of Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see the works of that
statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that
in France there shall be a foundation for these im-
provements--money. He has always the where-
withal to back up his projects; they strengthen
France and never weaken her. Her material pros-
perity is genuine. But here the case is different.
This country is bankrupt. There is no real founda-
tion for these great works. The prosperity they
would seem to indicate is a pretense. There is no
money in the treasury, and so they enfeeble her
instead of strengthening. Italy has achieved the
est wish of her heart and become an independent
state--and in so doing she has drawn an elephant
in the political lottery. She has nothing to feed it
on. Inexperienced in government, she plunged into
all manner of useless expenditure, and swamped her
treasury almost in a day. She squandered millions
of francs on a navy which she did not need, and the
first time she took her new toy into action she got
it knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite--to use the
language of the Pilgrims.

But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. A
year ago, when Italy saw utter ruin staring her in
the face and her greenbacks hardly worth the paper
they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon
a coup de main that would have appalled the stoutest
of her statesmen under less desperate circumstances.
They, in a manner, confiscated the domains of the
Church! This in priest-ridden Italy! This in a
land which has groped in the midnight of priestly
superstition for sixteen hundred years! It was a

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