Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-10-09
A PICTURE OF HALIFAX.
A City Of Queer, Antiquated Structures
kestful Old Place.

ksestfm Olu fEtcc.
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 a
spectacle of unusual and reflective interest.
To one accustomed to the brightness and
newress Of architecture, to the virility and
glowing in every day activities, and the snap
and fash of business life In American cities,
the grimness, dullness and inaninity of Hall
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 cityis
bettering, 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 ramshackle, storm ratified ten.
ements. There is not on our coast, not e1.
cepting old Salem, such queer and anti
| quated structures. They seem composite
of half city, half country architecture
of Normandy, Holland and our owr
colonial time Ponderous porches. little
windows, spacious porch boxes a:
among the old Pennsylvania Dutch settle
ments, bunchy window roofs, cumbrous
| gables, dorlner windows innumerable
'hipped" roofs, shingled house sides and th,
tremendous chimneys of Marblehead sngges
a day and time Of old, projected with sturdy
lasting qualities into the new. If this be tru,
of the habitations, still euanter flavor Il
found down on Upper and Lower Water
streets, on Bedford row and where the lane
and alleys converge and intersect and strag
gle along the wharves. All this gion is lik,
the huddled water front groupings at oul
own picturesque Gloucester; and more dimi
nutive, but as dainty, bits can here be fount
for the artists pencil as at ancient Nurem
berg itself.
No one can deny the restfulness of the oh
city. Nobody is in hurry. You seldom Sc
people about, or at tho windows of the grea
mansions. Beggars beg hstlessly as in Cuba
One sleeps in q street car as it creeps along
lulIed by the sluggish somnolence of th
driver and the dreanful tinkling of the lazil,
shaken bell In the shops there is a hush an,
quiet as at church The very birds perch
adjust their feathers and chirp as if afte
some oldcn habit. and not from impellip
life and instinct Of song Citizens promenad
the streets-that is, when any are TO be see
as if hesitsnt and in doubt over the objec
of their errand. The noon and night canno
boom as if with delayed report, and thei
echoes rumble over the city with delinduen
echoings. Along the wharves, the watersid
folk and all business affairs of shipping seer
to rest as if under delayed orders. And ava
above all, up on the citadel heights, tn
measured pacings of the sentinels have life
lessness that emphasizes this sense of sndles
siesta, and harmonizes completely with th
feeling of reposeful finality involuntaril
possessing the loiterer here.-Edgar l
Wakeman in St Louis Republic.