Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-10-19
that fault OF hers was nearly the ruin Of
all my life."-Youth,s Communion.
MORNING IN VENICE.

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 blaeksmiths
and coppersmiths filled the air at every
turn, as though the making of locks and
kettles and chimney were the one
usurping industry of the world; loud
voiced women cal: all the people to come
and partake of baked pumpkin, fresh
and hot; and the melody Of mingled
street cries grew to chorus of supplica-
ton. a...- :a
Lately risen maidens lowered baskets
from their balconies, and fished up cat
meat, OF bread, or onions, or other house.
hold supplies, lowered the coppers for
payment, gathered their scanty raimcnt
we knew him at the opera-pockcted
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, I took up a
commanding position at an out-of-door
table, and ordered my "white coffee" and
bread and butter. What a wonderful
place it was for b1eakfasting-just for
once! What pretty but carelessly clad
women in black lace head-dresses came
from each street and went toward the
church; what a clatter the wooden pat
tens made, and what gable of news
boys; what loads of fresh fruit and vege-
tables the women carried past; how the
urchins gambled for soldi; how unlike
every thing was to what we see at home
and how unreal one grows to teel himself
in watching it all!
The cheap dealers of the Rialto were
taking down their shutters and displaying
their low-priced wares. Boys sat on the
broad steps munching bread and revell-
ing in the yellow luxury of broad wedges
OF hot and savory pumpkin. The pur-
veyors 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 car
goes of white and purple grapes, peaches,
tgs, lettuce, chiccory, radishes, shining
white onions, carrots, beets, potatoes
the whole fresh colered assortment of
green grocery. On shore the market peo-
pie filled the streets and arcades with
fish, and fowl, and fruit, and flowers, and
the whole air with a tumult of noisy
traffic. l descended among the throng,
where customers were importuned on eV-
cry hand, and where sharp bargains we're
driving in sprats and snalls and in frac-
tons of the smallest fowl.
Entering little square shut in by
high houses, and, like most Venitian
squares, dominated by the unfinished
facade Of time-stained church, I
noticed 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 coils of rope. Old men
and women, boys and girls, all gathered
closely about covered we'll curb in the
middle of the square; and still tn ey
hurried on, until they stood a dozen deep
around it. Presently the church tower
slowly struck eight, and little old man
forced his way through the crowd, pass
ed his ponderous iron key through the
lid, and unlocked the we'll. The Kettles
went Jangling into it, and came stopping
out again at an amazing rate, and the
people drudged off home, each with a
pair OF them swung from his shoulder.
The wells are deep cisterns, which are
filled during the night, and it is out of
amiable consideration for those who love
their morning nap that they are givon as
good chance as their neighbors of get
ting an unsoiled supply. 1t is the first
instance that has come to my notice of a
commendable municipal restraint upon
the reprehensible practice of early rising
Few, very few. OF those who came fo1
water had had time for their toilets
Their day evidently begins with this ex.
curslon to. the public reservoir.
Later in my walk I saw a cistern being
replenished. A barge filled with fresh
water lay IN a canal near by, and g steam
pump forced the supply through hose
to the square, where gutter carried il
to the we'll. The water is Of excellent
quality. 1t is brought through conduits
from the Euganean Hills, near Padua
but its distribution throug h the city il
carried On in the original manner indica
ted. For city where the salt sea is tn,
scavenger, where ablutlons are not de RI
gues1, and where water is not beverage
the cost OF laying distributing pipes ha
wisely been spared. -Harper's Mogasin,
for October.