The Portland daily press., 1886-09-08
A FREE TRADERS DISHONESTY.
Hartford Courant.
OUR FOREIGN LETTER.
Especial Correspondence of the PRESS,
BOLOGNA

Especial Correspondence of the PREss.)
BOLOGNA.
| Bologna is diScrepit old town, more to be
respected for its past greatness and useful
ness than to be admired for any present at
traction. The old adage Bologna docct still
holds good, but in more limited sense than
in by-gone days, when thousands of ambi-
tious youths flocked to it's halls of learning.
We felt we could learn many Lessons in the
silent rooms of the old University, which
has long since yielded the palm to Oxford
and Cambridge. The buildings are now
used for civic purposes, except the library,
which contains 100000 volumes and has a
most commodous reading room, in which
the Italian students were just as busy
in porting over dull treatises and decipher-
ing mouldy parchments as we see the book
worms at the British museums from January
to December. The walls in the corridor are
crammed with the coats of arms of the wise
and great, whom their Alma Mater delighted
to honor. The hall of medicine, or as it is
called, Galvini's room, is extremely quaint
and suggestive of the interesting themes
which have been discussed there by their
various advocates. The whole apartment,
from the floor to the top of the ceiling, with
all the furniture and mural carvings, was
made of pine wood, implanted and unvar-
nished. The fingers of time have slowly
stained it with the richest tints of brown,
and given it an air of simplicity and refine
ment which no artist could initiate. AT one
end stands an old fashioned pulpit, from
which the doctor or doctress, as the case
irht ha Ioip cd Of I'm,
man system and demonstrated their theories
of life and death. The only decorations in
the room were statues and busts, carved also
in pine wood, of the distinguished disciples
of Esculapius. Among them we were sur
prised to find head of Bavaria of Bavarius,
specialist in anatomy, who as early as 1923
lectured before a class of medical students.
There may have been many patents on i'm
proved plaster noses since the days of Talia-
contus; but 1t would be hard to rob him of
the credit Of the invention. as his sculptor
has represented him in this room holding
finely modelled nose in his fingers which he
evidently regards with triumph There
were life-sized statues of Calvin, whose dis
coveries are familiar to every child, and of
Malfrighius and Arantius, who were pio-
neers in demonstrating the circulation of the
blood and the operations of the human heart.
There were several women who were distin-
guished for their learning in the medical
science; but there was one who labored I'M
der such peculiar disadvantage of her ex-
traordinary beauty, that she was compelled
to stand behind curtain, while lecturing to
the grave doctors that their attention should
not be diverted from her theme to the con-
temptation of her personal attractions.
While we were wandering about these silent
rooms ana musing over the sages and philos-
ophers, who passed busy lives in these halls,
we were startled by the piteous wall of many
infants. We could not imagine what could
bring little ones into these lonely precincts,
and we set out at once to learn the cause of
this strange sound. Following the cry we
found ourselves at the door of a basement
roon Here the guard offered some resist
ance to our intrusion; but we tried game,
which has seldom failed us in an emergency
When he talked to us we were know-noth-
ings, and he was so baffled by the profun-
dity of our English arguments, that he was
constrained to let us pass. Here we intro