It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed the remarkable effigy, and the ceremony of the public barbering of her was always carried out with the greatest possible eclat and display--the more the better, because the more excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew and the heavier the revenues it produced--but at last a day came when the Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the City Government stopped the Madonna's annual show.
There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans--two of the silliest possible frauds, which half the population religiously and faithfully believed, and the other half either believed also or else said nothing about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the imposture.

I am very well satisfied to think the whole population believed in those poor, cheap miracles--a people who want two cents every time they bow to you, and who abuse a woman, are capable of it, I think.
ASCENT OF VESUVIUS--CONTINUED.
These Neapolitans always ask four times as much money as they intend to take, but if you give them what they first demand, they feel ashamed of themselves for aiming so low, and immediately ask more.

When money is to be paid and received, there is always some vehement jawing and gesticulating about it.

One can not buy and pay for two cents' worth of clams without trouble and a quarrel.

One "course," in a two-horse carriage, costs a franc--that is law--but the hackman always demands more, on some pretence or other, and if he gets it he makes a new demand.
It is said that a stranger took a one-horse carriage for a course -- tariff, half a franc.