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Labour Law and Worker Protection in Developing
Countries 1st Edition Teklè Tzehainesh Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Teklè Tzehainesh; Tekl',
ISBN(s): 9789290148951, 9290148950
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.82 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
 TEKLÈ
LABOUR LAW AND WORKER PROTECTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
LABOUR LAW TZEHAINESH TEKLÈ
AND WORKER
PROTECTION
IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES LABOUR LAW
This important new study shifts the focus of scholarly and policy
debates on the role of labour law in an era of globalization away
ANDWORKER
from the countries and labour law systems of the North to those
of the global South. Placing its analysis within the context of
the current scholarly debates on the challenges and future of
labour law, the book critically reviews the relevant literature and
reflects upon the way in which workers’ protection tends to be
PROTECTION
IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
conceptualized, as well as on the adequacy of the legal categories
and tools used to further it, with special attention given to the
effectiveness of labour legislation in promoting gender equality.

The book argues that, in addition to problems in the application

of labour law, there is a mismatch between the realities of
the developing world and the social, economic and political
underpinnings of labour law. This dates back to its development
in post-colonial African and South Asian countries and, to a lesser
extent, in Latin American ones. The divergence persists, while
new manifestations have appeared due to globalization, leaving
a significant number of workers outside the scope of labour law
and in need of protection. Against this background, the book
explores regulatory and policy responses at different governance
levels to enhance the scope and application of labour regulation
in Latin America, South Asia and southern Africa.

ILO
 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

LabourLawWorkProt_EN.indd i 19.01.10 10:27

 Labour law and worker protection
in developing countries

EDITED BY TZEHAINESH TEKLÈ

HART PUBLISHING • OXFORD AND PORTLAND, OREGON

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE • GENEVA

LabourLawWorkProt_EN.indd iii 19.01.10 10:27

 Copyright © International Labour Organization 2010
First published in 2010 by
Hart Publishing
16c Worcester Place
Oxford, OX1 2JW
and
International Labour Office
CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland

Teklè, Tzehainesh (ed.)

Labour law and worker protection in developing countries
Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010; International Labour Office, Geneva, 2010

Workers rights / gender equality / labour law / law reform / application / developing countries
04.02.5
ISBN 978-1-84113-887-9 (Hart); 978-92-9014-894-4 (ILO)
ILO Cataloguing in Publication Data

Publications of the International Labour Office enjoy copyright under Protocol 2 of the Universal Copy-
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rights organization in your country.
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The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with
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Visit our website: www.ilo.org/publns

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Printed in Switzerland GEN

LabourLawWorkProt_EN.indd iv 19.01.10 10:27

 Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Table of international instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Table of domestic legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Table of cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
List of abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxii

Introduction
1. Labour law and worker protection in the South:
An evolving tension between models and reality
Tzehainesh Teklè . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Strengthening the presence of southern perspectives
in the current debates on labour law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 An analytical approach to studying the impact
of labour law in the South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 The structure of the book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4 The challenge of the mismatch between socio-legal categories
and reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.1 The structural features of the world of work and labour law . 12
1.4.2 A world of work in evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5 The problem of enforcement: Structural and new dimensions . . . . 32

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

1.6 Labour law and gender equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

1.6.1 The gendered construction of the law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.6.2 Labour law and the promotion of gender equality at work . . 37
1.6.3 The interaction of labour law with other branches
of law and non-state sources of law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.6.4 The impact of globalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

PART I Worker access to labour law protection:

Historical challenges and the impact of globalization
2. The effectiveness of labour law and decent work aspirations
in the developing countries: A framework for analysis
Rachid Filali Meknassi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.2 The ineffectiveness of labour law as an expression
of socio-legal pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.2.1 One labour law, many labour law systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.2.2 Inadequate integration into the dominant trade networks:
The main source of legal ineffectiveness in the southern
countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.3 The ineffectiveness of labour law: A symptom of the decent work deficit 69
2.3.1 The ineffectiveness of workers’ rights and poor overall
effectiveness of law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
2.3.2 A fair globalization: A factor in promoting decent work
and effective rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

3. Trade liberalization, labour law and development:

A contextualization
Adelle Blackett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.2 The foundations of multilateral trade: Embedded liberalism
and the convenience of colonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
3.3 The inherent tension between trade liberalization, labour law
and the role of the contemporary state in post-colonial
developing economies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

vi

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 Contents

3.4 The terrain of labour law reform in developing countries . . . . . . 108

3.4.1 Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.4.2 The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.4.3 Mauritius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.4.4 Cambodia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
3.4.5 The Republic of Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
3.5 Towards global distributive justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

PART II Labour law and worker protection in the South:

Regional perspectives
4. Labour law in Latin America:
The gap between norms and reality
Graciela Bensusán . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.2 The evolution of labour law and the economic
and political context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.3 Worker protection under labour law: Old and new problems . . . 142
4.3.1 The limited scope of labour law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
4.3.2 Recent responses to changing forms of work . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
4.3.3 Problems relating to enforcement mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . 147
4.4 Gender equality: The case of Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
4.4.1 The legal framework and the situation of women
workers in the labour market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
4.4.2 The situation in the export-oriented maquila
garment industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
4.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

5. Labour law: A southern African perspective

Colin Fenwick, Evance Kalula and Ingrid Landau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5.2 The evolution of labour law in southern Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5.2.1 Colonization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5.2.2 Post-independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
5.2.3 Economic liberalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.2.4 Democratization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

vii

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

5.2.5 The role of the ILO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

5.2.6 Regional integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.2.7 Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.3 The challenges facing labour law in southern Africa . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.3.1 The socio-economic environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
5.3.2 The relationship of labour law to economic objectives . . . . . . 194
5.3.3 The scope of the employment relationship and changing
patterns of work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
5.3.4 The limited capacity of labour law institutions . . . . . . . . . . 208
5.4 Gender equality in Lesotho: A case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
5.4.1 The legal and policy framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
5.4.2 The role of labour law in reinforcing the existing gender
inequalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
5.4.3 Proposed labour law amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
5.4.4 The enforcement of labour laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
5.4.5 Complementarities between labour laws and other laws . . . . 220
5.4.6 Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
5.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

6. Labour law in South Asia:

The need for an inclusive approach
Kamala Sankaran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
6.2 Historical evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
6.3 Labour law in South Asia: Features and proposals for reform . . . . 228
6.3.1 Features of labour law in the South Asia region . . . . . . . . . 228
6.3.2 Current debates around labour law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
6.4 Law and gender equality: The case of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
6.4.1 The gendered notion of “work” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
6.4.2 The gendered notion of labour law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
6.4.3 The gendered impact of “neutral” laws: Examples . . . . . . . . 255
6.4.4 The nature of labour law for women: Equality or protection? . . 257
6.4.5 Night work by women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
6.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

viii

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 Acknowledgements

M y first and warm thanks go to the contributors to this book for their partici-
pation in the research project that I carried out at the International Institute
for Labour Studies of the ILO and from which this book originates. I am also
grateful for the comments made by Jane Hodges, Jean-Claude Javillier, Emmanuel
Reynaud, Corinne Vargha and Maria-Luz Vega to earlier versions of the papers of
which this volume is comprised.
Special thanks are due to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful
comments.
Finally, I wish to thank Charlotte Beauchamp for her coordination and
supervision of the publication process.

Tzehainesh Teklè

ix

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 List of contributors

Graciela Bensusán is a research professor at the Universidad Autónoma

Metropolitana since 1976 and is a member of the Sistema de Investigadores. She is
the author of many papers and books examining labour institutions, policies and
organizations from a comparative perspective, and has been published in Mexico
and in other countries.

Adelle Blackett is an associate professor and William Dawson Scholar at the

Faculty of Law, McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her research and
teaching focus on labour law and international trade law, with an emphasis on
post-colonial approaches to development and identity. She is the convenor of the
Labour Law and Development Research Network, and a research co-coordinator
for the Interuniversity Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT).

Colin Fenwick is an associate professor at Melbourne Law School, where he was

formerly director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law. He
was also an editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. At present, Colin is
on leave of absence and engaged as a labour law specialist at the ILO in Geneva.

Rachid Filali Meknassi is a professor at the Law Faculty of the University

Mohammed V Agdal in Rabat, Morocco, teaching labour law and social security
law. He is the author of many academic publications on labour law and social
security, corporate social responsibility and human rights. He has recently been
appointed a member of the ILO’s Committee of Experts on the Application of
Conventions and Recommendations.

xi

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

Evance Kalula is a professor and director of the Institute of Development and

Labour Law, University of Cape Town. His main areas of research and teaching
interest are international and comparative labour law, labour market regulation,
and social security.

Ingrid Landau has worked as a researcher in the Centre for Employment and
Labour Relations Law, and in the Asian Law Centre, both at Melbourne Law
School. She now works as a researcher for the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Kamala Sankaran is an associate professor at the Campus Law Centre, Faculty

of Law, University of Delhi. Her research interests include constitutional law,
international labour standards and the informal economy.

