It is so with most other streets in Naples,
except those poorest ones where the out-door life insists upon the most
intimate domestic expression. Even such streets are no worse than our
worst streets, and the good streets are all better kept than our best.
I am not sure that there are even more beggars in Naples than in New
York, though I will own that I kept no count. In both cities beggary is
common enough, and I am not noting it with disfavor in either, for it is
one of my heresies that comfort should be constantly reminded of misery
by the sight of it--comfort is so forgetful. Besides, in Italy charity
costs so little; a cent of our money pays a man for the loss of a leg or
an arm; two cents is the compensation for total blindness; a sick mother
with a brood of starving children is richly rewarded for her pains with
a nickel worth four cents. Organized charity is not absent in the midst
of such volunteers of poverty; one day, when we thought we had passed
the last outpost of want in our drive, two Sisters of Charity suddenly
appeared with out-stretched tin cups.
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