Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-09-05
FROM SUNNY ITALY.
GRACE GREENWOOD TALKS ABOUT
QUEER PEOPLE.


Where Bad Americans Go to Die-The
Man with an Adjustable Nose and tho
u,, nj, n,,, ,.
an" D"arhsh i'ahhhs OF Lowry Lie
Especial correspondencel
/ Mr.N Au,r lS-Anotber Ar,oric,p tor,
or,,.,, oF tb, J,.rni r,opda Cor, ,rI",Err,r,.
Crouch) has lately closed ner wild life in
Paris vher,. If seems had Americans on IN
die Morc famous and powerful tban the late
lamrnted Fanny Lear y her end was even
more miserable. After s1uanderlug millions
She WIS reduced 10 abiect poverty. After
hayinr- had countless loycrs-hay:ng sspn
proud princes at her fee. and led ,antiye great
csptains-she was forsaken bv all the world
excrpt a faithful Old maid servant and 4 char
liable Young doctor. She. too had once the
honor of being exiled-frDm Paris It was
when, after lavishing his entire fortune on her
and being thrown over, a young fool named
Duval shot himself in her antechamber.
am afraid that there are not wanting fair
Americans ambitious to fill the vacated
thrones Of these adventuresses. Indeed,
have heard of one who bids fair 10 take such a
position by storm, being rarely fitted for such
unhappy supremacy This is n singer with
great musical talent, once a very sweet, rich
voice, but whose triumphs thus far have been
more owing To her "opulent charms of person
than to her artistic merits. In fact, she her
self thinks little of her art in comparison.
She Is said to he madly idolatrnus Of her own
beauty, and To glory in the power to madden
others-her subjects, her vaSSals, of whom she
has many, for the fools arc not all dead yet.
No benetcent plague ever carries them off,
no war ever thins their ranks Last year
there came to an operate agency in Milan a
telegram from theatre III distant city,
saying: Send us good soprano, beautiful
and without any inCumbrancc."
Among impreSSnri singers father, moth
er, sister, brother and, above all, husband, is
called IAN lncumbrance.' Our fair country
woman was solicited,
And all alone went she
A few months later she returned to Italy
gay and triumphant, with as she bOasted
"a hat full of diamonds" Since then she
has gone forth "conqucring and to conquer"
Indeed she is the type of singer most Success
full on the continental stage nowadays: not
that We enjoy Arca:lian tranquility even here
i'll well ordered, well-tOdO Milan We had
ridiculous little "scrimmage" about the
time Of the real insurrection in Belgium
Ours was half a frolic One Of the leaders Of
the insurgents was "A Young wag who pro-
teCted himself by means of nasal mask gro
tesque and huge. Whenever the police were
about 10 grab him he retreated a few steps
into the mob, pocketed his nose and was alb
solutely unrccugnizab... Italiar working
people can il afford IL strike They have
nothing to fail hack upon. General starva-
ton soon marches into the field and all sur
render. Three hundred women rice gatherers
and cleaners have, however, just struck at
Mantua- But they will soon be striking on
their empty stOmachs. During the late Buda-
Pesth riots the strikers sent forth the start
ling shouts of "Nive koSSuth," Il was a far
cry out of the past. How must the sad heart
of the OctOgenarian exile in Turin have been
stirred by merely hearing Of 1t! The heroic
old dreamer has 50 far passed into history
that his poor, discontented countrymen might
as well shout for Charlemagne
The cholera has not vet come near us. as
an epidemic, and is hardly likely to afflict to
any great extent a city SO open, cIeanly and
well moneyed as Milan The only epidemic
We suffer from is suicide That has RACED
this year. During the first three months
there were lO4 cases in this city alone These
poor people are not bad, but they seem To
have been born discouraged; they are not
feloniOus, but felO-dese-nous The cholera
has thus far seriously attacked only the worst
quarters of the poorest and most unsanitary
towns of the south and east. At once, when
a town or province Is smtten, there rush TO
the post of deadly peril the brave Young fol-
lowers of the Red Cross and the supplement-
ing Green Cross, Knights of Labor of the
noblest, the divineSt sort
Seeing that Italy Is 50 far behind the age in
sanitary ideas and regulations, the wonder is
that all kinds Of peStIlence do not break out
and rage in those old provincial towns when
people build and live in utter disregard or
ignorance of the common comforts and de-
cenCies of life. Many pretentious modern
houses, too, are like "whited sepulchres,r fair
without but within full Of all manner of
uncleanliness" Yet ! sometimes think that
in the extreme poverty of the peasantry lies
the secret of their exemption from the
sCourge They cannot heat their blood with
meats have seldom milk, and never butter.
They eat fruit and vegetables, which are
cheap and good, coarse bread and polenta
(hominv) and drink sour wine and thin. but
pure Yet such living seems to make of the
working classes in the crowded towns a feeble
and sickly, if not an absolutely diseased race.
A large number of the young we see in the
streets are scrofulous, blooIlesS deformed
and dwartish; and some are strangely inconl-
plete rudimentary people born without the
usual complement of limbs as though nature
III this poor country had run out of material
before her work was done
These fragmentary abnormal beings are
often very active and succe sful in the :nen-
deity line So little of humanity dos 1t take
TO make humanitarian appeals that | am