Tzehainesh Teklè is a researcher at the ILO, Geneva, currently on second-

ment to the International Training Centre of the ILO, where she is a senior
programme officer in the Standards and Fundamental Principles and Rights at
Work Programme. Her research interests include international and comparative
labour law, equality and non-discrimination at work, and human rights.

xii

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 Table of international instruments

Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

2001 Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community,
including the CARICOM single market and economy 112

European Community (EC)/African, Caribbean

and Pacific (ACP) countries
1975 EC–African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Lomé Partnership
Agreements (also known as the Lomé Conventions), revised 1981, 1985,
and 1986 31, 115, 118

European Union (EU)/African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries

2000 EU–African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Cotonou Partnership
Agreement, revised 2005 114, 118

European Union (EU)/Morocco

1996 EU–Morocco Association Agreement 1996
Art. 52 87

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 113
Preamble 96
Art. III 113
1974 Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) 99, 118, 121, 122, 124

xiii

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

International Labour Organization (ILO)

1919 Constitution 19, 32, 45, 76
Preamble 74
Minimum Age (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 5) 80
Minimum Age (Agriculture) Convention, 1921 (No. 10) 80
Minimum Age (Trimmers and Stokers) Convention, 1921 (No. 15) 80
Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) 184, 245, 246
Old-Age Insurance (Industry, etc.) Convention, 1933 (No. 35) 81
Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1934 (No. 41) 259
Underground Work (Women) Convention, 1935 (No. 45) 81, 164
Hours of Work and Manning (Sea) Convention, 1936 (No. 57) 80–81
Minimum Age (Sea) Convention (Revised), 1937 (No. 59) 81
Minimum Age (Non-Industrial Employment) Convention, 1937 (No. 60) 81
1944 Declaration of Philadelphia 32, 47, 74, 76
para. II (a) 44
Medical Examination of Young Persons (Industry) Convention, 1946
(No. 77) 81
Medical Examination of Young Persons (Non-Industrial Occupations)
Convention, 1946 (No. 78) 81
Night Work of Young Persons (Non-Industrial Occupations) Convention, 1946
(No. 79) 81
Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81) 212
Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention,
1948 (No. 87) 19, 45, 157, 158, 165, 184, 208, 245, 246, 247
Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948 (No. 89) 259
Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) 19,
45, 157, 158, 165, 184, 208, 245, 246, 247
Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100) 19, 38, 45, 79, 164, 184,
245, 248, 256
Equal Remuneration Recommendation, 1951 (No. 90) 79
Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) 184, 245
Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958
(No. 111) 19, 45, 79, 164, 184, 245, 248
Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Recommendation, 1958
(No. 111) 79
Minimum Age (Underground Work) Convention, 1965 (No. 123) 81
Medical Examination of Young Persons (Underground Work) Convention,
1965 (No. 124) 81
Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) 81, 82–83, 83, 184, 245, 248

xiv

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 Table of international instruments

Labour Relations (Public Service) Convention, 1978 (No. 151) 159

Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981 (No. 156) 19, 45, 79,
165
Workers with Family Responsibilities Recommendation, 1981 (No. 165) 79
Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 (No. 175) 19
Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177) 19
Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181) 19, 143
1977 Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises
and Social Policy, revised 2000 86, 116
1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work 53, 75, 76,
83, 86, 106, 243, 245, 247
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) 81, 83, 184, 245,
248
Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183) 165
2001 Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work 190
Employment Relationship Recommendation, 2006 (No. 198) 19, 25, 54, 198
2008 Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization 32

International Trade Organization (ITO)

1948 Havana Charter 95, 96
Ch. III 96

League of Nations
1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child 81

Organization of African Unity

1991 Treaty establishing the African Economic Community 195

Southern African Development Community (SADC)

1992 Treaty establishing the Southern African Development
Community 184
1996 Protocol on Trade 195
1997 Code on HIV/AIDS and Employment 189, 190, 223
paras 1–12 190
1997 Declaration on Gender and Development 215
1998 Draft Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons 185, 194
2003 Charter of Fundamental Social Rights 185
Art. 4 185
Art. 5 185

xv

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

Art. 11 185
Art. 11(a) 185
Art. 13 185
Art. 15 185
Art. 16(1) 185

United Nations (UN)

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 78, 81
Art. 2 77
Art. 7 78
Art. 10 78
Art. 12 78
Art. 16 77
Art. 17 78
Art. 18 78
Arts 21–23 78
Art. 25 77
1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 76, 78
Art. 3 78
1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR) 76, 78, 81
Art. 3 78
Art. 7 78
Art. 10 78
Art. 10(3) 81
1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) 215
1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 82
Art. 32 82
1999 Global Compact 86

United States (US)/Canada/Mexico

1994 North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC ) 108,
109, 110, 111, 167, 168, 169
Art. 22 108
Art. 23 108
1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ) 108, 115, 116, 161,
166, 167

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 Table of international instruments

United States (US)/Cambodia

1996 US–Cambodia Agreement on Trade Relations and Intellectual Property
Rights Protection 121
2006 US–Cambodia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement 124

World Trade Organization (WTO)

1994 Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization
Preamble 97, 132
Art. 9 99
1995 Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) 99, 101, 118, 119, 121
1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 98
Art. IV 115

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 Table of domestic legislation

Angola
Constitutional Law 1992 182

Bangladesh
Apprentices Ordinance, 1962 236
Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1980 236
Employees’ Social Insurance Ordinance, 1962 227
Employment of Labour (Standing Orders) Act, 1965 227
EPZ Worker Association and Industrial Relations Act, 2004 234, 242
s. 14 234
s. 15 234
Export Processing Zones Authority Act, 1980 234
Factories Act, 1965 229, 236
Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 227
Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969
s. 3(a) 229
Inland Water Transport Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1992 236
Labour Act, 2006 229, 230, 231, 234, 235, 240, 242
s. 1 231
s. 2(xxxi) 230
s. 211(8) 234
Minimum Wage Ordinance, 1961 227
Newspaper Employees (Condition of Service) Act, 1974 236
Penal Code, 1860 226

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

Road Transport Workers Ordinance, 1961 227, 236

Shops and Establishment Act, 1965 236
Suppression of Violence against Women and Children Act, 2000 248
Tea Plantation Labour Ordinance, 1962 227, 236
Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) Ordinance, 1960 227, 236

Botswana
Constitution 1966
Ch. II 182
Employment Act No. 29 of 1982 205
§ 2 205

Brazil
Constitutional Amendment (Emenda Constitucional) 45,
30 December 2004 155

Burundi
Labour Code 22

Cambodia
Labour Code 1972 121
Labour Code 1992 121
Labour Code 1997 121

Cameroon
Civil Code 1981 39
Labour Code 1992 22

Chad
Labour Code 16

Chile
Act No. 20,005 of 2005 38
Act No. 20,123 of 2006 38
Labour Code 1994 38

China
Code of Civil Procedure 1982 70
Code of Criminal Procedure 1979, revised 1997 70

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 Table of domestic legislation

Criminal Code 1979, revised 1997 70

Dominican Republic
Labour Code 1992 152

France
Labour Code (Code du Travail) 66

Guinea
Labour Code 22

India
Beedi and Cigar Workers Act, 1966 235
Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 249
Charter Act, 1726 226
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 235
s. 3 255
Cine Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act,
1981 235
Constitution 1949 238, 257
art. 15(1) 257
art. 15(3) 257
Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 230, 231
Defence of India Rules, 1941 237
Dock Workers (Regulation and Employment) Act, 1948 235
Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provision Act, 1952 227
Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 227, 245, 255
Employers’ and Workmen’s (Disputes) Act, 1860 226
Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 255, 256
Essential Services Maintenance Acts 246
Factories Act, 1948 229, 235, 258
s. 66(2) 258
Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 227, 229, 230, 243, 255
Ch. V-B 242
s. 9A 242
Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 229
Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969
s. 7(2) 235
s. 22 235

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 Labour law and worker protection in developing countries

Labour Laws (Exemption from Furnishing Returns and Maintaining Registers

by Central Establishments) Act, 1988 249
Legal Services Authority Act, 1987 251
Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 255
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 245
Mines Act, 1952 235
Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961 235
Penal Code, 1860 226
Plantations Labour Act, 1951 235
Shops and Establishments Acts of various states 235, 258
Special Economic Zone Act, 2005 234
Trade Disputes Act, 1929 227
Trade Unions Act, 1926 227, 229, 240
Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2001 240
Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008 245
Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service)
and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 235
Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 227

Korea, Republic of
Labour Standards Act, No. 5309 of 1997 127

Lesotho
Constitution 1993 214
Ch. II 182
art. 18 214
art. 26 214
art. 29 214
art. 30 214
art. 31 214
Labour Code (Codes of Practice), Government Notice No. 4 of 2003 (the
Labour Code Codes of Practice) 215, 218
§ 16(13) 218
§ 51(4)(b)(i) 215
§§ 55–70 215
Labour Code Order No. 24 of 1992 (the Labour Code) 214, 215, 216, 217,
219, 220
§ 5 219
§ 5(1) 215

