The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1879-11-06
Morning in Venice.

0
Little by little business began to take
possession of the streets. Bakers shops
and butchers shops and fish stalls were
opened; the din of countless black
smitbs and coppersmiths filed the air
at every turn, as though the making Of
locks and kettles and chimney-pots were
the one usurping industry of the world;
loud-voiced women called all the people
to come and partake of baked pumpkin,
fresh and hot, and the melody of min
gled street-cries grew to a chorus of
s~upplication.
Lately-risen maidens lowered baskets
from their balconies, and ished up cat
meat, or bread, or onions, or other
household supplies, lowered the cop
pers for payment, gathered their scanty
raimeht about them and Withdrew.
The vender-we knew him at the OPP
era-pocketed his money, tossed his
load to his head, and yelled his noisy
way down the alley.
In the Piazza beyond the Rialto,
where early activity most centers, Itook
up a commanding position at an out-of-
door table, and ordered my "white cof-
fee" and bread and butter. What a
wonderful place it was for breakfasting
Just for oncel What pretty but care
lessly-clad women in black-lace head
dresses came from each street and went
toward the church; what a chatter the
wooden pattens made, and what a Cab
BILE the newsboys; what loads of fresh
fruit and vegetables the women carried
pest; how the urchins gambled for
soldi; how unlike everything was to
what we see at home, and how unreal
one grows to feel himself in watching
it ALL
The cheap dealers of the Rialto were
taking down their shutters and display
ing their low-prieed wares. Boys sat
on the broad steps munching bread and
reveling in the yellow luxury of broad
wedges of hot and savory pumpkin. The
purveyors of the adjacent quarters were
climbing the steps with whole head
loads of grapes, or fish, or vegetables.
Over the hand-rail, filling the whole
width of the Grand canal, lay a fleet of
barges unloading, with produce from
beyond the lagoons, or slowing away
assorted cargoes OF white and purple
grapes, peaches, figs, lettuce, chicory,
radishes, shining white onions, carrots,
beets, potatoes-the whole a fresh
colored assortment of green-grocery.
On shore the market people filed the
streets and arcades with fish, and flesh,
and fowl, and fruit, and flowers, and the
whole air with a tumult of noisy traffic.
I descended among the throng, where
customers were i~mportuned on every
hand, and where sharp bargains were
driving in sprats and snails and in frac-
tons of the smallest fowl.
Entering a little square shut in by
high houses, and, like most Venetian
squares, dominated by the unfinished
facade of a time-stained church, 1 mo-
ticed a singular activity among the
people. They were scurrying in from
every alley, and fastening from every
house door, with odd-shaped copper
buckets on hook-ended wooden bows
and with little coils of rope. Old men
and women, boys and girls, all gathered
closely about q covered well curb in the
middle of the square; and still they
hurried on, until they stood o dozer
deep around it. Presently the churct
tower slowly struck 8, and a little ole
man forced his way through the crowd
passed his ponderous iron key through
the lid, and unlocked the well. The
kettles went jangling into it, and came
stopping out again at an amazing rate
and the people trudged off home, eacl
with a pair of them swung from thu
shoulder. The wells are deep cisterns
which are filed during the night, ani
it is out of amiable consideration TO,
those who love their morning nap tina
they are given as good a chance as thei
neighbors of getting an unsoiled sup
ply. 1t is the first instance hat ha
come to my notice of a commendabl,
municipal restraint upon the reprehen
sible practice of early rising. Few
very few, of those who came for waite
had had time for their toilets. Thei
day evidently begins with this excursion
to the public reservoir.
Later in my walk I saw q cistern be
ing replenished. A barge filed witt
fresh water lay in the canal near by
and a steam pump forced the suppl.
through a hose to the square, where
gutter carried it to the well. TIL
water is of excellent quality. 1t i
brought through conduits from tn
Euganean hills, near Padua, but its dis
tribution through the city is carried o.
in the original manner indicated. Fo
a city where the salt sea is the scaven
ger, where additions are not de rigueu1
and where water is not a beverage, tn
cost of laying distributing mains ha
wisely been spared.-CoL Geo. E.. va
ing. Jr., IN Rarper's Magazine.