POSTSCRIPT. - Why Are There So Many Carbineers At Orvinio?
And how many
of these myriad public guardians scattered all over the country ever
come into contact with a criminal, or even have the luck to witness a
street accident?
And would the taxpayer not profit by a reduction in
their numbers? And whether legal proceedings of every kind would not
tend to diminish?
There is a village of about three hundred inhabitants not far from Rome;
fifteen carbineers are quartered there. Before they came, those
inevitable little troubles were settled by the local mayor; things
remained in the family, so to speak. Now the place has been set by the
ears, and a tone of exacerbation prevails. The natives spend their days
in rushing to Rome and back on business connected with law-suits, not a
quarter of which would have arisen but for the existence of the
carbineers. Let me not be misunderstood. Individually, these men are
nowise at fault. They desire nothing better than to be left in peace.
Seldom do they meddle with local concerns - far from it! They live in
sacerdotal isolation, austerely aloof from the populace, like a colony
of monks. The institution is to blame. It is their duty, among other
things, to take down any charge which anybody may care to prefer against
his neighbour. That done, the machinery of the law is automatically set
in motion. Five minutes' talk among the village elders would have
settled many affairs which now degenerate into legal squabbles of twice
as many years; chronic family feuds are fostered; a man who, on
reflection, would find it more profitable to come to terms with his
opponent over a glass of wine, or even to square the old syndic with a
couple of hundred francs, sees himself obliged to try the same tactics
on a judge of the high court - which calls for a different technique.
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