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which served as kitchen, dining, and ball-rooms. All are built of
stone, with benches at the doors where peasants might rest at noon
or evening; all are clothed with ivy; all closed and locked. We skirted
the lake to get to the laiterie, or dairy. It is a one-storied cottage,
with windows in the tiled roof. Long French casements and glazed
doors allowed us to get a tolerable view of the interior. The floor, and
the ledges running around the room, are marble or smooth stone.
Within this building court-gallants churned the milk of the Swiss
cows that grazed in the lakeside glades; maids of honor made curds
and whey for the noonday dinner, and the leader of the frolic
moulded rolls of butter with her beautiful hands, attired like a dairy-
maid, and training her facile tongue to speak peasant patois. The
industrious ivy climbs to the low-hanging eaves, and, drooping in
long sprays that did not sway in the sleeping air, touched the busts
of king and queen set upon tall pedestals, the one between the two
windows in the side of the house, the other between the glass doors
of the front gable. An observatory tower, with railed galleries
encircling the first and third stories, is close to the laiterie.
Many sovereigns in France and elsewhere have had expensive
playthings. Few have cost the possessors more dearly than did this
Swiss hamlet.
Innocent as the pastimes of miller and dairymaid appear to us,
the serious student of those times sees plainly that the comedy of
happy lowly life was a burning, cankering insult to the apprehension
of the starving people to whom the reality of peace and plenty in
humble homes, was a tradition antedating the reign of the Great
Louis. While their children died of famine, and men prayed vainly for
work, the profligate court, to maintain whose pomp the poor man’s
earnings were taxed, demeaned their queen and themselves in such
senseless mummeries as beguiled Time of weight in the pleasure-
grounds of the Petit Trianon.
The Place de la Concorde, from which Marie Antoinette waved
farewell to the Tuileries—dearer to her in death than it had been in
life—is the connecting link between the toy-village in the Versailles
Park and the Expiatory Chapel, in what was formerly the Cemetery
of the Madeleine in Paris. Leaving the bustling street, one enters
through a lodge, a garden, cheerful in November, with roses and
pansies. A broad walk connects the lodge and the tomb-like façade
of the chapel. On the right and left of paved way and turf-borders
are buried the Swiss Guard, over whose dead bodies the insurgents
rushed to seize the queen in the Tuileries, when compromise and the
mockery of royalty were at an end. The chapel is small, but
handsome. On the right, half-way up its length, is a marble group,
life-size, of the kneeling king, looking heavenward from the scaffold,
in obedience to the gesture of an angel who addresses him in the
last words of his confessor—“Son of St. Louis, ascend to Heaven!”
Opposite is an exquisite portrait-statue of the queen, her sinking
figure supported by Religion. Anguish and resignation are blended in
the beautiful face. Her regards, like those of the king, are directed
upward. The features of Religion are Madame Elizabeth’s, the faithful
sister of Louis, who perished by the guillotine May 12, 1794. Both
groups are admirably wrought, and seen in the dim light of the
stained windows, impressively life-like.
In the sub-chapel, gained by a winding stair, is an altar of black
marble in a recess, marking the spot where the unfortunate pair
were interred after their execution. The Madeleine was then
unfinished, and in the orchard back of it the dishonored corpse of
Louis, and, later, of his widow, were thrust into the ground with no
show of respect or decency. The coffins were of plain boards; the
severed heads were placed between the feet; quicklime was thrown
in to hasten decomposition; the grave or pit was ten feet deep, and
the soil carefully leveled. No pains were spared to efface from the
face of the earth all traces of the victims of popular fury. But loving
eyes noted the sacred place; kept watch above the mouldering
remains until the nation turned to mourn over the slaughter wrought
by their rage. Husband and wife were removed to the vaults of the
Kings of France, at St. Denis, in 1817, by Louis Philippe. The
consciences of himself and people fermented actively about that
time, touching the erection of a monument expiatoire. The Place de
la Concorde was re-christened “Place de Louis XVI.,” with the ulterior
design of raising upon the site of his scaffold, obelisk or church,
which should bear his name and be a token of his subjects’
contrition. To the like end, the king of the French proposed to
change the Temple de la Gloire of Napoleon I.—otherwise the
Madeleine—into an expiatory church, dedicated to the manes of
Louis XVI., Louis XVII. (the little Dauphin), Marie Antoinette, and
Madame Elizabeth, a hapless quartette whose memory needed
rehabilitation at the hands of the reigning monarch and his loving
subjects, if ever human remorse could atone for human suffering.
The Chapelle Expiatoire is the precipitate and settlement into
crystallization of this mental and moral inquietude.
“No, madame!” said the custodian, in a burst of confidence. “We
have not here the corpses of Louis XVI. and his queen. Their
skeletons repose at St. Denis. But only their bones! For there are
here”—touching the black marble altar—“the earth, the lime, the
clothing that enclosed their bodies. And upon this spot was their
deep, deep grave. People of true sensibility prefer to weep here
rather than in the crypt of St. Denis!”
On the same day we saw St. Roch. Bonaparte planted his cannon
upon the broad steps, October 3, 1795, and fired into the solid ranks
of the advancing Royalists—insurgents now in their turn. The front of
the church is scarred by the balls that returned the salute. The chief
ornament of the interior is the three celebrated groups of statuary in
the Chapelle du Calvaire. These—the Crucifixion, Christ on the Cross,
and the Entombment—are marvelous in inception and execution.
The small chapel enshrining them becomes holy ground even to the
Protestant gazer. They moved us as statuary had never done before.
Returning to them, once and again, from other parts of the church,
to look silently upon the three stages in the Story that is above all
others, we left them finally with lagging tread and many backward
glances. At the same end of the church is the altar at which Marie
Antoinette received her last communion, on the day of her death.
 “Were they here, then?” we asked of the sacristan, pointing to the
figures in the Chapelle du Calvaire.
“But certainly, Madame! They are the work, the most famous, of
Michel Anguier, who died in 1686. The queen saw them, without
doubt.”
While the bland weather lasted, we drove out to Père Lachaise,
passing en route, the Prison de la Roquette, in which condemned
prisoners are held until executed. The public place of execution is at
its gates. This was a slaughter-pen during the Commune. The
murdered citizens,—the Archbishop of Paris, and the curé of the
Madeleine among them,—were thrown into the fosses communes of
Père Lachaise. These common ditches, each capable of containing
fifty coffins, are the last homes donated by the city of Paris to the
poor who cannot buy graves for themselves. One is thankful to learn
that the venerable Archbishop and his companions were soon
granted worthier burial. Our cocher told us what may, or may not be
true, that the last victim of the guillotine suffered here; likewise that
one of the fatal machines is still kept within the walls ready for use.
For a mile—perhaps more—before reaching Père Lachaise, the
streets are lined with shops for the exhibition and sale of flowers,—a
few natural, many artificial,—wreaths of immortelles, yellow, white
and black, and an incredible quantity of bugle and bead garlands,
crosses, anchors, stars and other emblematic devices. Windows,
open doors, shelves and pavement are piled with them. Plaster
lambs and doves and cherubs, porcelain ditto; small glazed pictures
of deceased saints, angels and other creatures; sorrowing women
weeping over husbands’ death-beds, empty cradles and little graves,
—all framed in gilt or black wood,—are among the merchandise
