Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-10-03
A PICTURE OF HALIFAX.
A City of Queer, Antiquated Structures.
 4 Restfu1 Old Place.

4 Restfu1 Old Place.
 From the sea, advancing upon the city; from Pleasant Point looking up the noble basin; from Dartmouth, gazing across the city facades and upon the fortressed islands, or from the citadel, peering over the slate roofs and grim chimneys of Halifax to the shining sea and the far horizon beyond, is 6 spectacle of unusual and reflective interest. To one accustomed to the brightness and newness of architecture, to the virility and glowing in every day activities, and the snap and flash of business life in American cities, the grimness, dullness and inaninity of Hali- fax challenges an involuntary testy resent ment. The city is both too rich and too poor for even comparatively equable conditions. Her rich are the lordly, isolated rich. Her poor are the squalid, sodden, hopeless poor. The former have no need to exercise enter prise or disposition to bestow> in countless possible ways for their own and their city's bestering, 0 wise benevolence But shutting your eyes to this, and only contemplating the whole as concrete series of pictures for passing inspection aud interest, there is something like a charm in her grim old buildings. her shaded, unkempt streets, and even in her raInshackle, storm rattled ten ements. There is not on our coast, not ex- cspting old Salem, such queer and anti quated structures They seem composite of half city, kslf country architecture of Normandy, Holland and our own colonial time ,Ponderous porches, little windows, spacious porch boxes as among the old Pennsylvania Dutch settle ments, bunchy window roofs, cumbrous gables, dormer windows innumerable, Shipped" roofs, shingled house sides and the
 tremendous chimneys of Marblehead suggest
 . day and time of old, projecse3 With sturdy, lasting qua ities into tine new. If this be true
 ,f tho habitations. a still quafnter flavor is found, down ESsaper and Lower Water streets on Bedford haNs and Where the lanes and$aleys convergessfld intsrsect and strag- gle along the wharvcs. All this region is like the huddled water front groupings at our own picturesque Gloucester; and more dimi- nutive, but as dainty, bits can here be found for the artists pencil as at ancient Nurenaz berg itself.
 No one can deny tho restfulncss of the old city. Nobody is in hurry. You seldom sec people about, or at the windows of the great mansions. Deggars beg istlessly as in Cuba. One sleeps in a street car as it creeps along, lulled by the sluggish so-nnolence of the driver and the dreamful tinllling of the lazily shaken bell. In the shops there is a hush and quiet as at church. Inc very birds perch, just their feathers and chirp as if after some olden habit. and not from impelling life and instinct of song. Citizens promenade the streets-that is, when any are to be seen as if hesitant and in doubt over the object of their errand. The noon and night cannon boom as if with delayed report, and their echoes rumble over the city with delinquent 1 echoings. Along the wharves, the waterside folk and all business affairs of shipping seem | to rest as if under delayed orders And away above all, up on the citadel heights, the measured pacings of the sentinels have life | lessness that emphasizes this sense of endless ] siesta, and harmonizes completely with the feeling of reposeful fnalty involuntarily possessing the loiterer here.-Edgar L. l Wakeman in St. Louis Republic