The Northern Pacific farmer., 1879-11-13
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 black
smiths and coppersmiths filed the air
at every turn, as though the making of
locks and kettles and chimney y-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 chorus of
supplication.
Lately-risen maide4s lowered baskets
from their balconies, and fished up cat
meat, or bread, or onions, or othe1
household supplies, lowered the cop
pers for payment, gathered their scanty
raiment about them and withdrew.
The vender-we knew him at the op-
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 mostcenters, I took
up commanding position at an out-of.
door table, and ordered my "white cof
fee" and bread and butter. What
wonderful place it was for breakfasting
Just for once! What pretty but care
lessly-clad women in black-lace head
dresses came from each street and went
toward the church; what clatter the
bic the newsboys; what loads Of fresh
fruit and vegetables the women carried
past; 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 allI
The cheap dealers of the Rialto were
taking down their shutters and display
ing their low-priced 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 feet 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 tumult of noisy traffic.
I descended among the throng, where
customers were importuned on every
hand, and where sharp bargains were
driving in sprats and snails and in frac-
tions of the smallest fowl.
Entering little square shut in by
high houses, and, like most Venetian
squares, dominated by the unfinished
facade of time-stained church, no.
ticed singular activity among the
people. They were scurrying in from
every alley, and hasteDing 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 a covered we'll curb in the
middle of the square,; and still they
hurried on, until they stood g. dozen
deep around it. Presently the churcn
tower slowly struck 8, and little old
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, each
with a pair of them swung from the
shoulder. The wells are deep cisterns,
which are filed during the night, and
it is out of amiable consideration for
those who love their morning nap that
they are given as good chance as theil
neighbors of getting an unsoiled sup.
ply. It is the first instance that has
come to my notice of a commendable
municipal restraint upon the reprehen-
sible practice of early rising. Few,
very few, of those who came for water
had had time for their toilets. Thei1
day evidently begins with this excursion
to the public reservoir.
Later in my walk I saw cistern be-
ing replenished. A barge filed with
fresh water lay in the canal near by,
and q steam pump forced the supply
through hose to the square, where
gutter carried it to the well. The
water is of excellent quality. It is
brought through conduits from the
Euganean hills, near Padua, but it's dis
tribution through the city is carried on
in the original manner indicated. For
a city where the salt sea is the scaven-
ger, where ablutions are not de riguea11',
and where water is not a beverage, the
cost of laying distributing mains has
wisely been spared.-Col. Geo. E. Var
ing, Jr., IN Harper's Magazine.
Domestic Thunder Storms.
Not many lovers, suppose, have
found that their welded life answered
quite to the dreams of their courtship-
not u11ita mine didn't Vet who would