offered to the grief-stricken. A few of the mottoes wrought into the
immortelle and bead decorations will give a faint idea of the
“Frenchiness” of the display.
“Hélas!” “À ma chère femme,” “Chère petite,” “Ah! mon amie,”
“Bien-aimée,” “Chérie,” and every given Christian name known in the
Gallic tongue.
The famous Cemetery, which contains nearly 20,000 monuments,
great and small, is a curious spectacle to those who have hitherto
seen only American and English burial-grounds. Père Lachaise is a
city of the dead; not “God’s Acre,” or the garden in which precious
seed have been committed to the dark, warm, sweet earth in hope
of Spring-time and deathless bloom. The streets are badly paved
and were so muddy when we were there, that we had to pick our
steps warily in climbing the steep avenue beginning at the gates.
Odd little constructions, like stone sentry-boxes, rise on both sides of
the way. Most of these are surrounded by railings. All have grated
doors, through which one can survey the closets within. Flagging
floors, plain stone, or plastered walls and ceilings; low shelves or
seats at the back, where the meditative mourner may sit to weep
her loss, or kneel to pray for the belovéd soul,—these are the same
in each. The monotony of the row is broken occasionally by a
chapel, an enlarged and ornate edition of the sentry-box, or a
monument resembling in form those we were used to see in other
cemeteries. The avenues are rather shady in summer. At our
November visit, the boughs were nearly bare, and rotting leaves,
trampled in the mud of the thoroughfares, made the place more
lugubrious. Really cheerful or beautiful it can never be. The flowers
set in the narrow beds between tombs and curbings, scarcely
alleviate the severely business-like aspect. Still less is this softened
by the multitudinous bugled and beaded ornaments depending from
the spikes of iron railings, cast upon sarcophagi, and the marble
ledges within the gates. All Soul’s Day was not long past and we
supposed this accounted for the superabundance of these offerings.
We were informed subsequently that there are seldom fewer than
we saw at this date. About and within one burial-closet—a family-
tomb—we counted fifty-seven bugle wreaths of divers patterns, in all
the hues of the rainbow, besides the conventional black-and-white.
The parade of mortuary millinery, for a while absurd, became
presently sickening, horribly tawdry and glistening. It was a relief to
laugh heartily and naturally when we saw a child pick up a garland
of shiny purple beads, and set it rakishly upon the bust of Joseph
Fourier, the inclination of the decoration over the left eyebrow
making him seem to wink waggishly at us, in thorough enjoyment of
the situation.
We wanted to be thoughtful and respectful in presence of the
dead, but the achievement required an effort which was but lamely
successful. Dispirited we did become, by and by, and fatigued with
trampling up steep lanes and cross-alleys. Carriages cannot enter
the grounds, and even a partial exploration of them is a weariness.
We drooped like the weeping-willow set beside Alfred de Musset’s
tomb, before we reached it. An attenuated and obstinately
disconsolate weeper is the tree planted in obedience to his request:
—
“Mes chers amis, quand je mourrai,
Plantez un saule au cimetière;
J’aime son feuillage éploré,
La pâleur m’en est douce et chère;
Et son ombre sera légère,
À la terre où je dormirai.”
The conditions of the sylvan sentinel whose sprays caressed his
bust, were, when we beheld it, comically “according to order.” There
were not more than six branches upon the tree, a few sickly leaves
hanging to each. At its best the foliage must have been “pale” and
the shade exceedingly “light.”
The Gothic chapel roofing in the sarcophagus of Abelard and
Heloïse, was built of stones from the convent of Paraclet, of which
Heloïse was, for nearly half a century, Lady Superior. From this
retreat she addressed to her monkish lover letters that might have
drawn tears of blood from the heart of a flint; which impelled
Abelard to the composition of quires of homilies upon the proper
management of the nuns in her charge, including by-laws for
conventual housewifery. Under the pointed arches the mediæval
lovers rest, side by side, although they were divided in death by the
lapse of twenty-two years. Sarcophagus and effigies are very old,
having been long kept among the choice antiquities of a Parisian
museum and placed in Père Lachaise by the order of Louis Philippe.
The monument was originally set up in the Abbey of Heloïse near
the provincial town of Nogent-sur-Seine, where the rifled vault is still
shown. Prior and abbess slumbered there for almost seven
centuries. Their statues are of an old man and old woman, vestiges
of former beauty in the chiseled features; more strongly drawn lines
of thought and character in brow, lip, and chin. They wear their
conventual robes.
Peripatetic skeletons and ashes are à la mode in this polite
country. The “manes,” poets and epitaphs are so fond of
apostrophizing, should have lively wits and faithful memories if they
would keep the run of their mortal parts.
Marshal Ney has neither sentry-box, nor chapel, nor memorial-
tablet. His grave is within a square plat, railed in by an iron fence.
The turf is fresh above him, and late autumn roses, lush and sweet,
were blooming around. The ivy, which grows as freely in France as
brambles and bind-weed with us, made a close, green wall of the
railing. We plucked a leaf, as a souvenir. It is twice as large as our
ivy-leaves, shaded richly with bronze and purple, and whitely veined,
and there were hundreds as fine upon the vine.
One path is known as that of the “artistes,” and is much
frequented. Upon Talma’s head-stone is carved a tragic mask. Music
weeps over the bust of Bellini and beside Chopin’s grave, and, in
bas-relief, crowns the sculptured head of Cherubini. Bernardin de St.
Pierre lies near Boïeldieu, the operatic composer. Denon, Napoleon’s
companion in Egypt, and general director of museums under the
Empire, sits in bronze, dark and calm as a dead Pharaoh, in the
neighborhood of Madame Blanchard, the aëronaut, who perished in
her last ascent. There was a picture of the disaster in Parley’s
Magazine, forty years ago. I remembered it—line for line, the
bursting flame and smoke, the falling figure—at sight of the
inscription setting forth her title to artistic distinction. Upon another
avenue lie La Fontaine, Molière,—(another itinerant, re-interred here
in 1817,) Laplace, the astronomer, and Manuel Garcia, the gifted
father of a more gifted daughter,—Malibran. “Around the corner,” we
stumbled, as it were, upon the tomb of Madame de Genlis.
Rachel sleeps apart from Gentile dust in the Jewish quarter of
Père Lachaise. Beside the bare stone closet above her vault is a bush
of laurestinus, with glossy green leaves. The floor inside was literally
heaped with visiting-cards, usually folded down at one corner to
signify that he or she, paying the compliment of a post-mortem
morning-call, deposited the bit of pasteboard in person. There was
at least a half bushel of these touching tributes to dead-and-gone
genius. No flowers, natural or false, no immortelles—no bugle
wreaths! Only visiting-cards, many engraved with coronets and other
heraldic signs, tremendously imposing to simple Republicans. We
examined fifty or sixty, returning them to the closet, with scrupulous
care, after inspection. Some admirers had added to name and
address, a complimentary or regretful phrase that would have
titillated the insatiate vanity of the deceased, could she have read it,
—wounded to her death as she had been by the success of her rival
Ristori. Her votaries may have had this reminiscence of her last days
in mind, and a shadowy idea that her “manes,” in hovering about her
grave, would be cognizant of their compassionate courtesies.
Most of the offerings were from what we never got out of the
habit of styling “foreigners.” There were a few snobbish-looking
English cards,—one with a sentence, considerately scribbled in
French—“Mille et mille compliments.” So far as our inspection went,
there was not one that bore an American address. Nor did we leave
ours as exceptions to this deficiency in National appreciation of
genius and artistic power—or National paucity of sentimentality.
 CHAPTER XIII.
Southward-Bound.

