Six Months in Italy Author:George Stillman Hillard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and come under the control of Malthus's preventive check. RETURN TO ROME. I left Naples for Rome on Tuesday, March 24, in the steamer Vesuvio for Civita Ve... more »cchia. Gentlemen in America, who live at home at ease in a country where they have only to take a coach and drive down to the steamer, five minutes before the time of starting, may like to know how they manage these things in Naples. The first thing to be thought of in such a case is the passport, the ' great medicine,' as an Indian would call it, of modern Europe. A pointed saying is often quoted, that in England the whole machinery of government, king, lords, and commons, is put in motion in order to get twelve men into a jury-box. In Europe, it would seem that the whole object of civil society was to get a passport into eve.ry man's pocket. Having gone, upon my arrival at Naples, to the police-office, deposited my passport and obtained permission to stay, it was now necessary to reclaim the precious document, get permission to go, and then secure the signatures of three or four officials ; the whole involving an expense of some four or five dollars. Then I went to the office of the steamer and took my passage, exhibiting rny passport as a voucher of my identity, without which no conveyance can be engaged. The steamer was lying in the stream, and after having my luggage brought down to the quay it was necessary to engage a boat, and commence the negotiation of a treaty to that effect with a gentleman in a red shirt, who began by asking the modest price of two dollars for putting me on board. By the time that the high contracting parties had come to a point of agreement, the hour at which the steamer was announced to start had nearly arrived, and, with an instinct of punctuality calculated for the meridian of New Engla...« less