. Italian life in town and country . itions;sometimes lodgings are provided free, there isextra piece-work, and the women of the familyusually work as well as the men. The Tuscancontadini on the mezzadria system are, of course,much better off. Working hours are about ten aday for industries, and rather more for rurallabour. During harvest-time the hours are muchlonger, and in Apulia when the olives are pressedthe labourers often work nineteen or twenty con-secutive hours. In many trades there are nomore than two or three hundred working days inthe year; for instance, in the building trade andi
. Italian life in town and country . itions;sometimes lodgings are provided free, there isextra piece-work, and the women of the familyusually work as well as the men. The Tuscancontadini on the mezzadria system are, of course,much better off. Working hours are about ten aday for industries, and rather more for rurallabour. During harvest-time the hours are muchlonger, and in Apulia when the olives are pressedthe labourers often work nineteen or twenty con-secutive hours. In many trades there are nomore than two or three hundred working days inthe year; for instance, in the building trade andin the Carrara quarries. Social reformers pressfor a reduction of the hours of labour and a mini-mum wage. The food of the Italian lower classes consistsmainly of wheaten bread or maize. The latter iseaten as polenta, and is often preferred to bread oreven meat, as it causes a feeling of satiety whichother and better viands cannot produce. TheMarchese Guerrieri-Gonzaga, a landlord of Man-tova, began to distribute meat among his peas-. EATING MACARONI-NAPLES. Wealth and Poverty 55 antry, but he soon discovered that they sold it tohviy polenta instead. The great consumption ofpolenta, often made of badly dried maize, producesa terrible skin disease known as the pellagra,which is very prevalent in Lombardy and Venetia,although happily now on the decrease. A greatdeal of nutritious vegetable food is eaten by thepoor, especially pulse, celery, radishes, and fruit,but very little meat, which many never taste saveon rare feast days. Salt fish, bacon, frogs, andsnails are more usual; the two latter are regardedalmost as delicacies even by the middle fairly well-to-do peasant eats three meals a breakfast (usually taken after two or threehours work) he has bread and cheese and vege-tables; for dinner a large dish oipolenta, with asauce of oil, garlic, and anchovies, or a minestra,which is a thick soup, with beans, cabbage, andother vegetables, or maccaroni. The whole isw
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