O NOT go to Rome!” friends at home had implored by

letter and word of mouth, prior to our sailing from the
other side. English acquaintances and friends caught up
the cry. In Paris, it swelled into impassioned adjuration, reiterated in
so many forms, and at times so numerous and unseasonable that we
nervously avoided the remotest allusion to the Eternal City in word.
But sleeping and waking thoughts were tormented by mental
repetitions that might, or might not be the whispers of guardian
angels.
“Do not go to Rome! Do not thou or you go to Rome! Do not ye
or you go to Rome!”
Thus ran the changes in the burden of admonition and thought.
Especially, “Do not ye or you go to Rome!”
“Go, if you are bent upon it, me dear!” said a kind English lady.
“Your husband is robust, and it may be as you and he believe, that
your health requires a mild and sedative climate. But do not take
your dear daughters. The air of Rome is deadly to young English and
American girls. Quite a blight, I assure you!”
Said one of our Paris bankers to Caput:—“I can have no
conceivable interest in trying to turn you aside from your projected
route, but it is my duty in the cause of common humanity to warn
you that you are running into the jaws of danger in taking your
family to Rome. We have advices to-day that the corpses of thirteen
Americans, most of them women and children,—all dead within the
week—are now lying at Maquay and Hooker’s in Rome awaiting
transportation to America.”
 This was appalling. But matters waxed serious in Paris, too.
Indian Summer over, it began to rain. In Scriptural phrase,—“Neither
sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest”—of
mist, sleet and showers—“lay upon us.” Deprived of what was my
very life—(what little of it remained,) daily exercise in the open air,
the cough, insomnia and other terrors that had driven us into exile,
increased upon me rapidly and alarmingly. Weakening day by day, it
was each morning more difficult to rise and look despairingly from
my windows upon the watery heavens and flooded streets. Sunshine
and soft airs were abroad somewhere upon the earth. Find them we
must before it should be useless to seek them. The leader of the
household brigade ordered a movement along the whole line. Like a
brood of swallows, we fled southward. “Certainly to Florence.
Probably to Rome. Should the skies there prove as ungenial as those
of France,—as a last and forlorn hope—to Algiers.” Such were the
terms of command.
We arrived in Florence, the Beautiful, at ten o’clock of a
December night. The facchini and cocchieri at the station stared
wildly when we addressed them in French, became frantic under the
volley of Latin Caput hurled upon them, in the mistaken idea that
they would understand their ancestral tongue. Italian was, as yet, an
unknown realm to us, and our ignominious refuge was in the
universal language of signs. Porters and coachmen were quick in
interpretation, much of their intercourse with their fellow-
countrymen being carried on in like manner. The luggage was
identified, piece by piece, and fastened upon the carriages. The
human freight was bestowed within, and as Prima dropped upon the
seat beside me, she lifted her hand in a vow:
“I begin the study of Italian to-morrow!”
It was raining steadily, the streets were ill-lighted, the pavements
wretched; and when a slow drive through tortuous ways brought us
to our desired haven, the house was so full that comfortable
accommodations for so large a party could not be procured. The
proprietor kindly and courteously directed us to a neighboring hotel,
which he could conscientiously recommend, and sent an English-
speaking waiter—a handsome, quick-witted fellow—to escort us
thither and “see that we were not cheated.”
“Babes in the woods—nothing more!” grumbled the high-spirited
young woman at my elbow.
She was the mistress of a dozen telling Italian words before she
slept. Our bed-rooms and adjoining salon were spacious, gloomy,
and cheerless to a degree unknown out of Italy. The hotel had been
a palace in the olden times, after the manner of three-fourths of the
Italian houses of entertainment. Walls and floor were of stone, the
chill of the latter striking through the carpets into our feet My
chamber, the largest in the suite, contained two bier-like beds set
against the far wall, bureau, dressing-table, wash-stand, six heavy
chairs, and a sofa, and, between these, a desolate moor of bare
carpeting before one could gain the hearth. This was a full brick in
width, bounded in front by a strip of rug hardly wider—at the back
by a triangular hole in the wall, in which a chambermaid proceeded,
upon our entrance, to build a wood fire. First, a ball of resined
shavings was laid upon the bricks; then, a handful of dried twigs;
then, small round sticks; then, diminutive logs, split and seasoned,
and we had a crackling, fizzing, conceited blaze that swept all the
heat with it up the chimney. The Invaluable’s spirit-lamp upon the
side-table had more cheer in it. If set down upon the pyramid of
Cheops, and told we were to camp there overnight, this feminine
Mark Tapley would, in half-an-hour, have made herself and the rest
of us at home; got up “a nice tea;” put Boy to bed and sat down
beside him, knitting in hand, as composedly as in our nursery over
the sea.
Her “comfortable cup of tea” was ready by the time our supper
was brought up—a good supper, hot, and served with praiseworthy
alacrity. We ate it, and drank our tea, and looked at the fire,
conscious that we ought also to feel it, it was such a brisk, fussy
little conflagration. Landlord and servants were solicitous and
attentive; hot-water bottles were tucked in at the foot of each frozen
bed, and we sought our pillows in tolerable spirits.
Mine were at ebb-tide again next morning, as, lying upon the
sofa, mummied in shawls, a duvet, covered with satinet and filled
with down, on the top of the heap, yet cold under them all, my eyes
wandered from the impertinent little fire that did not thaw the air
twelve inches beyond the hearth, to the windows so clouded with
rain I could hardly see the grim palace opposite, and I wondered
why I was there. Was the game worth the expensive candle? Why
had I not stayed at home and died like a Christian woman upon a
spring-mattress, swathed in thick blankets, environed by friends and
all the appliances conducive to euthanasia? I had begged the others
to go out on a tour of business and sight-seeing. I should be quite
comfortable with my books, and the thought of loneliness was
preposterous. Was I not in Florence? Knowing this, it would be a
delight to lie still and dream. In truth, I was thoroughly miserable,
yet would have died sooner than confess it. I did not touch one of
the books laid upon the table beside me, because, I said to my
moody self, it was too cold and I too languid to put my hand out
from the load of wraps.
There was a tap at the door. It unclosed and shut again softly. An
angel glided over the Siberian desert of carpet—before I could
exclaim, bent down and kissed me.
“Oh!” I sighed, in hysterical rapture. “I did not know you were in
Italy!”
She was staying in the hotel at which we had applied for rooms
the night before, and the handsome interpreter, Carlo, had reported
our arrival to the Americans in the house.
Shall I be more glad to meet her in heaven than I was on that
day to look upon the sweet, womanly face, and hear the cooing
voice, whose American intonations touched my heart to melting?
She sat with me all the forenoon, the room growing warmer each
hour. Her party—also a family one—had now been abroad more than
a year. The invalid brother, her especial charge, was wonderfully
better for the travel and change of climate. He was far more ill than
I when they left home. Of course I would get well! Why not, with
such tender nurses and the dear Lord’s blessing? No! it did not “rain
always in Florence;” but the rainy season had now set in, and
“Frederic and I are going to Rome next week.” I question if she ever
named herself, even in thought or prayer, without the prefix of
“Frederic.”
“To Rome!” cried I, eagerly. “Dare you!”
My story of longing, discouragement, dreads—that had darkened
into superstitious presentiments—followed. The day went smoothly
enough after the confession, and the reassurances that it elicited.
We secured smaller and brighter bed-rooms, and almost warmed
them by ruinously dear fires, devouring as they did basketful after
basketful of the Lilliputian logs. It was the business of one facchino
to feed the holes in the walls of the three rooms we inhabited in the
day-time. Other friends called—cordial and lavish of kind offices and
offers as are compatriots when met upon foreign soil. One family—
old, old friends of Caput—had, although now resident in Florence,
lived for a year in Rome, and laughed to scorn our fears of the
climate. They rendered us yet more essential service in suggestions
as to clothing, apartments, and general habits of life in Central Italy.
To the adoption of these we were, I believe, greatly indebted for the
unbroken health which was our portion as a household during our
winter in the dear old city.
We were in Florence ten days. Nine were repetitions, “to be
continued,” of such weather as we had left in Paris. One was so
deliciously lovely that, had not the next proved stormy, we should
have postponed our departure. We made the most of the sunshine,
taking a carriage, morning and afternoon, for drives in the outskirts
of the town and in the suburbs, which must have given her the
name of bella. The city proper is undeniably and irremediably ugly.
The streets are crooked lanes, in which the meeting of two carriages
drives foot-passengers literally to the wall. There are no sidewalks
other than the few rows of cobble-stones slanting down from the
houses to the gutter separating them from the middle of the
thoroughfare. The far-famed palaces are usually built around
courtyards, and present to the street walls sternly blank, or frowning
with grated windows. If, at long intervals, one has snatches through
a gateway of fountains and conservatories, they make the more
tedious block after block of lofty edifices that shut out light from the
thread-like street—shed chill with darkness into these dismal wells.
This is the old city in its winter aspect. Wider and handsome streets
border the Arno—a sluggish, turbid creek—and the modern quarters
are laid out generously in boulevards and squares. We modified our
opinions materially the following year, when weather and physical
state were more propitious to favorable judgment. Now, we were
impatient to be gone, intolerant of the praises chanted and written
of Firenze in so many ages and tongues. The happiest moment of
our stay within her gates was when we shook off so much of her
mud as the action could dislodge from our feet and seated ourselves
in a railway carriage for Rome.
It was a long day’s travel, but the most entrancing we had as yet
known. Vallambrosa, Arezzo (the ancient Arretium), Cortona; Lake
Thrasymene! The names leaped up at us from the pages of our
guide-books. The places for which they stood lay to the right and
left of the prosaic railway, like scenes in a phantasmagoria. We had,
