Page 62 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 62
plex Gateways
cord of the police officer in charge of counting the population in 1775.
Regarding the Rena neighbourhood in the Old Town, he pointed out that
‘poor people without a profession’ live there, ‘earning a living as gen-
eral porters or peasant day labourers. Their wives carry sacks or serve
around the houses. They are all full of children they do not care about,
letting them wander around the city. These children harass people, beg
in churches and houses, and feed only on minestrone8 shared by Capuchin
priests at the monastery doors on certain days.’9 Similar warnings can
be read in police files and reports of school inspectors who complained
because child porters and other lowly people did not go to school; they
walked around the streets and multiplied the incidents of road rage. Their
parents had no control over them because they had to earn hard bread
and many sent them to beg instead of school (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di
Polizia, 19 December 1774).
This was only one of the aspects inconsistent with the principles of
good policing and a productive and virtuous society advocated by enlight-
ened absolutism. However, other problems harmful to public order also
arose. Due to the lack of earnings on the labour market, various illegal
practices and forms of delinquency were born in the porters’ ranks, from
vagrancy to petty crime. This was due to temporary and occasional por-
ters staying in the city regardless of work opportunities, wanting to settle
permanently (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di Polizia, 12 December 1774). When
they lost their jobs, they automatically became vagrants and, accord-
ing to the law, ripe for deportation to their homeland. In the lists of ar-
rested persons, we can find many such cases as well as persons who have
been caught in begging, idleness, or some other offense, and have apolo-
gized by declaring themselves as porters (BCT, AD, AP, 15 August 1768).
Looking from this perspective, we understand how blurry the boundary
between work and non-work was, between legality and illegality, and how
employment as a porter was actually a two-way path, sometimes leading
to marginalization, sometimes allowing a return to an honest life.10
8 Soup.
9 BCT, AD, AP, Continuazione del Protocollo de’ rimarchi sopra li mancamenti tro-
vati nella visita delle Case fatta in occasione della coscrizione generale, 26 Febru-
ary 1775.
10 As we can see in other cities. In Italy, even the verb camallarsi came into use, which
derives from the name for the porter, camallo (of Arabic origin), and is meant to re-
gain the reputation and honesty lost through the porterage(Piccinno 2005, 19).
62
cord of the police officer in charge of counting the population in 1775.
Regarding the Rena neighbourhood in the Old Town, he pointed out that
‘poor people without a profession’ live there, ‘earning a living as gen-
eral porters or peasant day labourers. Their wives carry sacks or serve
around the houses. They are all full of children they do not care about,
letting them wander around the city. These children harass people, beg
in churches and houses, and feed only on minestrone8 shared by Capuchin
priests at the monastery doors on certain days.’9 Similar warnings can
be read in police files and reports of school inspectors who complained
because child porters and other lowly people did not go to school; they
walked around the streets and multiplied the incidents of road rage. Their
parents had no control over them because they had to earn hard bread
and many sent them to beg instead of school (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di
Polizia, 19 December 1774).
This was only one of the aspects inconsistent with the principles of
good policing and a productive and virtuous society advocated by enlight-
ened absolutism. However, other problems harmful to public order also
arose. Due to the lack of earnings on the labour market, various illegal
practices and forms of delinquency were born in the porters’ ranks, from
vagrancy to petty crime. This was due to temporary and occasional por-
ters staying in the city regardless of work opportunities, wanting to settle
permanently (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di Polizia, 12 December 1774). When
they lost their jobs, they automatically became vagrants and, accord-
ing to the law, ripe for deportation to their homeland. In the lists of ar-
rested persons, we can find many such cases as well as persons who have
been caught in begging, idleness, or some other offense, and have apolo-
gized by declaring themselves as porters (BCT, AD, AP, 15 August 1768).
Looking from this perspective, we understand how blurry the boundary
between work and non-work was, between legality and illegality, and how
employment as a porter was actually a two-way path, sometimes leading
to marginalization, sometimes allowing a return to an honest life.10
8 Soup.
9 BCT, AD, AP, Continuazione del Protocollo de’ rimarchi sopra li mancamenti tro-
vati nella visita delle Case fatta in occasione della coscrizione generale, 26 Febru-
ary 1775.
10 As we can see in other cities. In Italy, even the verb camallarsi came into use, which
derives from the name for the porter, camallo (of Arabic origin), and is meant to re-
gain the reputation and honesty lost through the porterage(Piccinno 2005, 19).
62
