Many of them arrive here absolutely destitute, and go at once to the Italian Consulate and beg for alms, or ask how to be put in the way of begging. The Consulate does everything in its power to discourage these people from coming to England, but they come all the same. Some of them are trained professional beggars, versed in every trick and dodge of the trade of mendicancy. Others are socialists and revolutionists of the worst type, who endeavour to use the liberty enjoyed by them here, in forming secret revolutionary societies, and in preaching the most dangerous doctrines. They work so secretly that few have any knowledge of their real influence and numbers. I am informed by an Italian gentleman, whose name I am not at liberty to give, but who has exceptional opportunities of proving the truth of his statements, that the increase of foreign and secret revolutionary societies in the Metropolis has recently been very great. The same authority writes to me in a recent letter:--"There is a large influx of destitute Italians going on: there is no work for them to do here, and they will not return home.... I believe there is a real danger in allowing aliens of all nationalities to arrive so freely in such conditions, while not socialism but anarchy is now preached in the open streets of the quarters especially resorted to by them. The result will be some serious trouble very soon, especially in winter."[12] These are not the careless words of a superficial observer, but the deliberately expressed opinion of one who holds an official position, and has intimate knowledge of the facts. With the object lesson which the recent Italian riots in the United States has presented to us, there can be little doubt that in the rapid increase of these revolutionary societies of indigent foreigners lurk the elements of a very grave political and social danger.
Thus we seem to have drifted into a position somewhat analogous to that of Rome in the closing days of her Empire. Juvenal in the second of his _Satires_ complained that Rome had become a sink for the vices and iniquity of the known world. Johnson imitated this _Satire_ in the following vigorous lines:--
"London, the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome; Condemned by fortune and resistless fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state."