Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1886 — Messina. [ARTICLE]

Messina.

Sauntering slowly past the open doors you everything between the beateu flay floor arid the whitewashed roof. There is the big family bed and the small brick cooking range with tho charcoal brasier; there are the kettle and the copper saucepan, tlie emblazoned cupboard or chest containing the family finery, the rickety table in tho middle of the room, where the women w ork in wet weather, and the cheap colored prints on the walls, which gratify their simple tastes. In tine weather, where there is any shade, as a matter of course, the household bivouacs outside upon the pavement. The men can generally earn good wages, and tho women are industrious, sothatona Sunday or a saint’s day they can afford to go out a-pleasuring, and there is a great consumption of fruits and fishes and cheap wines at tho frequent wine-shops in the dusty suburbs. Then the matrons and maids, indulging their coquetry, come forth in the contents of- the cupboards and chests, fho.ugh their di'esses are rather remarkable for colors tlian for cut. There is little of what one would call national costume; the women are far from being good-looking, and regularity of feature is altogether the exception. Yet tlierei s a certain piquancy in the brilliant colors of the bodices and the quaintly-knotted head-gear and neckerchiefs which, with the silver chains and the gilded broodier, set off the swarthy,, sunburned, or olive complexions, and the sparkle of tlie bright, black eyes. The complexions fade soon, as the features grow haggard; but the black eyes continue to burn like carbon under the ■ blowpipe, in eontrast with the prematurely cadaverous face. Really the most striving and harmonious of the costumes are the every-day wear of the brick burners find The fishermen, who dress in tight-fitting suits, like the devils in “Der Freischutz,” which seem charred to the same mahogany tints as the dusky skins of the wearers: There is nothing very special about the beggars, who have been cast promiscuously on the streets in the Sicilian towns since the charitable convents closed Xhdr doors. —Blackwood’s Manazmtr