St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-03-10
HUMOR IN HISTORY.
Bill Nye Writes About Naples and Ito
Lazzaroni Vineyard.


Naples is pretty good town to stanG
off and look at from the bay. It il
located on the brow of hill, extend.
ing from the Costello del Orc to the
top of the Capodimonte, and, ranged
around the semi-circular hills as it is
it reminds me forcibly of Tompkins.
vile, Staten Island.
The newer streets of Naples are quite
pretty and extend several miles out
beyond the town, like those of Fargo,
Oak, while sidewalks several hundred
miles in extent were built at the ex-
pense of the county. In this way Far
go had sidewalks that extended for
miles in every direction through the
neighboring farms, and the county
paid for them. Fargo has been striv-
ing ever since to live up to her side
walks. Aside from this there is little
similarity between Naples and Fargo.
The old streets of Naples are narrow
and crooked, and the houses are so
high that a ripe pomegranate dropped
from the roof on the plug hat of 9
passing tourist is permanently i'm.
paired and the hat Frustrated.
Neapolitan people formerly used the
Toledo, a street now called the Roma,
for a kitchen, drcssing-room, bath
room, front hall and storm-door. Here
they ate, drank, slept, dressed and I'M
dressed their children, washed, ironed,
quarreled, sang starved, begged, died,
roasted chestnuts and prepared their
macaroni and lazzaroni for the Ameri-
can market.
Naples claims to be the leading
lazzaroni vineyard of the world. We
try to initiate her in New York, but
we fail. We have poverty enough in
New York and fluent, extemporaneou
beggars as well as more or less disease,
but we have not been able so far to
unite our poverty and disease in such
way as to successfully initiate the
picturesque lazzaroni of the East. Our
poor people in America are too robust
and our invalids are too many of them
wealthy. So long as it is that way
Europe and Asia will do our lazzaroni
business in spite of all we can do to
prevent it.
We can get up a fair specimen to
look at, but it lacks age and the air OF
travel, as we'll as the pleasing malform.
ations peculiar to the lazzaroni bijou.
terie of the Old World. 1 sometimes
think that the reason Naples so long
retained her supremacy over other cit
les in this line was largely due to the
stimulation resulting from the close
competition between Vesuvius and the
local talent of the lazzaroni in the mat
ter of ernptions. Naples was at one
time the county seat of dukedom, but
there was no call for dukedom in that
part of the country and so it was sue
ceeded by a dynasty. The Suabian
dynasty was successful and made
money rapidly. There was good deal
of suffering among the poor people,
but the dynasty did we'll and accumu-
lated considerable property.
When Charles III. entered Naples in
1884 he is said to have found thirty
thousand thieves. They had stolen
every thing but Vesuvius and were get
ting thirty thousand pairs of sheet-iron
mittens made when Charles entered the
city. In 1850 Garibaldi entered the
city, and later on Naples was annexed
to the constitutional kingdom of Victor
1t has improved good
deal since. 1t overlooks the Bay of
Naples, and is supported by people
who come here to see Vesuvius vomit |
fire, smoke and melted matter called |
ava.-M y World.