The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-02-22
STRANGE CONTRASTS IN ROME.
All Sorts and Conditions of Men JostIe
One Another In the Street.L

All Sorts and Conditions of Men Jostie
One Another In the Streets.
Perhaps 1t is true that the impress.
sions WHICH Rome makes upon a
thoughtful man vary more accord
ing to the wind and the time of day
than those he feels in 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
a dozen steps.
One of the most crowded thor
pughfares 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 Colonnn 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 a foot pace, and the
insufficient pavements are thronged
with pedestrians. In a measure, the
Tritone of Rome corresponds to
Galata bridge in Constantinople. In
the course of a week most of the
population of the city must have
passed at least once through the
crowded little street, which some.
how in the rain of millions that
lasted for two years did not manag
to attract to itself oven the little
sun which would have suficed to
widen it by a few yards. 1t is as
though the contents of Rome were
daily drawn through a keyhole. In
the TrltOne are to be seon daily
magnificent equipages, jammed 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 ev-
cry type to be found between Porta
Angelica and Porta San Giovanni.
A prince Of the holy Roman en-
pire pushes past a troop of dirty
school children and is almost driven
into an open barrel of salt Goldfish
in the door Of a poor Shop by a
black faced charcoal man carrying
a sack on his head more than half as
high as himself. A party of jolly
young German tourists in loose
clothes, with red books in their
hands and their feldglasses 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
tonishment and admiration when
they themselves are almost run
down by a couple of the giant Roal
grenadiers, each 6 feet 5 or there.
about, besides nine inches Or SO of
crested helmet aloft, gorgeous, gi-
gantic and spotless.
Clerks by the dozen and liveried
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 c~onfesses that he could not
find in any dictionary, but which
he thinks might be very useful);
servant girls, smart children with
nurses and hoops going up to the
Pincio; 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
d~exterity and yelling their cries in
superhumanly high voices-there is
no end to the multitude.
If the day is showery, it is a sight
to see the confusion in the Tritone
when umbrellas of every age, ma
terial and color are all opened at
once, while the people who have
mono crowd into the Goldfish shop,
and the liquor sellers, and the to-
bacconist's, with the traditional con
permesso of excuse Or entering when
they do not mean to buy anything,
for the Romans are 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. MAJ
ion Crawford in Century.
a Typical English Joke.
A young woman stepped into the
I1-s@>N,, 1ox, - A., CN,,tl>1-a,+1,~, ~