Leghorn Had A Bad
Name In Connection With Stabbers, And With Some Justice It Must Be
Allowed; For, Not Many
Years ago, there was an assassination club
there, the members of which bore no ill-will to anybody in
particular,
But stabbed people (quite strangers to them) in the
streets at night, for the pleasure and excitement of the
recreation. I think the president of this amiable society was a
shoemaker. He was taken, however, and the club was broken up. It
would, probably, have disappeared in the natural course of events,
before the railroad between Leghorn and Pisa, which is a good one,
and has already begun to astonish Italy with a precedent of
punctuality, order, plain dealing, and improvement--the most
dangerous and heretical astonisher of all. There must have been a
slight sensation, as of earthquake, surely, in the Vatican, when
the first Italian railroad was thrown open.
Returning to Pisa, and hiring a good-tempered Vetturino, and his
four horses, to take us on to Rome, we travelled through pleasant
Tuscan villages and cheerful scenery all day. The roadside crosses
in this part of Italy are numerous and curious. There is seldom a
figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face, but they are
remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood, of every
possible object that can be connected with the Saviour's death.
The cock that crowed when Peter had denied his Master thrice, is
usually perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he
generally is.
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