In the middle of the day, at street-corners and in sunny spots, you see groups of working-men playing at pitch halfpenny, or gesticulating wildly over the mysterious game of "Moro." Skittles and stone-throwing are the only popular amusements which require any bodily exertion; and both of these, as played here, are as much chance as skill.

The lottery, too, is the great national pastime.
This picture of the Roman people may not seem a very favourable or a very promising one.

I quite admit, that many persons, who have come much into contact with them, speak highly of their general good humour, their affectionate feelings and their sharpness of intellect.

At the same time, I have observed that these eulogists of the Roman populace are either Papal partizans who, believing that "this is the best of all possible worlds," wish to prove also that "everything here is for the best," or else they are vehement friends of Italy, who are afraid of damaging their beloved cause by an admission of the plain truth, that the Romans are not as a people either honest, truthful or industrious.

For my own part, my faith is different.