A social novel written in the late 19th century. It denounces the organized trafficking of poor Southern Italian children who are sold to intermediaries and forced to beg and perform across Europe, following the siblings Carluccio and Stefanella from Calabria to Paris. Mixing narrative and exposé, it indicts public apathy, clerical complicity, and governmental indifference. The opening of the work begins with a fervent preface arguing that the scandal persists despite debate and promises of reform. The story then moves to the bleak Calabrian village of Ritorto, where lo Storpiato, a maimed ex‑brigand, and his wife Marinella, in desperate poverty, sell their children Carluccio and Stefanella to a trafficker, with a priest’s paid blessing sealing the deal. Shipped with dozens of other children to Marseille and on to Paris, they are numbered, confined in a stinking dormitory, and drilled in the arts of street performance and strategic begging by a clandestine network. Initially successful on the boulevards, they face envy, harsher quotas, and punishments that deny food unless cash targets are met, until Stefanella collapses from hunger and is briefly hospitalized before being reclaimed by the organization. The section closes with the narrative widening its critique to the charitable and civic systems that fail to protect such children.
