Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/420

430 The Reformatory for Boys, founded by the Jesuit Father Cutanelli, on the contrary, seemed to me really excellent and every way suitable to its purpose. “Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow,” is the inscription which he had placed over the gate, and it was a pleasure to see how cleverly and how well the boys worked. Two-thirds of the profits of their labor belongs to them. Music is one of their rewards, and prepares them for still further profits. I heard some pieces of music excellently performed by about fifty boys on wind-instruments. Padre Cutanelli, who is mild, clear, and somewhat humorous-looking, was himself present and seemed to be the soul of the institution. Two handsome and remarkably good-looking boys, about fourteen or fifteen years of age, accompanied him as his adjutants, which was a kind of post of honor.

Another institution, which seems to me to be sustained by the management and care of a distinguished man, is the Ospedale degli Incurabili, founded four hundred years since by Maria Longi, a rich and pious lady. It contains twelve hundred beds, but these are quite insufficient for the number of sick who desire to be received there; and the day when I visited the establishment, a religious ceremony had that morning taken place for the consecration of a number of new beds, the gift of a signora. It was a pleasure to go with the Director through the spacious apartments in which the poor lay, because he was greeted as a friend by many amongst them. He seemed to me an earnest man, full of human kindness, who had the honor and well-being of the establishment at heart; a man gifted