as was our custom when it could be compassed by fee or argument,
secured a compartment to ourselves. There were no critics to sneer,
or marvel at our raptures and quotations. Boy, ætat four, whose
preparation for the foreign tour had been readings, recitations, and
songs from “Lays of Ancient Rome,” in lieu of Mother Goose and
Baby’s Opera, and whose personal hand-luggage consisted of a very
dog-eared copy of the work, illustrated by stiff engravings from bas-
reliefs upon coins and stones—bore a distinguished part in our talk.
He would see “purple Apennine,” and was disgusted at the
commonplace roofs of Cortona that no longer
 “Lifts to heaven
Her diadem of towers.”
At mention of the famous lake, he scrambled down from his seat;
made a rush for the window.
“Papa! is that ‘reedy Thrasymene?’ Where is ‘dark Verbenna?’”
As a reward for remembering his lesson so well, he was lifted to
the paternal knee, and while the train slowly wound along the upper
end of the lake, heard the story of the battle between Hannibal and
Flaminius, upon the weedy banks, B. C. 217; saw the defile in which
the brave consul was entrapped; where, for hours, the slaughter of
the snared and helpless troops went on, until the little river we
presently crossed was foul with running blood. It is Sanguinetto to
this day.
The vapors of morning were lazily curling up from the lake; dark
woods crowd down to the edge on one side; hills dressed in gray
olive orchards border another; a bold promontory on the west is
capped by an ancient tower. A monastery occupies one of the three
islands that dot the surface. A light film, like the breath upon a
mirror, veiled the intense blue of the sky—darkened the waters into
slaty purple.
A dense fog filled the basin between the hills on the May-day
when Rome’s best consul and general marched into it and to his
death.
On we swept, past Perugia, capital of old Umbria, one of the
twelve chiefest Etruscan cities; overcome and subjugated by the
Roman power B. C. 310. It was a battle-field while Antony and
Octavius contended for the mastership of Rome; was devastated by
Goth, Ghibelline and Guelph; captured successively by Savoyard,
Austrian, and Piedmontese. It is better known to this age than by all
these events as the home of Perugino, the master of Raphael, and
father of the new departure from the ancient school of painting. The
view became, each moment, more novel because more Italian. The
roads were scantily shaded by pollarded trees—mostly mulberry—
from whose branches depended long festoons of vines, linking them
together, without a break, for miles. Farms were separated by the
same graceful lines of demarcation. Other fences were rare. We did
not see “a piece of bad road,” or a mud-hole, in Italy. The road and
bridge-builders of the world bequeathed to their posterity one legacy
that has never worn out, which bids fair to last while the globe
swings through space. As far as the eye could reach along the many
country highways we crossed that day, the broad, smooth sweep
commanded our wondering admiration. The grade from crown to
sides is so nicely calculated that rain-water neither gathers in pools
in the road, nor gullies the bed in running off. Vehicles are not
compelled, by barbarous “turnpiking,” to keep the middle of the
track, thus cutting deep ruts other wheels must follow. It is unusual,
in driving, to strike a pebble as large as an egg.
The travellers upon these millennial thoroughfares were not
numerous. Peasants on foot drove herds of queer black swine, small
and gaunt, in comparison with our obese porkers—vicious-looking
creatures, with pointed snouts and long legs. Women, returning
from or going to market, had baskets of green stuff strapped upon
their backs, and often children in their arms; bare-legged men in
conical hats and sheepskin coats, trudged through clouds of white
dust, raised by clumsy carts, to which were attached the cream-
colored oxen of the Campagna. Great, patient beasts they are, the
handsomest of their race, with incredibly long horns symmetrically
fashioned and curved. These horns are sold everywhere in Italy as a
charm against “the evil eye”—the dread of all classes.
About the middle of the afternoon we descended into the valley
of the Tiber—the cleft peak of Soracte (Horace’s Soracte!) visible
from afar like a rent cloud. We crossed a bridge built by Augustus;
halted for a minute at the Sabine town that gave Numa Pompilius to
Rome; watched, with increasing delight, the Sabine and Alban
Mountains grow into shape and distinctness; gazed oftenest and
longest—as who does not?—at the Dome, faint, for a while, as a
bubble blown into the haze of the horizon—more strongly and nobly
defined as we neared our goal; crossed the Anio, upon which
Romulus and Remus had been set adrift; made a wide détour that,
apparently, took us away from, not toward the city, and showed us
the long reaches of the aqueducts, black and high, “striding across
the Campagna,” in the settling mists of evening. Then ensued an
odd jumble of ruins and modern, unfinished buildings, an
alternation, as incongruous, of strait and spacious streets, and we
steamed slowly into the station. It is near the Baths of Diocletian,
and looks like a very audacious interloper by daylight.
It was dusk when our effects were collected, and they and
ourselves jolting over miserable pavements toward our hotel in the
guardianship of a friend who had kindly met us at the station. By the
time we had reached the quarters he had engaged for us; had
waited some minutes in a reception-room in the rez-de-chaussée
that felt and smelt like a newly-dug grave; had ascended two flights
of obdurate stone stairs, cruelly mortifying to feet cramped and
tender with long sitting and the hot-water footstools of the railway
carriage; had sat for half an hour, shawled and hatted, in chambers
more raw and earthy of odor than had been the waiting-room,
watching the contest betwixt flame and smoke in the disused
chimneys, we discovered and admitted that we were tired to death.
Furthermore, that the sensation of wishing oneself really and
comfortably deceased, upon attaining this degree of physical
depression, is the same in a city almost thirty centuries old, and in a
hunter’s camp in the Adirondacks. Even Caput looked vexed, and
wondered audibly and repeatedly why fires were not ready in rooms
that were positively engaged and ordered to be made comfortable
twenty-four hours ago; and the Invaluable, depositing Boy, swathed
in railway rugs, upon one of the high, single beds, lest his feet
should freeze upon “the murdersome cold floors,” “guessed these
Eyetalians aren’t much, if any of fire-makers.” Thereupon, she went
down upon her knees to coax into being the smothering blaze, dying
upon a cold hearth under unskilfully-laid fuel. The carpet in the salon
we had likewise bespoken was not put down until the afternoon of
the following day. The fires in all the bed-rooms smoked. By eight
o’clock we extinguished the last spark and went to bed. In time, we
took these dampers and reactions as a part of a hard day’s work;
gained faith in our ability to live until next morning. Being
unseasoned at this period, the first night in Rome was torture while
we endured it, humiliating in the retrospect.
It rained from dawn to sundown of the next day. Not with
melancholy persistency, as in Florence, as if the weather were put
out by contract and time no object, but in passionate, fitful showers,
making rivers of the streets, separated by intervals of sobbing and
moaning winds and angry spits of rain-drops. We stayed in-doors,
and, under compulsion, rested. The fires burned better as the
chimneys warmed to their work; we unpacked a trunk or two; wrote
letters and watched, amused and curious, the proceedings of two
men and two women who took eight hours to stretch and tack down
the carpet in our salon. Each time one of us peeped, or sauntered in
to note and report progress, all four of the work-people intermitted
their ceaseless jargon to nod and smile, and say “Domane!” Young
travelled in Italy before he wrote “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and
to-morrow!”
Our morrow was brilliantly clear, and freshness like the dewy
breath of early Spring was in the air. Our first visit was, of course, to
our bankers, and while Caput went in to inquire for letters (and to
learn, I may add, that the story of the thirteen American corpses
was unsupported by the presence, then or during the entire season,
of a single one), we lay back among the carriage-cushions, feeling
that we drank in the sunshine at every pore—enjoying as children or
Italians might the various and delightful features of the scene.
The sunlight—clarified of all vaporous grossness by the departed
tempest—in color, the purest amber; in touch and play beneficent as
fairy balm, was everywhere. Upon the worn stones paving the Piazza
di Spagna, and upon the Bernini fountain (one of them), the
Barcaccia, at the foot of the Spanish Steps,—a boat, commemorating
the mimic naval battles held here by Domitian, when the Piazza was
a theatre enclosing an artificial lake. Upon beggars lolling along the
tawny-gray Steps, and contadini—boys, women, and girls—in
fantastic costume, attitudinizing to catch the eye of a chance artist.
Upon the column, with the Virgin’s statue on top, Moses, Isaiah,
Ezekiel, and David at the base, rusty tears, from unsuspected iron
veins, oozing out of the sides,—decreed by Pius IX. in honor of his
pet dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Upon the big, dingy
College of the Propaganda, founded in 1622, Barberini bees in bas-
relief conspicuous among the architectural ornaments. More of
Bernini’s work. Urban VIII., his patron, being a Barberini. Upon the
Trinita di Monti at the top of the Spanish Staircase, where the nuns
sing like imprisoned canaries—as sweetly and as monotonously—on
Sabbath afternoons, and all the world goes to hear them. Upon the
glittering windows of shops and hotels fronting the Piazza—the
centre of English and American colonies in Rome. Upon the white
teeth and brown faces of boys—some beautiful as cherubs—who
held up great trays of violets for us to buy, and wedded forever our
memories of the Piazza and this morning with violet scent. Upon the
wrinkles and rags of old women—some hideous as hags—who piped
entreaties that we would “per l’amore di Dio” make a selection from
their stock of Venetian beads, Naples lava trinkets, and Sorrento
wood-work. Upon the portly figure and bland countenance of Mr.
Hooker, coming out to welcome us to the city which has given him a
home for thirty years, and which he has made home-like to so many
of his country-people. Lastly, and to our fancy most brightly, upon
the faces of my Florence angel of mercy and her family party,
alighting from their carriage at the door of the bank, and hurrying up
to exchange greetings with us.
This was our real coming to Rome! Not the damp and
despondency of the thirty-six hours lying just behind us; dreariness
and doubts never renewed in the five fleet-footed months during
which we lingered and lived within her storied gates.
 CHAPTER XIV.
Pope, King, and Forum.

