There are, of course, many amongst the mezzo cetto whose incomes are much beyond the instance I have just stated; some are in positive affluence, but their style of housekeeping does not vary in proportion; and the account here given may be taken as a very faithful specimen of the condition of the majority of this class, in which the elements of several gradations of rank in England are curiously blended.
The domestic manners here attempted to be traced are, it will be at once perceived, widely different from what are comprehended by us in the term “middle classes;” strangely opposed to all we are accustomed to include under that designation. Those evening _conversazioni_ at the apothecary's, for instance; not mere students lounging about on the look-out for practice, but white-headed men, ranking high in their profession, lawyers, merchants, shopkeepers, all cronies and gossips of half a century's standing—what analogy is there in our own country to anything of this sort?
A physician of repute, in one of our large towns, would stare at finding himself in the centre of a group assembled in the dingy _Farmacia_; still greater would be his surprise could he understand the nature of the conversation so eagerly carried on. Contrary to English medical etiquette in matters which belong to their profession, these Esculapians are especially diffuse, each relating, for the benefit of the circle, the minutest particulars of any interesting case he has in hand, without the slightest reserve in mentioning the patient, who becomes public property, to be dissected and lectured upon at pleasure. Besides which laudable relaxation, a pastime of another kind is often carried on in some little den at the back of the shop, where a card-table is spread, and large sums, in reference to the means of the players, are nightly staked.
The passion for gambling is very general, extending to all ranks, and, not confined to cards, exhibits itself in a fondness for everything connected with hazard—such as raffles and lotteries, about which last I shall speak more in detail in another chapter.
Scarcely a day used to pass in which people did not come to the door to ask us to take tickets in some _riffa_; it was either a poor woman who wanted to dispose of her pearl ear-rings; or a girl _che si voleva far sposa_, and by way of earning a few pauls to buy a wedding dress, offered a pincushion for a prize. Fishermen made raffles of their finest turbots; ladies (though rather _sub rosâ_) of their old-fashioned shawls; distressed dandies of elaborate pipes; in fact, never was there a population in which the fickle goddess numbered more persevering votaries.