reason to fear that the poor boys too often succumb to the treatment they receive, and die at an early age. As to what befalls the girls thus expatriated, another sad picture would have to be drawn.

No resident in London, no visitor to London, need be told of the organ nuisance. Some of the organs, it is true, are really of excellent tone, and play good music; but they become a pest in this way—that the men, taking note of the houses whence they have obtained money, stop in front of those houses more and more frequently, in the hope of being paid, if not for playing, at least for going away. Some of these organ-men have been organ-boys who came over with padroni.

And now for the diplomatic correspondence relating to this subject.

In 1874 the Chevalier Cadorna, Italian Minister at the Court of St James's, addressed a communication to the Earl of Derby relating to these wretched and ill-used children. He stated that a law had been passed in Italy, the success of which would depend largely on the co-operation of other governments. It had been ascertained that in many provinces of that country parents lease or lend their children for money; boys and girls under eight years of age, who are taken by vile speculators to foreign lands, there to be employed as musicians, tumblers, dancers, exhibitors of white mice, beggars, &c. It is a white slave-trade, in which the unfeeling parents participate. London is especially noted for the presence of these unfortunates; the padroni or masters find that a good harvest may be made out of the injudicious because indiscriminate charity of the metropolis. 'Miserable it is for the children,' says M. Cadorna, 'if they fail any day to obtain the sum which their tyrants require from them! This is the reason why we often see them wandering about till late at night, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, rather than return to the lodgings where they dread ill-treatment of various kinds from their pitiless masters.' The police magistrates of London are frequently occupied in listening to the complaints of these poor creatures. But no: this is hardly the case; for the victims are generally afraid to make their sorrows known, lest they should suffer still worse from the vengeance of their taskmasters; sometimes, however, they are too ill from bad treatment to conceal their misery; while at other times they are taken up for begging. Who knows? perhaps the poor things receive better food and lodging during a few days' imprisonment—certainly better in a reformatory or a workhouse—than in the squalid rooms which their tyrants provide for them.

The Italian government are endeavouring to check the evil at its source or fountain-head; making the leasing of children by their parents illegal. If this does not produce a cure, then they are endeavouring to watch the slave-traders (as we may truly call them), and forbid them to carry their victims across the frontier or out to sea. When the Chevalier Cadorna made his communication to the Earl of Derby, the new law had been too recently passed to supply evidence of its practical effect; but he pointed to the fact that the law could not meet with full success unless foreign governments would render aid, by making this kind of Italian slavery unlawful in the countries to which the padroni bring their little victims. A suggestion was made that the Extradition convention, signed between England and Italy, might possibly be made to take cognizance of this state of things. Not so, it appears. The Home Secretary, when appealed to, stated that traffic in children is not within any of the crimes named in the English Extradition Acts. 'It appears to Mr Cross that the source of the evil arises in Italy, and that measures might be there adopted for preventing the egress from that country of such children as are described in the letter of the Italian Minister. He supposes that it would be competent to the Italian government to decline to grant passports for such children, and thus prevent their crossing the Italian frontier. There is no power to prevent such children from landing in this country. All that can be done is to protect them from any cruelty or ill-treatment on the part of padroni; and Mr Cross is assured that the metropolitan magistrates are most anxious to carry out that object, and that they are very desirous to abate the evils as far as our laws empower them to do so.'

So the matter rested for a time. Three years later, in May of the present year, the subject was mentioned in the House of Commons; and the Italian Minister, General Menabrea (successor to the Chevalier Cadorna), informed the Earl of Derby that the Italian government cannot effect all they wish in preventing the exodus of the padroni and their victims. 'It is easy for them to elude the vigilance of the authorities; for passports being now practically abolished from Italy to France, and thence to England, the traffickers in children can, by expatriating themselves, relieve themselves from the punishments they have incurred.'

Thus the inquiry ended nearly as it began, so far as definite conclusions are concerned. England is very chary of making restrictions on the freedom of entry of foreigners on our shores. Deposed emperors and kings, princes in trouble, defeated presidents and past presidents, persecuted ecclesiastics, patriots out of work—all find an asylum in little England; and many things would have to be taken into account before our government could legally forbid the Italian children and their padroni from setting foot on English ground.

No one can glance habitually through the daily newspapers without meeting with cases illustrating the condition of the poor Italian children. Some months back the magistrates of North Shields had a boy and a girl brought before them charged with begging. The fact came out in evidence that their padrone had bought or farmed them of their parents, and brought them to England. Marianna Frametta was fourteen years of age, Marcolatto Crola eleven. He had bought or rather leased them for twelve months, at ten pounds each: his calculation being that this sum, four shillings a week, would be amply covered, and much more, after providing them with board and lodging, by their earnings. They usually, it appears, got from nine to fifteen shillings a day by begging, possibly with the addition of some small pretence to an exhibition of white mice. If they brought home less than ten shillings each, they were beaten instead of fed at night. These sums appear strangely large; but so stands the record. It is satisfactory to know that the fellow was punished with imprisonment and hard labour for his cruelty. But what would eventually be the life of the children themselves? They were sent to the workhouse for temporary shelter, food, and medical treatment; these could only last for a time; and the youngsters would still be aliens, without definite occupation or means of livelihood.

There can be no doubt that the English habit of giving small sums of money to people in the streets and at the street doors has something to do with this matter. It may be due to a kind motive, but it unquestionably increases the number of applicants, and opposes a bar to the endeavours of governments and legislatures to bring about an improvement. Nevertheless it is quite right that all should be done that can be done to prevent ruthless speculators from bringing over poor Italian children to our shores, and then treating them like veritable slaves. This should all the more sedulously be attended to, because the padroni (so far as concerns the metropolis) live almost exclusively in one district, around Hatton Garden and Leather Lane. The narrow streets, courts, and alleys in that vicinity are crowded with them; every room in some of the houses being occupied by a distinct Italian batch, crowded together like pigs in a sty, and forming hotbeds of disease. When the 'Health Act' and the 'Lodging-Houses Act' gave the police power to