AT Florence, no fewer than three thousand orphans are received in l'Annunciata: No farther ceremony is required than to place the infants in the Tour, and ring the bell; when immediately those tender attentions are afforded to the innocent victims of parentak indiscretion which the unfortunate mother is compelled to withhold, either from motives of shame or poverty.

If it be urged that this facility of providing for illegitimate offspring tends rather to the promotion than to the suppression of vice, let it be remembered, that as yet no severity of governments has been able wholly to counteract those passions which Nature has implanted in us for the continuance of the species; and however we may deplore the circumstance, we cannot controvert the fact, in respect to those we so emphatically term natural children.-Fines*, imprisonment, anathemas of the church, and the total rejection from all respectable society, which in many countries has awaited the fair delinquent, have had little

The inefficiency of fines has been lately proved in one of the principalities of Germany, where, in consequence of the increased number of bastards, an increase of fine was enacted.-During the three succeeding years, as many births had taken place as usual, but fewer children were to be discovered; and in the following year, it was evident so many murders had been committed by the wretched mothers, who were unable to pay the sum exacted for their imprudence, that the Prince found himself compelled to give an example of severity; and I witnessed myself the decapitation of the victim, whose fate was held up "in terrorem," throughout the district.

effect in preventing the birth of those unfortunate innocents; but I am concerned to think that they have all eminently contributed to many of their deaths; and the most inflexible moralist will surely allow it to be less criminal to provide for the offspring of intemperance, than to add to the afflicting details of childmurder, which so often disgrace our own calendar, as well as those of less enlightened countries.

In dwelling upon the excellence of the Italian hospitals, I do not wish it to be understood, that I hold such establishments, or the facility with which they may be entered, as a superior consideration in favor of the poor, to those regulations, in a general view, which have been adopted under the head of the Poor Laws in England; nor am I unconscious that, by the laws of England, every poor person, without the means of subsistence, inherits a right to support from his parish; that every magistrate is bound to convey to such parish the afflicted wretch discharged from an hospital, and that such arrangements have been made by the laws of the land, as humanity and justice could devise for the benefit of the distressed, so that parochial assistance should prevent the misery of dying from actual want of food.. I am perfectly aware of all these advantages in England; but I still contend, that the sick man, who finds his misery a sufficient recommendation to ensure the attentions of medical men, and the means of support, so long as he shall require them, is infinitely more fortunate

than the sick man who, in consequence of the probably incurable nature of his complaints, is discharged from an English hospital, to be transferred from one end of the island to the other upon a waggon, because none but his own parish is compelled to support him.

I CONTEND, that those hospitals are to be preferred, where every day is a receiving day, to those whose gates are opened to the recommendatory letter of a subscriber only once in the week; and where, even on that day, the amount of the subscription is often considered of more importance than the disease of the patient, provided that disease be not of the most serious nature; in which case, I allow, that the humanity of our truly respectable physicians and surgeons always overbalances the pecuniary interests of the establishment.

I AM aware, that cases of accidents are received at all times, without recommendation, at all our hospitals; but is John with an intermittent fever on Thursday less an object of compassion than on the Wednesday following, which I will presume, for the sake of argument, the established receiving day? Is William with an ascites, or Thomas with an erysipelatous inflammation, less entitled, by the severity of their sufferings, to an immediate endeavor at relief, than Richard, who has been thrown from his horse, and fractured his fibula?

If it be pleaded, that the funds of our hospitals will not afford such general and indiscriminate admission of patients, and that, were every invalid to be received without formality, the establishments must be ruined, my observations are correct. Happy, I repeat, in this particular, is the country where the afflicted poor may be at all times well provided for by the benevolence of the rich, without waiting for a letter of recommendation, or a receiving day!

CHAP. II.

DEPARTURE FROM LEGHORN TO SMYRNA-PROSPECT OF SICILYETNA FARO OF MESSINA-SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS-SICILYARCHIPELAGO—SCLAVONIAN PIRATE-SCIO-HARBOUR IN MITY

LENE-GULPH OF SMYRNA-ARMENIAN AND JEW BROKERS

SMYRNA.

AFTER

FTER taking an affectionate leave of those kind acquaintances at Leghorn, who taught me the value of their interesting society by innumerable acts of civility, I re-embarked on board the vessel for Smyrna.

FAVORING gales wafted us past the island of Elbo, on our way to the south end of Sicily, but they soon after died away; and the approach of lowering clouds predicting to the wary captain that his attempts to weather the island would be ineffectual, determined him to veer about for the Faro of Messina ; a circumstance which afforded me unusual satisfaction, since the volcanic mountains of Etna and Strombolo, the Lipari islands, the shores of Calabria, Scylla, Charybdis, and the remains of fair Messina, whose beautiful edifices and elegant façades had been mutilated