"The returns (criminal) embrace all kinds of crime.... And among the rest they comprehend a class of offenders who, in some countries--for instance, in France--are under the control as well as sanctioned by the police authorities, and in others defy almost all authority or restraint whatsoever. I allude to women of depraved character, not one of whom is to be met with in the streets of Rome, which may accordingly be traversed with impunity at any hour of the evening or night by a modest female without the risk of having her eyes and ears offended, as they are in too many cities of our highly civilized empire. Offenders of this class are at once made amenable to the law, and committed either to the Termini, or to the institution of the Good Shepherd, where the most effectual means of reformation are adopted, and in very many instances with success--both institutions being specially under the care and control of religious communities."
It is the fashion to decry Rome--to represent her population as cowed down and discontented with their government; to this the reception which Garibaldi with his war-cry of "Rome or death"--though he lived to see another day, after all--met with from the Roman people, is a sufficient reply: or to say that they are miserably poor or degraded; to this, Count de Reyneval, in his report to the French minister for foreign affairs, says:
"The condition of the population is one of comparative ease.... An appearance of prosperity strikes the eyes of the least observant. Gaiety of the most expansive kind is to be traced in the faces of all. It may be asked whether this can be the people whose miseries excite to such a degree the commiseration of Europe?"[21]
Rome, then, with a garrison of over 7000 soldiers, and with an immense influx of visitors from all parts of the world, and particularly of wealthy pleasure-seekers from England and America; with a stern suppression of prostitution and public vice, still shows a rate of illegitimacy less than six per cent; a rate lower than that of England, or any Protestant country which has published statistics on the subject.
We have thus given this matter as thorough and complete an investigation as has been possible under the circumstances. We have given the reasons for all we have stated, and the reader can see for himself the force of our arguments. We neither desire to misrepresent nor to be misrepresented; and we would not make one misstatement to the disadvantage of any one, be he Protestant or any thing else; or conceal any thing which has a bearing on the question, even if it should put our side of it in an unfavorable light. If we have done any of these things, it is unconsciously to ourselves; and therefore we feel, perhaps too warmly and indignantly, this trickery, when it is attempted to make us the victims of it.