Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, be-
cause, excepting the sign of honor, each one receives what he
is in need of. To the heroes and heroines of the republic, it
is customary to give the pleasing gifts of honor, beautiful
wreaths, sweet food, or splendid clothes, while they are feast-
ing. In the daytime all use white garments within the city, but
at night or outside the city they use red garments either of wool
or silk. They hate black as they do dung, and therefore they
dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black. Pride they con-
sider the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is
chastised with the most ruthless correction. Wherefore no
one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in the kitchen
or fields. All work they call discipline, and thus they say that
it is honorable to go on foot, to do any act of nature, to see with
the eye, and to speak with the tongue; and when there is need,
they distinguish philosophically between tears and spittle.

Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his duty,
is considered very honorable. It is not the custom to keep
slaves. For they are enough, and more than enough, for them-
selves. But with us, alas! it is not so. In Naples there exist
70,000 souls, and out of these scarcely 10,000 or 15,000 do any
work, and they are always lean from overwork and are getting
weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness, avarice,
ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and contam-
inate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servi-
tude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavish-
ness, and by imparting to them their own vices. Therefore
public slavery ruins them; useful works, in the field, in military