The system answers well, and the Adriatic provinces would hardly seem deserving of pity, if it were not for the brigands, the inundations of the Po and the Reno, and the crushing taxation I have described.
These taxes are lighter on the other side of the Apennines.

There are even in the neighbourhood of Rome some landowners who pay scarcely any at all.

In 1854 the _Consulta di Stato_ valued the privileged lands at L360,000.

But we will turn to the subject of the uncultivated lands.
Towards the Mediterranean, north, east, south, and west of Rome, and wherever the Papal benediction extends, the flat country, which covers an immense extent, is at once uninhabited, uncultivated, and unhealthy.

Various are the modes in which experienced persons have attempted to account for the wretched condition of this fine country.
One says, "It is uncultivated because it is uninhabited.