The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-09-12
Morning in Yenice.

M0rning 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 blacksmiths
and coppersniths 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 mingled
street cries grew to chorus of supplica'
ton.
Lately risen maidens lowered baskets
from their balconies, and fished up cat.
meat, or bread, or onions, or other house.
hold supplies, lowered the coppers for
payment, gathered their scanty raiment
about them. and withdrew. The vender,
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 centers, | 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 breakfasting-just for
once! What pretty, but carelessly dressed
women in black lace head dresses came
from each street and went toward the
church; what clatter the wooden pat
tens made, and what gabble the news
boys; what loads of fresh fruit and veg
etables 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 feel himself
in watching it all.
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 rev.
cling 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, filing the whole width of
the Grand Canal lay fleet of barges un-
loading, with produce from beyond the
lagoons, or slowing away assorted cargoes
of white and purple grapes, peaches, figs,
lettuce, chiccory, radishes shining white
onions, carrots, beets, potatoes-the
whole fresh colored assortment of green
grocery. On shore the market people
filled the streets and arcades with fish,
and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, and flow
ers, and the whole air with a tumult of
noisy traffic. | descended among the
throng, where customers were importuncd
on every hand, and where sharp bargains
were driving in sprats and snails and in
fractions of the smallest fowl
Entering a little square shutin by high
houses, and, like most Venetian squares,
dominated by the unfinished facade
of time stained church, noticed a
singular activity among the people. They
were scurying 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 Il covered
well curb in the middle Of the square;
and still they hurried on until they stood
a dozen deep around it. Presently the
church tower slowly struck eight and a
little old man forced his way through the
crowd, passed his pondorous iron key
through the lid and unlocked the well.
The kettles went jang4ing into it and
came stopping out againa an amazing rate
and peope trudged off home, each with
a pair of them swung from the 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 given as
good a 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 for
water had had time for their toilets.
Their day evidently begins with this ex-
cursion to the public reservoir.
Later in my walk | saw a cistern being
replenished. A barge filled with fresh
water lay in canal near by, and steam
pump forced the supply through a hose
to the square, where gutter carried it
to the well. The water is of excellent
quality. 1t is brought through conduits
from the Eugenean Hills, near Padua,
but its distribution through the city is
carried on in the original manner indi-
Gated. For a city where the salt sea is
the scavenger, where ablutions are not
de rigueur, and where water is not bev-
erage, the cost of laying distributing
mains has wisely been spared Colonel
George E. Waring, Jr., in Harper's Mag
azine for October.
Miss AlcOtt at the Registry Office.
Boston Commonwealth.