Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-11

at Naples without fires in rooms that had
the sun in them only part of the time if
at all. They wore their overcoats or
shawls within doors as constantly as
without, or perhaps even more SO, for
often on sunny days the streets will be
warm while the sunless chamber re-
talns its sepulchral chill. For
this reason the wise often put
on their outside garments, not
when they go out, but when they come
in. Then the amount of undercloth-
ing worn by some tourists in Southern
Italy is amazing. 1t is betrayed by the
peculiarly plethoric appearance of the
frook coat, buttoned over nobody knows
how many undershirts. one of which
would suffice in houses heated in the
Boston fashion.
That that fashion is not altogether q
good fashion we were well aware before
we came to Italy. Seventy-tive or
eighty degrees of artificial heat is not
needful nor comfortable, except, per-
haps, to the person who has already
been enfeebled by it. An Italian COM
ing into your house will think it warm at
sixty-five degrees, and get as far from
the fire as possible. We should say he
was right If he did not carry his an
tipathy to fires too far. A room at
sixty-flve degrees ought to be warm
enough fer people in health, and the
health Of New England people would,
am sure, be much better in winter if
they kept their dwellings no warmer
than that. The contrast of seventy
five degrees, more or less Gotten more) i,
within doors, or the weather at fifteen or
twenty degrees, which they often go into
in cold days, Is too great for ordinary
constitutions.
But a room at fifty degreesl That,
too, may be endured by those accus-
toned to it and not be bad for the health
provided the sun is IN it part of the
time.
But we are not accustomed to It. and
in hunting for lodgings one chief diff
Guilty was to find facilities for heating
the apartments to let, combined with
other indispensable conditions. There is
hardly chimney-what we would call q
good, honest chimney in America,
built broad and solid from the founda-
tons of the house with brick or stone
in all Naples. You see some small,
rounded chimney tops on the fiat roofs
of q few houses here and there, but these
are in most cases false tops, built 10 re-
ceive and conceal the iron funnel coming
up from below. Ordinarily the funnel
has no such projections; 1t sticks out of
the roof, bearing q sheet-iron cap, visi-
BILE only from heights above, the roof
being broad and lofty; but it is notice
able enough when thrust out through the
wall of room or out OF g window as it
often is. We found not many rooms
possessing even this convenience. We
could have a brazier with embers in it;
but that hardly suited our Yankee ideas
Our friend advised Us to try living with
out fire, where We could have the sun
in our rooms; but. though the weather
was fine then, We knew that it would not
be always fine, even in Naples. and how
about the nights?
II we found the rooms themselves TO
our liking, with facilities for fires, there
was sure to be something about the
stairway of the house or the courtyard
which was objectionable. Ths houses
are tan and have many people living in
them on the different floors; SO that the
general entrance viii be often ill-kept,
Il not actually dirty ard malodorons.