abbass

Updated: August 14, 2026

This is simply hearth-money, an impost on each fireplace where food is cooked; the same tax which made trouble in old England, and was happily got rid of long ago. But the hungry plebs of Cotrone lacked vigour for any effective self-assertion; they merely exhausted themselves with shouting "Abbass' 'o sindaco!" and dispersed to the hearths which paid for an all but imaginary service.

George Gissing - By the Ionian Sea : Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy