And I might add to the term "crimes of violence" the further statement that pocket-picking was equally unheard of.
_Now_ there is perhaps more crime of a heinous character in Florence, in proportion to the population, than in any city in the peninsula.

I think that about the first indication that all that glittered in the mansuetude of _Firenze la Gentile_ was not gold, showed itself on the occasion of an attempt to naturalise at Florence the traditional sportiveness of the Roman Carnival.

There and then, as all the world knows, it has been the immemorial habit for the population, high and low, to pelt the folks in the carriages during their Corso procession with _bonbons, bouquets_, and the like.

Gradually at Rome this exquisite fooling has degenerated under the influence of modern notions, till the _bouquets_ having become cabbage stalks, very effective as offensive missiles, and the _bonbons_ plaster of Paris pellets, with an accompanying substitution of a spiteful desire to inflict injury for the old horse-play, it has become necessary to limit the duration of the Saturnalia to the briefest span, with the sure prospect of its being very shortly altogether prohibited.

But at Florence on the first occasion, now several years ago, of an attempt to imitate the Roman practice, the conduct of the populace was such as to demand imperatively the immediate suppression of it.