Heating does not cost very much in Tuscany among the middle classes, and fires are rarely lit except in the kitchen. If the day is very cold or some one is unwell, a fire is indulged in, but as a rule all the warmth required is supplied by scaldini (earthenware vessels filled with embers). Not that the climate makes artificial warmth superfluous, for it can be icy in Florence; but Italians do not mind the cold in the house, although they are sensitive to it out of doors. The fuel burnt is wood with a little coal or coke. Firing and lighting will cost another 200 lire (£8) a year.

Before we have done with housekeeping we must make some allowance for the upkeep of the apartment and its contents. We will suppose that the family possessed sufficient furniture at the time of the marriage. It is, however, on a very modest scale, and its renewal from time to time will not be a very serious expense. The decorations are of the plainest, and little attempt is made to give the home an artistic and attractive appearance, for Italians of the middle class prefer to spend their spare money in other ways. The renewal of the household linen is a more costly matter, and often even modest families are wont to keep an ample supply of it, of good quality. For these purposes we shall set aside about 350 lire (£14).

After the house we come to clothes. The wife and daughters naturally spend more on attire than the father and boys (a man can get a decent suit of clothes for 40 or 50 lire [32s. to 40s.], whereas women's dresses are a good deal more costly); in Italy, as in England and elsewhere, milliners' bills are a fertile source of domestic 'ructions.' But some of the clothes, especially for the children, are made at home. In all about 1,800 lire (£72) will be spent on attire. Taxes on an income of 10,000 lire and charities will come to about 1,000 lire (£40).

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After these necessary and regular expenses we come to those which are incidental and those for amusements. Conveyances which run away with such a lot of money in London, whether we indulge in the swift and expensive hansom, or limit ourselves to the jerky but economic 'bus and the stuffy subterranean railways, are in Italy almost a quantité négligeable. Cabs usually cost a lira for a drive of any distance within the town, and 'buses and trams from 10 to 20 cents. But as private residences are within easy reach of most places of business it is possible to walk there and back

' Including the tax on professional income, municipal taxes, &c. The tax on Government rente is deducted when the income (in our case 3,000 lire) is paid out

every day, save when the weather is exceptionally bad. Theatres, which are the Italian's favourite relaxation, are as a rule a very cheap luxury, parterre seats costing from 1.50 lira to 4 or 5 lire (1s. 2d. to 4s.). Middle-class families not infrequently have boxes lent to them, or they occasionally take one costing 10 lire to 20 lire (88. to 168.) as a treat. They go more often to the theatre than most English families with much larger incomes. Clubs, on the other hand, are not necessary, although many Italians belong to circoli of different sorts, which exist chiefly for getting up entertainments, dances, &c. Entertaining, in the English sense of the word, is rarely indulged in by people in this rank of life; they will perhaps give two or three yearly family gatherings, at Christmas, Easter, &c., but on a modest scale, even though the number of dishes is large, and the variety of good wines considerable. Then we must add stationery, newspapers, the café, &c. About 250 lire (£10) will be sufficient for these expenses.

Education in Italy is largely under State control, and in the public schools the cost of instruction is small. In the primary schools there are no fees, and in the secondary ones they range from 100 lire to 150 lire (£4 to £6). At the university they are somewhat higher, from 450 lire to 850 lire (£18 to £34) for a four or a six years' course. There are also private schools, but the majority of people prefer to send their children to the public schools, unless they are uncompromising Clericals who wish their offspring to be brought up in a thoroughly religious atmosphere. There may be some extra expense for books and the teaching of music or foreign languages, and we may calculate the total at 450 lire (£18).

The last item is the villeggiatura or summer holiday. Italians, even in the highest classes, are not much addicted to travelling, and do not usually leave their homes more than once or twice a year. The family we have described will be unable to afford more than one annual outing to the sea or the country, and perhaps one or two visits to relations. The former takes place during the hottest months, and lasts from four to six weeks. They hire a furnished apartment or a small villa, which can be obtained at a moderate rent, and take their own servant. Their life in the country is of the simplest ; and they will not spend more than 700 lire. Italians are great lovers of land, and as soon as the paterfamilias has saved enough money he buys a small villa with a few acres of ground, which will be the usual holiday resort. Foreign travel is, of course, out of the question, but if some money is put by, or the family gets a

little windfall, they may make a trip to Paris or Switzerland, perhaps two or three times in a lifetime.

This leaves 700 lire (£28) for eventualities; in these we must include the doctor's and chemist's bills (the former charges from 3 lire to 5 lire a visit). Thus we may calculate that 450 lire (£18) will be saved at the end of the year, and invested.

