The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1877-07-14

embossed bronze in tho centre, at
which laughing girls arc gossiping
and drawing water in copper buck
cts, and studies it's facades. inlaid
with blocks of marble of various
colors, like great checker-board,
opd its windows, filled with the little
round panes set in metal, a pecu-
llarlty of old Venice, and climbs the
giants stairs, pausing awhile to note
the spot at tho top whore Dogo
M?rino Falicri was beheaded as q
traitor in his eightieth year, and
peeps at the hole in tho wall where
the hon S head used to stand, into
whose mouth you could, in tho good
Old times, slip an anonymous charge
against your enemy or rival, citing
hlm as conspirator against the
republic, and he would probably
mystcriously disappear and be seen
no more. Between those two red
columns on the balcony capital SEN
tenccs were read to the crowd below,
and mine host saw Silvio Pellico
placed there to listen to his while.
over the ]eadcn roof above, Casano,
va, breaking from the dreadful cells
OF the "Piombi,' made his wonderful
escape into the canals and thence to
france, which rang through all
Europe. Then climb up the beau
tlfnl 'Sro(a NOro, or golden steps,
which formerly no ono could ascend
unless his family were registered in
the Golden Book Of Naples. And
you stroll, guidc-book in hand,
through tho beautiful library and
council chambers, their walls hung
with enormous pictures Gone, Tinto-
rettos Paradise, the largest in tho
the HorlD principally of sea fights,
trlumphs and treaties Of tho proud
days when Venetian Doges were tho
equals of kings, her fleets tho
largest and best in the world, and
when she kept astute ambassadors
at every European Court, who mado
constant reports of the condition of
the country to which they were ac-
credited, which reports are now
furnishing to the historians of those
countries their most fruitful and in
structive guides. And you are
shown
THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS
~ ';the Ten and "tho Three" The
very hearts Of the far reaching webs
in which these cunning old spiders
sat and woaved their meshes, and
drew in their victims the furniture
and fittings remaining unchanged
since those gloomy and myterious
days of powerful tyranny. And then
you follow guide who, torch in
hand, conducts you through q laby-
ninth OF narrow stairs and winding
passages, part in the thickness Of
the wall and part under the base
ment of tho palace, through which
the accused were led, with sinking
hearts, from the presence of the
Judges to imprisonment or execution;
and suddenly you come out in tho
middle of tho
BRIDGE OF sIdHs
With "a palace and prison on either
hand, and are shown the place
where the captives made confession
through the double grating of their
dungeons to the priest outside, and
tho smokc-blackened dungeon nicho
III the wall where the cfucifix stands
with the light before it (the last con.
sohng spot on which his eyes should
rest on oarth,) aud then the spot
close at hand in y tho narrow dark
passage, where no was strangled by
torch-light, and the hole in the wall
through which his corpse was thrust
into THaiting gondoln and hurried
away to be ridden beneath the
watere And then you stoop and
crouch to get into the little
GLOOMY DUNGEONS,
II uttor pitchy darkness, with hole
in the door from the black passage
without, through which Tho prison
errs' food was passed, and no other
opcning, and stone slab' for bed
pillow, and no other furniture in
which mon delicately nhrtured,
anciont statesmen, famous generals,
woro thrust and kept in solitude
and the blackness Of midnight, with
but .vermin and rats for company,
until death or maduess came to
their relief. In q row. of the worst
of them, half under Woter. no 1onoer