The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1888-02-22
THE ETERNAL CITY.
MODERN NOTIONS cRowolNe OUT
THE OLD AND PICTURESQUE.


art, but in its everyday aspect it is a disap.
pointment The city has lost its individu-
atty. Government employees pave the
streets on Sunday, and men saw wood in
public on the same day. Everything is done
left handed, literally or figuratively. Cab
men run their vehicles at furious rate with
a stumpy horse and whitening curses, always
managing to keep TO the left; the knobs Of
doors turn In that direction, and men who
cut timber for fire purposes put their left
foot on one rim of a wood saw with the blade
in perpendicular position, and run the
stick over the teeth.
Business is ablast on Sundays. Boys begin
early in the morning to scream their disinter-
estedness in the wealth of this world by an
bouncing the low prices they ask for big
onions they carry with them on a long
string; greasy looking men, with fish on
piatters, cry out the excellence of their
stock, while others, with huge lunches of eel
cry balanced on their head, desecrate the
FESTIVAL with their noise and grimaces. The
shopkeepers pull down their shutters and
hang ON the outside wall specimen articles.
The butcherw in this way display sides of
meat and the shoemaker ropes of boots. A
tailor, tape measure in hand, is at his door
SauJ w eAeouVe an order Tor sulJ OF
clothes. The sight of thousands, prayer book
IN hand, en- route to the churches, has no
eirect ON those who violate the day. Once a
rarity indeed, now to be seen frequently on
sundays, intoxicated men go along the
streets staggering or singing aloud from
nired carriages. Others, with their backs to
walls, where sunshine will keep them aglow,
lounge Tor hours, relieving the time by quaffs
from Their long necked bottles, held on a
niger by loop OF braided straw
MODERN NOTIONS.
A vast change toward modern notions has
arrived A street railway skirts the Coli
scum, and omnibuses chase one another into
the famous precincts OF the city. The site Of
grand palace, reared in 1886. is now A beer
garden, with the beverage at three cents
glass, and the walls of the building altered tc
suit the purposes of the business conducted
therein. Public life has lost mucn of the
traditional picturesquoness and romantic
appearance. To be sure, the brown hooded
long bearded Benedictine monks. the bare.
footed Capuchins. with their hair cut into
topknot, the white robed priests of the Red
Cross, the Christian brothers, in their black
gowns and immaculate collars, clergy In
knee brooches, black stockings and silver
Duckteu SHOES, ana students IN flowing robee
and wide brimmed, low crowned felt hats,
are met at every turn; but they are dwarfed
in number and novelty by the uniforms of
the military, for Rome is poiced by 1900
troops, in all the glory Of infantry, engineer,
rifiemen, cavalry, field artillery, grenadier
and gendarmes dress. They line the streets
and I'LL the houses. To their uses, as well as
those Of the civil authorities, the Oldest of
buildings are being appropriated. Eligible
locations for private or governmental uses
are selected, without regard TO the antiquity
OF the surroundings, and structures of the
living era erected. Here and there ON street
corners strapping young fellows in blue
jackets, breeches of the same color, red vests
and blue stockings, with their feet in huge
hobnailed shoes or sandals, and swathed at
the ankles loiter in the company of gray
boards, in rags hidden beneath cloak that
reaches to the ground, who pose with artistic
effect on an umbrella of blue stuff.
American and English are such numerous
visitors that the influence of their customs,
manners and habits is crowding the typical
resident out OF existence. They have now
their doctors, their dentists, patent medicines
and tailors, and one sees the announcement
ofA aA1 rtarI.