The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-08-07

back alleys and climb shaky stairs to
dark apartments ostensibiy for this
purpose; but in the street everything
save money is burned in the giant eff
fort to thaw Littls Italy into some SEM.
blance TO the sunny Italy of the old
world.
: some small boy starts a bonfire on
snow heap. Everybody adds his por-
ton and the crowd collects.
/ Shawled and bareheaded girls gather
! gaily about gossiping, their faces rosy
in the light of the fiamts. Small boys
leap toward the light. They sit on
! fragile boxes watching it.
| Shoes are held perilously over the
flames. Rags catch. Friends rushing
: to the rescue put out the flames, and
laughter ensues. .
! NOW and then one encounters a small
stove set comfortably and enticingly on
stree in Little Italy. A large tin
bucket lit may bs, containing srnoth-
cred Goals, but this is the occasion for
wariness. The little unostenta tious
stove is intended to entice the warmed
foot to some restaurant or perhaps to
a warmsr place yet, where something
more eXhilarating han hot steaks and
macaroni is apt to be served.
The girl in the theatrical corner
booth, who sells frozen candies, or
anges and what not, sits there summer
and winter with the thermometer be-
low zero, snow banked to the height of
ten feet or more in the street--barri-
caded, as it were, by wall of snow.
She sits bareheadsd, but she is warmer
than she looks to be. A little pipeless,
smokeless stove burns at her feet,
1t appears that the body comes in for
slight consideration in Little. Italy so
the foot is warm.
Crowds swarm festively beween snow
banks Bonfires of banana peel, orange
peel, ole shoes, gum shoes, top boots,
fame to the delight of the rising gene
ration IF New York's Italy. The high
er the flame the more scraeching the
hilarity. Ash barrels are searched
frantically for fuel. Potato pselings
add to the hearts intensity. Also old
apple parings.
1t is astonishing the variety of things
that burn and burn we'll of cold days in
Little Italy.
Small boys walk about with hand
stoves. These are not the tiny, luke
warm affairs held in closed palms in
V$nice and elsewhere, hut the idea is
similar. They are small tin buckets
that have seen better days, filed with
bits Of kindling wood surreptitiously
acquired somewhere or other
Run through the handle is an iron
stick. The owner holds the end of this
stick and walks proudly about, the
envy of his neighborhood, waving the
tongues of flame that leap out from the
bucket.
On days of exceeding cold furniture
is burned more or less rscklessly in Lit.
tie Italy in this strenuous effort of hel
inhabitants to SIMULATE the climate o.
their native land. Anticipated chairs
to say nothing of wo or hree legged ia
bles, are sacrificed. Truckmen, will
feet wrapped in gunnysacksoften leave
their work to warm Redeemed hands
and Join in the gossip of the barehead,
ed girls of the wonderful coiffures
gathered in a circle as near the fire al
the small boys who own 1t will permit
them to gather.
1t might seem that tables and chair.
should be the limit in the way of furni.
ture in neighborhood hardly distin.
guished by wealth, but it is not. One
cold day recently six small boys
dragged from dark floor a mattress
and made a noteworthy bonfire of that
New York Sun.