. Massara, consists of maize bread, badly cooked, heavy and rancid, and thin soup comy&amp;gt;osed of rice or .&quot;pasta &quot;of inferior quality and vegetables often old and spoiled. In Southern Italy, says Viilari, the peasants live in miserable houses, with a sack of straw for their bed, and black bread for their sole sustenance. Maize is the general food stuff in the northern and central provinces, but begins to be rarer in Tuscany and Rome ; it is again widely diffused in the upper provinces of Naples ; but in Calabria and Apulia it forms the principal nutriment of scarcely a fourth of the communes, and in Sicily it disappears almost com pletely. In Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Veneto it is used mainly in the form of polenta, but also in the form of bread, and in the Napoletano in the form of a finer kind of polenta. Lom bardy, the Veneto, Emilia, and the Marches are the regions where wheaten bread is least employed by the peasants. 1 arley is mainly consumed in Apulia and Calabria, rye in Sicily and Lombardy. In certain communes of the Marches and the Abruzzi acorns constitute the ordinary diet of the poor. AVheaten pastes are most extensively employed by the people in Liguiia, Sicily, and the upper Neapolitan provinces. Animal food holds but little place in the dietary of the poor ; and even in the house of the well-to-do peasant butcher meat appears but seldom. According to Dr Rascri, who has investigated the point by means of the customs returns and similar statistics, Sardinia is the region where animal food is most largely employed, and Sicily that where it is least. Wine is naturally the prevailing drink throughout the country : but the extent of the consumption varies greatly from region to region, the average in the Roman province, Umbria, and Sardinia much exceeding that in the provinces of Naples and in Sicily. Trie use of alcohol is greatest in the Lornbardo-Venetian cities ; and it is. there only that beer is of importance as a beverage. C ases of acci dental death and of insanity attributable to the misuse of stimu lants are much more frequent in the north than in the south or centre, and in both respects Liguria has an unenviable pre-eminence. An idea of the, extent to which even the peasantry are oppressed by penury may be obtained from the investigations made by the Government into the spread of the terrible disease known as the pellarjni. First clearly described as an Italian disease by Frapolli in 1771, the pellagra has within the present century gradually become more common and severe. In 1839 it was estimated that the number of pellagra patients was 20,282 in the &quot; compaitment&quot; of Lombardy, and in 1856 it had increased to 38,777. According to