206 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and England, whither people resort from all parts of the world, and 

 where, when anarchy shows itself, it is like a meteor falling to the 

 earth from the extra-planetary regions wholly isolated and opposed 

 to the world around it. 



The most important cause of this transformation is the misery 

 that weighs upon our unfortunate country, evidence of which comes 

 in from every side even upon those who are not miserable themselves. 

 If even in the latest days Luccheni had been living comfortably, he 

 could not, with the excessively morbid altruism that dominated him, 

 have failed to feel this misery, which is so profound and general in 

 Italy. 



Xot much erudition is required to demonstrate the immense 

 economical embarrassment of Italy as contrasted with other coun- 

 tries when it is known that we pay about five hundred times its 

 value for salt, that bread is growing dearer every day, and that the 

 amount consumed diminishes one tenth every year in these lands. 



It was, therefore, with justice that Scarfoglio said in explaining 

 the origin of anarchism, " A good fifth of the population of Italy are 

 still living in a savage state, dwelling in cabins that the Papuans 

 would not live in, accommodating themselves to a food which the 

 Shillooks would refuse, having a vision and an idea of the world not 

 much more ample than that of the Kafnrs, and running over the 

 land desiring and seeking servitude." 



It may be added that it is because of this condition that is, of 

 the defective civilization that results from it that there is every- 

 where a weakened revulsion and diminished horror at blood-crimes, 

 so that there are now sixty homicides for every one hundred thou- 

 sand inhabitants. 



We may learn from this what the true remedies should be. The 

 idea of conquering anarchy by killing anarchists is not valid, because 

 every epileptic has another ready to take his place, because anarch- 

 istic crimes are to a great extent simply indirect suicides, and because 

 anarchists think as little of their own lives as of the life of another. 

 It is rather necessary to change the direction of the disease by chang- 

 ing the miserable conditions in which it originates. 



Not for humanity, therefore, not for exalted social theories, but 

 in our direct interest, we ought to make a complete change. The 

 suppression of a dozen anarchists is like killing a thousand microbes 

 without disinfecting the surroundings that contain milliards of them; 

 it is that we should look, if we want to be better, to breaking up the 

 large estates, and ameliorating the conditions of agriculture and 

 operative industry, and this in the interest of the governing classes. 



Typhus, cholera, and plague, it is true, attack chiefly the poor, 

 but from these the contagion extends also to the rich; and from the 



