Year: 1868

An italian Operative Troupe I'm Broadway.


The children of the sunny cline of Italy
have afforded very great pleasure to the
citizens of New York at different times since
our first attempt to naturalize the Italian
opera, but we question if any band of foreign
artists ever executed more noble work, or
one more calculated to really delight and at
the same time prove useful to the ladies and
the public generally, than did force of
Italians, numbering from forty to fifty men,
who appeared on Broadway about one o'clock
Saturday morning and went to work with
crowbar, pickaxe, spade and shovel in an
endeavor to clear that great thoroughfare
of the mounds of frozen mud and snow
which have rendered it almost impossible
and really curious. The men piled their
vocation vigorously and with effect,
under direction of an Italian ganger, who
delivered his orders in tones dulcet
indeed, yet not to be misunderstood, and
welded good stout staff with much more
vigor and in more appropriate time than have
many of the marshals of the orchestral baton
who bewildered the people in the Catacombs
on Fourteenth street.


Working with will until about six o'clock
in the forenoon the Italians made good progress
in cleaning the street, SO that Broadway looked
much more attractive to the bellies who came
out in the afternoon to do little shopping and
enjoy the first CLEAN of the spring weather
with which we have been favored. Such evil
dence of industrial progress affords good hope
ofItaly Immediately falling into her proper place
in the rank OF nations. We trust the Italians
will persevere in their work until Broadway is
perfectly clean from the Battery to Blooming
dale, and that the Street Commissioner will see
to 1t that they are paid literally and with regn-
larity. When the work is accomplished let
them select a deputation-say dozen of men
from their number and send them on q tour
through the Italian cities-making q longer.
stay in Rome and Naples-each having his
crowbar sloped over his shoulder in
stead Of q musket, his pickaxe slung in
his belt instead of bayonet, and his
pocket full of greenbacks. Let them
address themselves to the legions of their non
producing brethren and advise them to 'come
along" and do likewise, and we venture to
assert that the great financial difficulty and
commercial embarrassments of Victor Emanuel
will be very speedily relieved in a manner
which will afford delight both to the King him
self and to General Garibaldi--the emigration
Of human deadweight which must be fed,
but cannot be put to work. The new comers
may not be exactly suited to appear in Robert
lie Diable" or other favorite operas, but IL they
acquire the habit of cleansing our streets and
alleyways thoroughly, and If Superintendent
Kennedy can teach them to do without the
stiletto they will abate many an exclamation
uttered in invocation Of e djable by our citizen
travellers, fatigued, impeded, soiled and fire.
quently broken-limbed as they are, owing to
the present condition of the highways.


The children Of the Medci having come out
in force to cleanse the streets suggests natu-
rally the question, what has become Of the other
grand branch of the Latin race, the sons of
Brian Boroihmep This vast nationality ap-
pears to have concentrated all It's energy
In some difficulty with united Germany on
Wards Island, some dinner "rect6ca-
tion" or soup platter boundary" subject, or
perhaps question as to the relative merits of
whiskey and lager bier in producing intoxica-
ton. For these gentlemen Celt and Teuton-
we recommend that they be at once discharged