Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-12
In BEAUTIFUL VENICE
Mary J. Holmes FurnisheS'a Glimpse
of the Picturesque City.
QUAINT SCENES IN THE STREETS.
Motley Crowds in Which Glitter and Crime
are Buttercupped.
SWEET MUSIC OF VENETIAN ORGANS
rconnnsroNDrNcr or THE D1srArou.l


!. VENICE, April 2O.-Poets have suns
of Venice by moonlight and Venice
by sunlight for hundreds of years, eact
from his own standpoint of view or feeling
One bard has stood on the Bridge of Sighi
and looked where "Venice sat throned Oh
her hundred isles, and bathed in such sun
light as might have been distilled from az
since the old Doges reigned triumphant
here; while another has stood upon the
Rialto and from the silvery moonlight re-
tiected in the water below conjured up the
fair forms of Portia and Desdemona gliding
by in gilded gondolas, whose oars kept time
to the song of the gondoliers, now thing
OF the past, for the gondoliers of to-day dc
not look much like birds of song as they
bend to their task, with no thought of any
thing beyond making the trip last as long
as possible, if it happens to be by the hour.
Moonlight and starlight and sunlight
have all had their need of praise, but | do
not remember to have heard of Venice by
foglight, but this has been our experience
for the last ten days. Fog in the morning,
fog at noon, and fog at night, SO dense some
times that the lights across the canal were
scarcely visible. And yet it is always fas-
cinating, this quaint, water-soaked city,
with its pictures and churches and palaces,
Its easy-going people, its $50 canals, where
everything is thrown, and which, but for
the tide, which, like great broom comes in
twice each day and sweeps them clean,
would be unendurable.
FANCY VERSUS FACT.
When you first see Venice in the dis
tance, with its domes and towers repeating
themselves in the sea, you are very apt to
grow sentimental and quote Ruskln and
Byron and good many more Venice-mad
people, and to feel little mad yourself,
unless: as was our case, you have In your
party fresh young mind which sees things
as they are, and which throws wet blanket
over your sentimentality by the remark,
Looks as if there had been a tremendous
food and the city was all afoat."
And that is just the way it does look,
especially from the top of the Campanile, if
you are foolish enough to take the 500 steps
necessary to reach it. It is, however, COM
paratively easy of ascent being an inclined
plane which reminds one of the Frue Kirche
in Copenhagen, up whose tower Catherine
of Russia once drove four-in-hand with
Peter behind her on horseback. 1t is pity
there are not more inclined planes in Ven
ice, for then when walking through its
streets and narrow alleys you could think of
something more appropriate to the occasion
than the ridiculous stanza, "Upstairs and
downstairs, and in the lady's cham
ber." And, leaving out the lady's
chamber, it is all upstairs and down.
stairs, over one bridge after another. until
you feel like crying out, "My kingdom for
horseI'' But alasi there is no horse here,
although tradition speaks of one at Lido,
just across the lagoon, where in summer
there is short tramway from the boat-land-
ing across the island to the 400 bath houses
built upon pier. Here for franc and
half you can wash yourself in the Adriatic,
towels not included, and here the other day
we saw in the lighthouses old straw hats
and slippers, relics of the summer time when
the place is crowded with the fashion of
Venice, and reminding one Of similar wrecks
left by the sea at home.
HARD TO KILL TIME.
Just what one does each day in Venice
would be difficult to tell, unless, following
the example of Mark Twain, whose first
diary read for weeks: "Gotup, washed and
went to bed" we record, "Got up, washed,
and the crowd and to beat the Italians
down." Never give more than third, or,
at most. half of the price first demanded,
is the advice frequently given travellers by
their friends, and in many instances it is
good advice to follow, especially when the
vender begins to fall himself and finally
asks how much you will give. Prix fxe,
however, is much more common now than it
was years ago, and there are establishments
where the proprietor puts on an air of in
suited dignity worthy OF Arnold himself if
you tell him his goods are too dear. Just
now the shop windows are unusually gay,
and the city is at its brightest, and in spite
of the fog keeps up a continual round of
gaiety, with professions and music and
masses and gatherings in the streets, where
you can take your choice of amusements,
which, if not of the best kind, are peculiar
to the people.
As the Piazza of st. Mark and the broad
Riva are favorite places of resort, it is there
that you see the Venetians at their best,
when the inmates of the palaces and the
alleys and lanes and dark passages, where
sunlight never falls, are out for holiday,
and during which you see as heterogeneous
a multitude as can be found in any city in
the world. Near our hotel a crowd gathers
daily to listen to TRADE on the ''Transmi-
grafton of Souls" illustrated by heads of
various kinds. and once, 1 think, by dog,
who looked more human than the master: a
little farther on is Punch and Judy, and
farther still larger crowd is listening to an
auctioneer selling his patent medicines,
while nearer to the water a tall woman, with
a tall feather in her hat and big bracelets
on her big arms, is selling 1er wares, and by
her loud voice and fierce gesticulations
1 g l. L
the piazza of st. Marks crowds are listening
to the band which plays there every fine
afternoon from 2 to 4, and sandwiched in
between all these groups is moving mass,
every condition of life in the
city.