WAS sorry to leave the hotel, the name of which I

withhold for reasons that will be obvious presently. Not that
it was in itself a pleasant caravansary, although eminently
respectable, and much affected by Americans and English.
Not that the rooms were ever warm, although we wasted our
substance in fire-building; or that the one dish of meat at luncheon,
or the principal dessert at dinner, always “went around.” We had
hired a commodious and sunny “appartamento” of seven well-
furnished rooms in Via San Sebastiano—a section of the Piazza di
Spagna—and were anxious to begin housekeeping.
I did regret to leave, with the probability of never seeing her
again—a choice specimen of the Viatrix Americana, a veritable
unique, whose seat was next mine at luncheon and dinner. Our
friendship began through my declaration, at her earnest adjuration,
of my belief that the “kick-shaws,” as she called them, offered for
our consumption were harmless and passably digestible by the
Yankee stomach. She was half-starved, poor thing! and after this I
cheerfully fulfilled the office of taster, drawing my salary twice per
diem in the liberal entertainment of her converse with me. She had
been three-quarters of the way around the world, with her husband
as banker and escort; was great upon Egyptian donkeys and the
domestic entomology of Syria, and could not lisp one word of any
dialect excepting that of her native “Vairmount” and of her adopted
State, which we will name—Iowa.
“You sight-see so slow!” was her unintentional alliteration, on the
fifth day of our acquaintanceship. “Aint bin to see a church yet, hev
you?”
 I answered, timidly, that I was waiting to grow stronger. “The
churches are so cold in Winter that I shall probably put off that part
of my sight-seeing until Spring.”
“Good gracious! Be you goin’ to spend the winter here?”
“That is our hope, at present.”
“You’ll be bored to death! You wont see You-rope in ten year, if
you take it so easy. We calkerlate to do up Rome under a fortnight.
We’ve jest finished up the churches. On an averidge of thirty-five a
day! But we hed to work lively. Now we’re at the villers. One on ’em
you must see—sick or well. ’Taint so very much of it upstairs. The
beautifullest furnitur’ I ever see. Gildin’ and tay-pistry, and velvet
and picters and freskies, common as dirt, as you may say. The
gardings a sight to behold. You make your husband take you! Set
your foot down, for oncet!”
“What villa—did you say?”
“The Land! I don’t bother with the outlandish names. But you’ll
find it easy. Napoleon Boneypart did somethin’ or ’nother ther oncet.
Or, his son, or nephey, or some of the family. Any way, I do know I
never see sech winder-curtains anywhere. Thick as a board! Solid
satin. No linin’s, for I fingered ’em and took a peek at the wrong side
to be positive. We wound up the churches by goin’ to see the tomb
the Pope’s been a buildin’ of for himself. A kind o’ square pit, or
cellar right in the middle of the church of What’s-his-name?”
“Santa Maria Maggiore?”
“That’s the feller! You go down by two flights of stun steps. One
onto each side of the cellar. Its all open on top, you understand, on
a level with the church-floor, and jest veneered with marble. Every
color you can think of. Floor jest the same. Old Pope Griggory, he
aint buried yet. Lies ’bove-ground, in a red marble box. He can’t be
buried for good ’tell Pious, he dies. And he must hev the same spell
o’ waitin’ for the next one. Ther’ must be two popes on the top of
the yearth at the same time. One live and one dead. Thinks-I, when
I looked inter the cryp’—as they call it—jest a-blazin’ and a-dazzlin’
with red, blue, green and yellow, and polished like a new table-knife
blade.—If this aint vanity and vexation! I’d ruther hev our fam’ly lot
in the buryin’ groun’ to Meekinses Four Corners—(a real nice lot it is!
With only one stun’ as yet. ‘To my daughter Almiry Jane, Agéd six
months and six days,’) where I could be tucked up, like a lady, safe
and snug. Oncet for all and no bones about it!”
On the tenth and last day of our sojourn at the hotel, she went to
see the Pope.
“May I come inter your sittin’-room?” was her petition at evening.
“I am fairly bustin’ to tell you all about it. And if we go inter the
public parler, them Englishers will be makin’ fun behind my back. For,
you see, ther’s considerable actin’ to be done to tell it jest right.”
I took her into our salon, established her in an arm-chair, and was
attentive. I had seen her in her best black silk with the regulation
black lace shawl, which generally does duty as a veil, pinned to her
scanty hair. Ladies attending the Pope’s levees must dress in black,
without bonnets, the head being covered by a black veil. When thus
attired, my acquaintance had wound and hung at least half a peck of
rosaries upon her arms, “to have ’em handy for the old cretur’s
blessin’.” I was now to hear how her husband had hired at the
costumer’s the dress-coat prescribed for gentlemen.
“Come down to his heels, if you’ll believe me! He bein’ a spare
man, and by no manner of means tall. Sleeves a mile too long.
Collar over his ears. A slice of his bald head showed atop of it like a
new moon!”
She stopped to laugh, we all joining in heartily.
“Mr. Smith from St. Lewis,—he was along and his coat was as
much too small for him as my husband’s was too big for him. Mr.
Smith daresn’t breathe for fear of splittin’ it down the back.”
 I recollected the story of Cyrus and the two coats, and restrained
the suggestion that they might have exchanged garments.
“Eight francs an hour, they paid—one dollar ’n’ sixty cents good
money, for the use of each of the bothering machines. Well! when
we was all got up to kill as it were—(’twas some like it!) we druv’ off,
two carriage-fulls, to the Pope’s Palace—the Vacuum. Up the marble
steps we tugged, through five or six monstrous rooms, all precious
marbled and gilded and tapestried, into a long hall, more like a
town-meeting house than a parler. Stuffed benches along the side,
where we all sat down to wait for the old man. Three mortal hours,
he kept us coolin’ of our heels after the time advertised for the levy.
I hev washed an’ ironed and churned and done my own housework
in my day. I ain’t ashamed to say I’d ruther do a good day’s heft at
’em all, than to pass another sech tiresome mornin’. I don’t call it
mannerly to tell people when to come, and then not be ready. Mr.
Smith, he nearly died in his tight coat with the circulation stopped
into both arms. At last, the door at the bottom of the hall was flung
open by a fellow in striped breeches, and in he come. A man in a
black gownd to each side on him. He is powerful feeble-lookin’, but I
will say, aint quite so ancient as I’d expected to see. He leaned upon
the arm of one man. Another went ’round the room with ’em,
collectin’ of our names to give ’em to him. I forgot to tell you that
everybody dropped on their knees, the minute the door opened and
we saw who ’twas. That is, except Mr. Smith. He stood straight up,
like a brass post. He says, ‘because American citizens hadn’t oughter
bend the knee to no human man.’ I say he was afraid on account of
the coat. I didn’t jest like kneelin’ myself. So, I saved my conscience
by kinder squattin’! So-fashion!”
I was glad “the Englishers” were not by as she “made a cheese”
of her skirts by the side of her chair, and was up again in the next
breath.
“He wore a white skull-cap and a long white gownd belted at the
waist. Real broadcloth ’twas. I thought, at first, ’twas opery flannel
or merino, but when he was a-talkin’ to them next me, I managed to
pinch a fold of it. ’Twas cloth—high-priced it must ’a been—soft and
solid. But after all that’s said and done, he looks like an ole woman
and a fat one. Kind face, he hez, and a sort of sweet, greasy smile
onto it the whole time. He blessed us all ’round, and said to the
Americans how fond he was of their country, and how he hoped we
and our children would come back to the True Fold. It didn’t hurt us
none to hev him say it, you know, and we hed a fair look at him
while one of the black-gowners was a-translatin’ of it. Ther’ was two
sisters of charity or abbesses or nuns, or somethin’ of that sort
there, who dropped flat onto their faces on the bare floor when he
got to them,—and kissed his slipper. White they was—the slippers, I
mean—with a gold cross worked onto them. He gave us all his hand
to kiss, with the seal-ring held up. I aint much in the habit of that
sort o’ thing, and it did go agin my stomach a leetle. So, I tuk his
hand, this way”—seizing mine—“and smacked my lips over it without
them a-touchin’ on it.”
Again illustrating the narrative by “acting.”
“I tuk notice ’twas yellow, like old ivory, but flabby, as ’twas to be
counted upon at his time o’ life. Well, ’twas a sight to see them
charitable sisters mumblin’ and smouchin’ over the Holy Father’s
hand, and sayin’ prayers like a house a-fire, after they’d done with
his slipper and got up onto their knees; and him a-smiling like a pot
of hair-oil, and a-blessin’ on his dear daughters! One of ’em had
brought along a new white cap for him, embroidered elegant with
crosses and crowns and other rigmarees, by her own hands, most
likely. When she giv it to him, still on her knees and a-lookin’ up,
worshippin’-like, he very politely tuk off his old one and put on the
new. You’d a thought the poor thing would ’a died on that floor of
delight when he nodded at her, a smilin’ sweeter than ever, to show
how well it fitted. She’ll talk about it to her dyin’ day as the biggest
thing that ever happened to her, and never think, I presume, that he
must have about a hundred caps, given to him by other abbesses,
kickin’ ’round in the Vacuum closets. After he’d done up the row of
visitors—a hundred and odd—and blessed all the crosses, and
bunches of beads, and flowers, and artificial wreaths, and other
gimcracks, and all we had on to boot, he stopped in the middle of
the room and made us a little French sermon. Sounded neat—but, of
course, I didn’t get a word of it. Then he raised his hand and
pronounced the benediction, and toddled out. He rocks considerable
in his walk, poor old man! He ain’t long for this world; and, indeed,
he hez lived as long as his best friends care to hev him.”
I have had many other descriptions of the Pope’s receptions,
which were semi-weekly in this the last year of his life. In the main,
these accounts tallied so well with the charcoal sketch furnished by
my Yankee-Western dame, that I have given it as nearly as possible
as I received it from her lips.
Victor Emmanuel had reigned in Rome six years when we were
there. The streets were clean; the police vigilant and obliging; every
museum and monastery and library was unbarred by the Deliverer of
Italy. Protestant churches were going up within the walls of the city;
Protestant service was held wherever and whenever the worshippers
willed, without the visible protection of English or American flag. One
scarcely recognized in the renovated capital the Rome of which the
