Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/417

Rh cleanliness and the state of the air went, there was nothing to complain of. The police watch over these things.

But the outward order is disorder. Their Madonna-pictures in their homes of vice—I know nothing which seemed to me to exhibit so clearly the depraved state of society—I know very well that a great deal of immorality may exist in those cities which have no public quarter devoted thereto, and that in many great cities, also, they are compelled to publicity, in order, in some measure, to be able to control disorder. Great cities have all, in a certain degree, the same horrible mysteries. The difference between Naples and those I have mentioned above, lies principally in this, that in these last, the church and the better portion of the community do much and still more to overcome the evil by good, but in Naples, what is indeed done to prevent the same from flourishing? They place pictures of the Madonna to conceal the acts of crime. But—they also do something more.

Let me now say a few words about the benevolent institutions in Naples which I visited with a card of introduction from the Minister of the Interior. I will commence with two, the most celebrated, and to which immense funds have been given: Casa Santa dell' Annunziata and Albergo Reali dei Povere.

The first-mentioned institution receives all the young children, which are laid in an ever-accessible “tour,” or kind of turning machine, at the open window of a room in the institution. In this are laid daily from seven to seventeen poor little creatures.