young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.
6 37
by dependency and expectation, the evils they are defigned to cure. Poverty alwaysabounds in proportion to fuch funds; fo that if the fund were doubled, the mifery it ismeant to prevent would be doubled alfo. No poor in the world are found at their eafeby means of hofpitals and gratuitous charities; it is an induftry fo fteady and regular asto preclude all other dependence, that can alone place them in fuch a fituation,'as I haveendeavoured to Ihew in my remarks on France .
1 he patrimony of almolt all the pariflies inTufcany, confiils in lands afligned them:the rector is adminiftrator and guardian of them; and both by law and his oath on in*dudtior, he is drictly obliged to maintain and fupport them, and alfo to manure them,,and to increafe the produce *.
Dutchy of Modena. —No tithe here; a voluntary gift only to the fib-cure. Theecclefiaftical lands have been largely feized here, as well as every where elfe in Italy ; butthe Duke gave them to the towns, to allitl them in the expence of the municipal ad-minidration.
Dutchy of Parma. —No real tithe ; the payments in lieu very frnall, and not pro-portioned to the crop ; a farm pays a ftajo of wheat (about eighty-eight pounds Eng-lilh), two parcels of raifins, and twenty faggots, between the two cur'ees.
Upon this detail of the tithe paid in Lombardy , &c. one obfervation ftrongly im-prefl'es itfelf, that the patrimony of the church is, under every government in Italy ; con-fidered as the property of the State, and feized or affigned accordingly. It highly meritsattention, that in the free countries of Holland and Switzerland , (exempt at lead; fromthe defpotifm of a fingle perfon,) the fame principal has been adopted ; with what reafontherefore can thefirft National Affembly of France be reproached as guilty of a lingularoutrage, for doing that which every neighbour they have (England and Spain only ex-cepted) had done before them ; and which may poffibly, in a better mode, be followed ineverv country in Europe ? They have in Italy rid themfelves of tithes, though not half,perhaps not upon an average a third of the burthen they amount to in England, wheretheir levy has been carried to a much greater height. If the legiflature of that kingdomwould give a due encouragement, they will remove fuch burthens gradually, and withwifdom. All I converfed with in Italy on the fubjedt of tithes, expreffed amazementat the tithes we are fubject to, and fcarcely believed that there was a people left inEurope who paid fo much, obferving that nothing like it was to be found even in Spain ,itfelf.
Sect. IV .—Of Manufactures and Commerce.
Piedmont. —Two-thirds of the rice raifed is exported : I met carts loaded with filkand rice on the great road to France ; and demanding afterwards concerning this trade,.I was informed that the coft o t carriage was ?o/l per rubbio, to Lyons or Geneva, and.3 livres to Paris . The following are the principal exports :
Unwrought filk, —
Livres.
— 17,000,000
Damalk, &c. — —
OO
Rice, —
— 3 > 5 ''°» 000
Hemp, —- —
— 1,500,000
Cattle, — —
— 2,000,000
24,500,000
Oil