DON FELIX.

69

in Rome there is a corner, where on the wall is written inlarge characters the word Immondezzajo, and under thisword is a vast heap of dung and ordure, various in hues andtexture as are the sacerdotal mummering robes,—pestilentand noxious, as the breath of the hooded reptiles who pre-sided over its formation.

Upon this foul heap the wretched Romans are invited tocast the dung, offal, cabbage-stalks, dead dogs and cats,and every other impurity of their houses. For weeks andmonths, are such heaps and nests of fever and disease,allowed to lie, diffusing around their noxious exhalations •At last, they are carried away by some acute and indus-trious farmer, or market-gardener—think you reader, as richmanure for his ground ? No such thing—it is carted offby gaily slaves, and thrown into the Tiber , not to be merelylost, that would not suffice for priestly systematic mischief;but to form deposits, which destroy the navigation of theriver, and to be cast back by the sea upon the pestilentshores from whence it came! Thus has, in a great measure,been shallowed and obstructed the channel of that oncefamous river; its estuary gradually obliterated, and thehealth of the inhabitants of Rome sorely afflicted. Theloss to agriculture, of all this rich manure, must, in thecourse of ages, have amounted to countless millions. Butwhat of that, to priests who in the superstitions of the nations,have so long held such mines of gold and silver as to losesight of every real source of social wealth in industry andagriculture ! They, like the unfortunate finders of the. accursed gold and silver of Mexico , La Plata, and: Potosi, have discarded the shuttle and the plough. These,

| the Spaniards changed into swords and mining tools, con-! verting that once industrious, well-cultivated and populous! country, into a wilderness, and its inhabitants into a mass

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