Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-10-03

Little by little business began to take pos
session of the streets Bakers shops and
butchers shops and fish stalls were opened
the din Of countless blacksmiths aud copper
smiths filled the air at every turn, as though
the making OF lock, and kettles and chimney
pots were the one usurping industry of the
world loud voiced women called all the peo-
pie to come and partRkc of baked pumpkin.
fresh and hot and the melody of mingled
street cries grew to chorus of supplcation.
Lately risen Inaidens lowered baskets from
their balconies, and hshcd up cat-meat, or
bread, or onions, or other household supplies,
lowered the coppers for payment, gathered
their scanty ramcnt about them, and with
drew. The yender-we knew him at the
opera-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 centres, l took up COM
manding position at AN out-of-dOor table, and
ordered my white coffee and bread and but
ter. What wonderful place it was for
breakfasting-ju for once What pretty
but carelessly clad women in black lace head
dresses came from each street and went
toward the church what catter the wood
eu patteus made, and what gabble the news
boys; what loads of fresh fruit and vegeta-
hles the women carried past how the urch-
ins gambled for soldi how unlike every
thing was to wha, we see at home and how
unreal one grows to feel himself in watching
it all
The cheap dealers of the Rialto were tax
ing down their shutters and displaying their
low priced wares. Boys sat on the broad
steps munching bread and revelling in the
yellow luxury OF broad wedges of hot ard sa-
worry pumpkin. The purveyors of the adja-
cent quartz n were climbing the steps with
-f,gl. l. s.,f,, ~,
tables. Over the ud-rail. filling the whole
width Of the Grand Canal, lay a feet of barges
unloading, with produce from beyond the
lagoons, or slowing away assorted cargoes of
white and purple grapes, peaches, hgs, let
tuce, chiccOry, r.dshes, shining white onions,
carrots beets, potatoes-the whole fresh-col-
ored assortment Of grcen-grocery. On shore
the market people filled the streets and ar
cales with fish, and flesh and fowl, and fruit,
and flowers, and the whole mir with a tuniult
of noisy traffic ! descended among the
throng, where customers were importuned on
every hand, and where sharp bargains were
driving in sprats aud snails and in fractions of
the smallest fowl.
Entering II little square shut in by high
houses. aud, like most Venetian squares,
dominated a 10y the unfinished facade of "A time
stained church, noticed Il singular activity
among the people. They were scurrying in
from every alley, aud Fastening from every
house door with odd-shnpcd copper buckets
on hook ended wooden bows, aud with little
coils of rope. Old men and women, boys
and girls, all gathered closely about a covered
well curb in the middle of the square and
still they hurried on, until they stood dozen
deep around it, Presently the church tower
slowly struck eight, and a little old man fore
ed his way through the crowd, passed his
pUnderous iron key through the lid, and un-
locked the we'll The kettles went jangling
into it, and came stopping out again at an
amazing rate, and the people trudged of
home, each with pair of them swung from
the shoulder. The wells are deep cisterns,
which are filled during the night, and it is
out of amiahle consideration for those who
love their morning nap that they are given as
good a chance as their neighbors of getting
an unsoiled supply. 1t is the first instance
that has come to my notice of a commenda-
ble municipal restraint upon the reprehensi-
Bile practice of early rising. Few, very few,
of those who came for water had had time for
their toilets Their day evidently begins with
this excursion to the public reservoir.
Laterjn my walk / saw a cstern being re-
plenishod. A barge filed with fresh water
lay in a canal near by, and a steam pump
forced the supply through hose to the
square, where a gutter carried it to the well.
The water is of excellent quality. 1t is
brought through conduits from the Eugauean
Hills near Padua, but its distribution through
the city is carried on in the original manner
indicated For city where the salt sea is
the scavenger, where ablutions are not de
yfq,te,r, and where water is not a beverage,
the cost of laying distributing mains has wise
ly been spared -COl Geo. r. Wdring, Jr,
in H1ytSr'S NgOgzjus fl. OrfOIer