travelers of ’69 had written, so full and free had been the sweep of
the tidal wave of liberty and decency. The Pope, than whom never
man had a more favorable opportunity to do all the King had
accomplished, and more, was a voluntary prisoner in his palace of a
thousand rooms, with a beggarly retinue of five hundred servants,
and stables full of useless state-coaches and horses. Whoever would
see him shorn of the beams of temporal sovereignty must bend the
knee to him as spiritual lord. Without attempting to regulate the
consciences or actions of others, we declined to make this show of
allegiance. Since attendance in the temple of Rimmon was a matter
of individual option, we stayed without—Anglicé—we “stopped
away.”
Victor Emmanuel we saw frequently in his rides and drives about
Rome, and at various popular gatherings, such as reviews and state
gala-days. He was the homeliest and best belovèd man in his
dominions. Somewhat above medium height and thick-set, his
military bearing, especially upon horseback, barely redeemed his
figure from clumsiness. The bull-neck, indicative of the baser
qualities, the story of which is a blot upon his early life, upbore a
massive head, carried in manly, kingly fashion. His complexion was
purple-red; the skin, rough in grain, streaked with darker lines, as if
blood-vessels had broken under the surface. The firm mouth was
almost buried by the moustache, heavy and black, curling upward
until the tips threatened the eyes. The nose thick and retroussé,
with wide nostrils, corroborated the testimony of the neck. But,
beneath the full forehead, the eyes of the master of men and of
himself shone out so expressively that to meet them was to forget
blemishes of feature and form, and to do justice to the hero of his
age—the Father of United Italy.
Prince Umberto was often his father’s companion in the carriage
and on horseback—a much handsomer man, whom all regarded with
interest as the king of the future, with no premonition that the
eventful race of the stalwart parent was so nearly run, or that the
aged Pope, whose serious illnesses were reported from week to
week, would survive to send a message of amity to the monarch’s
death-bed.
The prettiest sight in Rome was one yet more familiar than that of
King and heir-apparent driving in a low carriage on the crowded
Pincio, unattended by so much as a single equerry. The Princess
Margherita, the people’s idol, took her daily airing as any lady of
rank might do, her little son at her side, accompanied by one or two
ladies of her modest court, and returning affably the salutations of
those who met or passed her. The frank confidence of the royal
family in the love of the people was with her a happy
unconsciousness of possible danger that stirred the most callous to
enthusiasm of loyalty. A murmur of blessing followed her appearance
among the populace. They never named her without endearing
epithets. During the Carnival, she drove, attended as I have
described, down the middle of the Corso, wedged in by a slow-
moving line of vehicles, the people packing side-walks and gutters
up to the wheels, a storm of cheering and waving caps breaking out
along the close files as they recognized her. We were abreast of her
several times; saw her bow to this side and that, swaying with
laughter while she put up both hands to ward off the rain of
bouquets poured upon her from balcony and pavement and carriage,
until her coach was full above her lap. The small Prince of Naples, on
his part, stood up and flung flowers vigorously to left and right,
shouting his delight in the fun.
We were strolling in the grounds of the Villa Borghese, one
afternoon, when we espied the scarlet liveries of the Princess
approaching along the road. That Boy, who was au fait to many tales
of her sweetness and charitable deeds, might have a better look at
one who ranked, in his imagination, with the royal heroines of fairy-
tales, his father lifted him to a seat upon the rail dividing the foot-
path from the drive. As the Princess came up, our group was the
only one in the retired spot, and Boy, staring solemnly with his great,
gray eyes, at the beautiful lady, of his own accord pulled off his
Scotch cap and made a profound obeisance from his perch upon the
rail. The Princess smiled brightly and merrily, and, after
acknowledging Caput’s lifted hat by a gracious bend of the head,
leaned forward to throw a kiss at Boy, as his especial token of favor,
while her boy took off and waved his cap with a nod of good-
fellowship.
One can believe that with this trivial incident in our minds it hurt
us to read, eighteen months later, of the little fellow’s terror at sight
of the blood streaming from his father’s arm upon his mother’s
dress, and at the clash over his innocent head of loyal sword and
assassin’s dagger.
The change in the government of Rome is not more apparent in
the improved condition of her streets and in the enforcement of
sanitary laws unknown or uncared-for under the ancien régime, than
in the aspect of the ruins—her principal attraction for thousands of
tourists. The Forum Romanum described by Hawthorne and Howells
as a cow-pasture, broken by the protruding tops of buried columns,
has been carefully excavated, and the rubbish cleared away down to
the original floor of the Basilica Julia, commenced by Julius Cæsar
and completed by Augustus. The boundaries of this, which was both
Law Court and Exchange, are minutely defined in the will of
Augustus, and the measurements have been verified by classic
archæologists. The Forum, as now laid bare, is a sunken plain with
steep sides, divided into two unequal parts by a modern street
crossing it. Under this elevated causeway, one passes through an
arch of substantial masonry from the larger division—containing the
Comitium, Basilica Julia, Temple of Castor and Pollux, site of Temple
of Vesta and the column of Phocas—Byron’s “nameless column with
the buried base,” now exposed down to the lettered pedestal—into
the smaller enclosure, flanked by the Tabularium on which is built
the modern Capitol. On a level with the Etruscan foundation-stones
of this are the sites of the Tribune and the Rostrum—fragments of
colored marble pavement on which Cicero stood when declaiming
against Catiline, eight majestic pillars, the remains of the Temple of
Saturn, three that were a part of the Temple of Vespasian, and the
arch of Septimius Severus. Upon the front of the latter is still seen
the significant erasure made by Caracalla, of his brother Geta’s
name, after the latter had fallen by his—Caracalla’s—hand. Near the
mighty arch is a conical heap of earth and masonry, which was the
Golden Milestone, the centre of Rome and of the world.
There were not many days in the course of that idyllic winter that
did not see some of us in the Forum. We haunted it early and late;
alighting for a few minutes, en route for other places, to run down
the slight wooden stair leading from the street-level, to verify to our
complete satisfaction some locality about which we had read or
heard, or studied since yesterday’s visit. Or coming, with books and
children, when the Tramontana was blowing up and down every
street in the city, and we could find no other nook so sheltered and
warm as the lee of the wall where once ran the row of butchers’
stalls, from one of which Virginius snatched the knife to slay his
daughter. My favorite seat was upon the site of the diminutive
Temple of Julius Cæsar (Divus Julius) the first reared in Rome in
honor of a mortal. The remnants of the green-and-white pavement
show where lay the body of great Cæsar when Mark Antony
delivered his funeral oration, and where Tiberius performed the like
pious office over the bier of Augustus.
The Via Sacra turns at this point, losing itself in one direction in
the bank, which is the limit of the excavation, winding in the other
through the centre of the exposed Forum, up to the Capitol
foundations. Horace was here persecuted by the bore whose portrait
is as true to life now as it was then. Dux read the complaint aloud to
us once, with telling effect, substituting “Broadway” for the ancient
name. Cicero sauntered along this fashionable promenade as a
young man waiting for clients; trod these very stones with the
assured step of the successful advocate and famous orator, and
upon them dripped the blood from his severed hand and head, and
the tongue pierced by Fulvia’s bodkin. Beyond the transversing
modern street is a mound, once a judgment-seat. There Brutus sat,
his face an iron mask, while his sons were scourged and beheaded
before his eyes. In the Comitium was the renowned statue of the
she-wolf, now in the Capitoline Museum, which was struck by
lightning at the moment of Cæsar’s murder in Pompey’s Theatre.
Cæsar passed by this way on the Ides of March from his house over
there—the Regia—where were enacted the mysteries of the Bona
Dea when Pompeia, Calphurnia’s predecessor, admitted Clodius to
the forbidden rites. The soothsayer who cried out to him may have
loitered in waiting by the hillock, which is all that is left of Vesta’s
Fane, where were kept the sacred geese.
Boy knew each site and meant no disrespect to the “potent,
grave, and reverend” heroes who used to pace the ancient street,
while entertaining himself by skipping back and forth its entire
length so far as it is uncovered, “telling himself a story.” He was
always happy when thus allowed to run and murmur, a trick begun
by the time he could walk. Content in this knowledge, the Invaluable
sat upon the steps of the Basilica Julia, knitting in hand, guarding a
square aperture near the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the one
danger (to Boy) in the Forum. For, looking into it, one saw the rush
of foul waters below hurrying to discharge themselves through the
Cloaca Maxima—built by Numa Pompilius—into the Tiber. Here, it is
said, yawned the gulf into which Curtius leaped, armed and
mounted.
“A quagmire, drained and filled up by an enterprising street
contractor of that name,” says Caput, to whom this and a score of
other treasured tales of those nebulously olden times are myths with
a meaning.
While I rested apart in my sunny corner, and watched the august
wraiths trooping past, or pretended to read with eyes that did not
see the book on my knees, Boy’s “story-telling” drifted over to me in
rhymical ripples:
“On rode they to the Forum,
While laurel-wreaths and flowers
From house-tops and from windows
Fell on their crests in showers.
When they drew nigh to Vesta,
They vaulted down amain,
And washed their horses in the well
That springs by Vesta’s fane.” . . . .
Or—
“And they made a molten image,
And set it up on high,
And there it stands unto this day
To witness if I lie.
It stands in the Comitium,
Plain for all folk to see—
Horatius in his harness
Halting upon one knee.”
 “Where is it now, Mamma? And Horatius? and the Great Twin
Brethren—and the rest of them?”
“Are gone, my darling!”
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