Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-30
LIFE IN THE sLUMs OF ITALY.
Ways of the Poor in the Marrow
Streets of Rome and Naples.


From the Southern Workman
Sunny Italy, mild and beautiful to the
Iasser- by; the bay of Naples mirrored in
golden sheen: the Smoldering volcano
sending its smoke up to an otherwise I'M
clouded sky, are all most picturesque seen
from afar and by the tourist on the regu-
lation tour. Down below the surface how
ever lie the pity and the pathos of Italian
life-the life of the slum that is driving
the emigrant to our shores each year by
the thousand.
We may see the slums of Rome, but we
have not seen Italy. In Rome the tene-
ment districts have narrow little lanes that
remind one at once of Paris But the
Paris alleyways are crowded; here in Rome
the streets seem quiet and empty. Old houses
with tattered sign bills pasted to their
walls; high up, skyward, the wash lines
swaying in the breeze; a passing priest,
and here and there man selling papers;
a policeman with a great cockade; a little
cafe and the eternal vender of postcards
and one has seen what he may of low life
in Rene without penetrating down into
the heart of the buildings.
In Naples, however, it is otherwise Fol-
lowing the bay out where 1t curves past
the high tenements-bUilt of narrow brick,
coated over with a concrete of pink and
so picturesque from the sea, one reaches
the heart of Italian life at once. 1t is
composite picture made up of many ele-
ments. In among the narrow little alley
ways that here and there turn to stone
steps up which tired women saunter, car
rying great oil jars such as one sees among
the relics of Pompeii at the National Mu-
scum, children are running, watching for
the least sign of opulence in the pasSer-by,
that they may flock about him, crying, in
the musical linqua Romano, 'macaroni!"
the equivalent in this land of trinkgeld and
pourboire woman's voice comes down
from above and bucket, a commonplace
tin pail, hits our head-for we have come
in contact with the great means of trans
porting things to the upper floors of the
tenements. There is laugh and another
woman seen on the portico before her WIN
dow, where dirty, brownskinned children,
they of the tangled chestnut hair, are play
ing among the flowers that these balconies
always contain. A cheaply built horse car,
needing no track trundles by, filed with
men wearing the Neapolitan cap, and all
of them smoking. Banana peddlers saun-
ter by, stopping at the doors of dirty shops,
where the entire family of the shopkeeper
is gathered One peeps inside and sees q
dirty bed and a floor Uttered with filth.
Here bread and meat are sold.
We pass on into the heart of southern
Italy We are among the secondhand deal
ers; their wares hang from poles along the
outer edge of the walk. Every one walks
In the street in this land. and so the pave
ments are given over. sine die, to the ex-
position of wares. Candle stores are be-
coming ubiquitous, for the Italian poor are
most religious, and a penny saved is In
vested in taper to be burnt at the neigh
boring shrine. Another element in the
street life of Naples is the gourds. At
every window, high as the tenements reach,
up to the rift of soft, blue Italian sky. we
see them hanging, great golden fellows,
filled with lard or with milk or with water,
for these are the refrigerators of the south
80 UNTIL nr
perish.
We have encountered the peddler and
the beggar; another character iHthis Stun
life is the nurse who hires out. On Sunday,
when madame takes care of her infant,
the nurse comes home. She wears no cap,
but upon her head is great bow of yell
low or red ribbon, with long ends hanging
down her back. There are brass bells jim
Cling merrily on these ribbons, and, like
the girl in the old rhyme, she has music
to soothe baby wherever she goes.
We cannot analyze this street picture.
To analyze it, to describe first the men,
then the women, then the children, after
that the shops and the streets, would be
to spoil it. One does not find 1t that way.
One rambles through, looking to right and
left, and on every side and everywhere
there is some new attraction. OF course
the children interest us. They run about
nude, save for a slip of Bingham bit
of trouser and a waist. When they see us
they beg for centissime and for macaroni.
Poor as are the Italians of this part of the
city, Just so idle they. Down at the
harbor the boys fish when there Is no
other amusement. 1t is a strange fact
that although close among the shipping.
fish are not rare, and many a neat fry is
brought home for the table. Others make
pretense of selling newspapers. Let a
street organ go by, however, and customers
may go to the winds. Here and there the
boys linger about the tables of some side
walk cafe, where men are playing cards.
Every of the little folks has somewhere
about him tiny paper money boX-just a
cube, with a slit in one end in which to
deposit centissime he may gather by some
hook or crook These he will save until
there is good opportunity to spend them,
and then out they all come for one grand
splurge.
The tenements are growing higher. Six
and seven stories they tower now and we
can no longer count the floral balconies
Doors pierce them into a central court
where skeins of yarn are drying, and where
peddlers deposit their stalls while they call
to the householders. In some of these courts
an altar is set up, and If we are fortunate
we may chance on a wedding. The bride
and groom have come from church to the
family altar, as 1t were, and there is a
great hubbub, for all the people of the tene-
ments have gathered to see the ceremony