These calculations are, of course, only approximate, and no two families will expend the same income in the same way. Some Italian housewives are marvels of domestic skill, and make the very best use of every penny, while others are wasteful and extravagant. I think that on the whole the former are more numerous than the latter, at all events in the middle classes.

Working Class Budgets.

In dealing with the income and expenditure of the Italian working classes the differences between one part of the country and another are even more striking than in the case of the bourgeoisie. At the same time, in one district there will be several very different classes of working men in totally different conditions. On the other hand, the distinction between the artisan and the labourer is less clearly defined in Italy than it is in many other lands, and whereas the peasants carry on many small cottage industries, numbers of trades in the large towns and mining centres are worked by men living in the country and engaged for a part of the year on purely agricultural occupations. In spite of the great progress achieved by Italian manufactures during the last few years, and the increasing numbers of factories, especially in Northern

Italy, agriculture is still by far the most important industry in the country and employs the greatest number of hands. I shall therefore take the labourer rather than the artisan as typical of this part of the Italian population.

The agricultural labourers are divided into several classes, as I have said, varying in prosperity both according to the different parts of Italy and their social position. There is, indeed, hardly a system of land tenure from Ireland to Kamtchatka, which is not represented in some region of Italy, and in hardly any single district is there one uniform system. There are, however, four principal groups of labourers: the small peasant proprietors, the métayers or mezzadri, the farm labourers or braccianti, and the farmers paying rent. The métairie system is prevalent in Central Italy, large estates worked by hired labourers in the North and in the South, rented farms in the North, especially in Piedmont, while small properties (in many cases too small to be anything more than a supplement to the owner's earnings in some other occupation) are scattered about all over the country. But each of these systems overlaps, and they are all to be found in almost any part of Italy. Having to choose amid so great a variety, I shall take the métayer system as being, if not the commonest, at all events the most typically Italian, and from peasants thus employed I shall choose my budgets.

The farm which I shall consider forms part of a moderate-sized estate, situated in central Italy. A detailed description of the mezzadria system would be out of place in this article, but I must say a few words on the subject to explain the farmer's economic condition. The landlord pays the taxes and provides half the live stock, while the peasant supplies the labour and pays for any extra hands which may be required at harvest time, and provides the other half of the live stock and all the farm implements. The occasional expenses of cultivation are shared by landlord and peasant, but special expenses for extraordinary cultivation are paid for by the landlord alone. The produce of the farm is divided in equal proportions between landlord and tenant. The system, which is peculiarly suited to the soil of Central Italy, where two or three different crops can be grown on the same piece of ground at the same time, has many advantages, of which the chief are that it combines the good points of large and of small cultivation; it also makes for the friendliness between landlord and tenant. The family established on this farm consists of the capoccia or

head of the little community, the massaia or housekeeper, who is either his wife or, if he be unmarried, some other female relative, and manages the domestic economy of the farm, the children, of whom the older ones help in the farm work, and, if the farm be large, two or three other helpers of both sexes, usually relations. I shall, however, take as an example a medium-sized podere farmed by the family only, i.e. father, mother, two children old enough to be of use, and two younger ones. They occupy a house, for which they pay no rent (the usual practice with this kind of tenure), consisting of a large kitchen, another living room, two or three bedrooms, and some store rooms. The house is situated in the midst of cultivated fields on some pleasant hillside bathed in sunlight. It is, perhaps, less clean and neat than the cottage of an average English labourer or artisan, but it is by no means dirty, and the simple furniture is kept well polished and dustless; above all, the beds are clean. Outside the cottage is a stable for the farm cattle, one o two sheds, and a vat-house for wine-pressing. Close by is a smalı orchard, where the farmer grows some fruit and vegetables, either for home consumption or for sale. We shall set down the family's total income, including the produce of the podere (farm), the extra wages which the peasant may earn by special work, and the earnings of his wife from plaiting straw, and similar odd jobs at 1,200 lire (£48) per annum. Both income and expenditure are largely in kind, but I shall calculate both at money value.

As there is no rent to pay, and the landlord is charged with all necessary repairs, the first and most important matter is food.

The food eaten by a peasant family of this description consists chiefly of wheaten bread and polenta (bread made from Indian corn); the companatico or relish for the bread, i.e. sardines, anchovies, or herrings, or some meat gravy; soup made from vegetables and sometimes flavoured with a little meat; meat, which is chiefly bacon or some other form of pork, about once a week; cheese, eggs, &c.; for drink the usual potion is vinello, or thin weak wine, but a small amount of wine of a better quality is kept for Sundays and other feast days. On those occasions the men of the family will visit the osteria or tavern and drink a few glasses of wine with their friends, but real drunkenness is very rare save in three or four provinces. The peasant's day being a long one, he has more meals than the average bourgeois, albeit small ones. He starts with a