The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-04-18
STRANGE CONTRASTS IN ROME.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men J.st
One Another In the Streets,

All Sorts and Conditions of Men J.stis
One Another In the Streets.
Perhaps it is true that the impress
sions WHICH Rome makes upon a
thoughtful man vary more accord
ing to the wind and tho time of day
than those he feels i'll other cities.
Perhaps, too, there is no capital in
all the world which has such con-
trasts to show within a mile of each
other-one might almost say within
q dozen steps.
One of the most crowded thor
oughfares of Rome, for instance, is
the Via del Tritone, which is the
only passage between the Pincian
and the Quirinal hills, from the re
gion of Piazza Colonna toward the
railway station and the new quar-
ter. During the busy hours of the
day a carriage can rarely move
through its narrower portions any
faster than at q foot pace, and the
insufficient pavements are thronged
with pedestrians. In a measure, the
Tritone of Rome corresponds TO
Galata bridge in Coustantinople. In
the course of q week most of the
population of the city must have
passed at least once through tho
crowded little street, which some-
how in the rain of millions that
lasted for two years did not manage
to attract to itself even the little
sum which would have sufficed to
widen it by a few yards. 1t is as
though the contents of Rome were
daily drawn through a keybole. In
the Tritone arc to be seer daily
magnificent equipages, jamlned in
the string, between milk carts, ON
nibuaes and dustmen's barrows, pre-
ceded by butchers vans and follow
ed by miserable cabs, smart dogcarts
and high wheeled country vehicles
driven by rough, booted men wear
ing green lined cloaks and looking
like strange bandits. Even saddle
horses are sometimes led that way,
to save time, and on each side flow
two streams of human beings of ey-
cry type to be found between Porta
Angelica and Porta San Giovanni.
A prince of the holy Roman en-
plre pushes past a troop of dirty
school children and Is almost driven
into an open barrel of salt Goldfish
in the door of n poor Chop by a
black faced charcoal man carrying
a sack on his head moro than half as
high as himself. A party Of jolly
young German tourists in loose
clothes, with red books in their
hands and their fieldglasses hang
ing by straps across their shoulders,
try to rid themselves of the flower
girls dressed in sham Sabine cos
tunes and utter ordinations of as
t~onishment and admiration when
they themselves are almost run
down by a couple of the giant Roal
grenadiers. each 6 feet S or there.
about, besides nino inches or SO of
crested helmet aloft, gorgeous, gi-
gantic and spotless.
Clerks by the dozen and liveriad
messengers of the ministries strug-
gle in the press; ladies gather their
skirts closely and try to pick q
dainty way where, indeed, there is
nothing 'dain' Ga word which DR..
Johnson ~confcsses that he could not
lind in any dictionary, but which
he thinks might be very usofu);
servant girls, smart children with
nurses and hoops going up to tho
Plncio; black browed washerwomen,
with big baskets of clothes on their
heads; stumpy little infantry soldiers
in gray uniforms; priests, friars,
vendors of boot laces and thread,
vegetable sellers pushing ~handcarts
of green things in and out among the
horses and vehicles with amazing
dexterity and yelling their cries in
superhumanly high voicos-there is
no end to the multitude.
If the day is showery, it lisa sight
to e the confusion in the Tritone
when umbrellas of every age, ma
terial and color are all opened Mt
once, While the people who have
mono crowd into tho Goldfish shop,
and the liquor sellers, and the to-
b%acconist's, with the traditional CON
permesso of excuse or entering when
they do not mean to buy anything,
for the Romans arc mostly civil
people and fairly good natured. But,
rain or shine, at the busy hours the
place is always crowded to overflow
ing with every description of vehicle
and every type of humanity. Mar
ion Crawford in Century.