political offenders,) of sinister memory, now levelled with the ground.
I take this last as a capital novelty. Another, more significant still,
is the Protestant Temple, which stares me in the face,--a poor work of
Art, if you will, but no less the embodiment of one of the most precious
conquests, religious freedom. I would fain not grow emphatic,--but when
I contrast the present with the past, when I recollect, for instance,
how the Jews were formerly treated, and see them now in Parliament, I
cannot help warming up a little. Monuments to Balbo, the stanch patriot
and nervous biographer of Dante,--to General Bava, the conqueror at
Goito,--to Pepe, the heroic defender of Venice, grace the public walks.
One to Gioberti, the eminent philosopher, is in course of preparation.
If these are not signs of radically changed times, and changed for the
better, I don't know what are.

Nor is the moral less improved than the material physiognomy of the
city. I see a thriving, orderly community,--no trace of antagonism, but
a free, good-natured intercourse between all classes, and a general
look of ease and contentment. Of course, there are poor in Turin, as
everywhere else,--except Japan, if we may credit travellers; but nowhere
are my eyes saddened by the spectacle of that abject destitution which
blunts, nay, destroys, the sense of self-respect. The operatives,
especially,--what are here called the _braccianti_,--this salt of all
cities, this nursery of the army and navy, this inexhaustible source of
production and riches, impress me by their appearance of comfort and
good-humor. It gladdens one's heart to watch them, as they walk arm in
arm of an evening, singing in chorus, or fill the pits of the cheaper
theatres, or sit down at fashionable _caffés_ in their jackets, with a
self-confidence and freedom of manner pleasant to behold. The play of
free institutions is not counteracted here, thank God, by the despotism
of conventionalities. No shadow of frigid respectability hangs over