Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1885 — Venetian Gondoliers. [ARTICLE]

Venetian Gondoliers.

It is an odd experience *to live in a city where no horse sets its foot, and through whose streets no cab or carriage ever passes. You may walk all over Venice,if you like, but you cannot drive an inch. She affords ample accommodation for the pedestrian, but her streets have no roadways, being all sidewalk. From this novel State of affairs the tourist at least derives one advantage—he is freed from the plague of cabmen. The Venetian gondoliers resemble the ordinary Jehus that they replace about as much as a dragon-fly does a dung-beetle; They are a hardy, active, cheery set of men, civil and obliging f limbed like Greek statues and graceful as greyhounds. John of Bologna might have molded his incomparable Mercury from one of these litlielimbed, sinewy Oarsmen. Their fine development of form is due to their occupation, their habit of rowing standing, developing and exercising every muscle in the frame from throat to heel. As a class they are the cleanliest set of men to be found among the lower orders of Enrope. The watery ways on which their days are spent send up no cloud of dust or dashes of mud to sully their neat and picturesque attire. Their hands and faces, bronzed to as dusky a tint as the sun and the wind can i bssibly impart to the hujuag epidermis, and their crisp, cfirly dark locks are as free from soil and as well" kept as are those of any high-bred gentleman. The costume of a gondolier of the better class would be a handsome one to adopt for a fancy-dress ball, since it is very characteristic, and yot simple and sufficiently in accordance with a gentleman’s every-day suit to be worn without awkwardness. It consists of a loose double-breasted jacket of dark-blue cloth,'with trousers to match. The jacket is closed with two rows of large, highly polished brass buttons, and is bound around the edges and around the cuffs and collar and pockets with cloth of a blue two; shades lighter than the hue of the garment itself. A glazed sailor’s hat, around the crown of which is passed a ribbon of the fighter shade of blue, with long, floating ends,. forms the head-gear. Sometimesa felt hat, with a melon-shaped crown, the brim curving deeply over the brow and .at the back of the head, is adopted, but the ribbon is never absent. A sash of cloth,matching the jacket and trousers, and with long ends finished with white worsted fringe, is tied around the waist, the ends falling at the left side. Sometimes the jacket is piped with red, or with the same dark blue as thecloth whereof it is composed ; but the style I have just described is the most usual, and is also the prettiest. It opens at the throat, showing a collar and white necktie, both scrupulously clean, as are also the white cuffs visible beneath the loose sleeves, the linen being coarse in quality, but of snowy whiteness. I have been told that the same dainty neatness prevails in their homes, and that a gondolier’s ordinary meal of fried fish and polenta is served on as spotless a tablecloth, and with knives and forks and plates and glasses as well washed and shining as are similar articles in a palace.— Lucy Hooper's letter.