LIFE IN ITALY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3230, 5 November 1881, Page 4

LIFE IN ITALY.

You would scarcely credit tho simplicity of Italian houses —■ urniture, dress, and living—of the middle elas9 in Italy. You must live in the midst of Italians, as if of themselves, to see this. Young girls of comparatively well-to-do parents make every article of their wedding outfit themselves, and the linen itself is home-made, spun from the flax that has grown on the family's microscopic fields. From childhood the girla are taught to sew and embroider on linen or cotton intended for their own marriage. I have seen handkerchiefs which toot a year thus to embroider. To be sure, after this practice the girl was an accomplished embroiderer. A young girl of my acquaintance embroidered her entire wardrobe during her school years, after which sho every chair, stool, and sofa for her future drawing-room, not forgetting the •window curtains and occasional tables, which ■were all of her own work. She is now 22 years of age, and has been married two years. She had but throe new dresses in her wedding outfit—a black silk, a visiting dress, and a travelling dress, in which she was married. Her solitary gala evening dress was, according to custom, given by her husband. Nor is the family poor or of inferior social position, the father being one of the highest Government officials in Italy. But simplicity is inherent to respectability here, where the majority of the people still live in the most primitive style.—Lady cor- j respondent.