"The modern Venetian takes pleasure not only in neglecting but in persecuting the palace and the gondola.... As to the gondola, the mass of Venetians possess none, and rarely go in them.... They forget that the much-desired foreigner does not come to Venice to read signboards from a steamboat up and down the Grand Canal; and, by handing over this magnificent waterway to a company of foreign speculators, they have well-nigh reduced the ancient body of gondoliers to beggary. The steamers are numerous and noisy.... If one contrasts the passengers of these rival craft, the gondola and the _vaporetto_, one asks which, as a body, most contribute to the prosperity of Venice, and so merits most consideration.... The penny steamer and the gondola are irreconcileable, and cannot exist long together, for the simple reason that the gondoliers cannot earn a support, and must take to other avocations." "EXSUL'S" _Letter to the Times on "The Venice of To-day."_ _Shade of_ CHILDE HAROLD _sings_:-- Yes, this is Venice; yon's the Bridge of Sighs; The palace and the prison, still they stand: But 'midst the maze foul funnel fumes arise. As by the touch of an enchanter's hand, A hundred such their smoky wings expand, Around me, and a dying glory smiles On what was once the poet's, artist's land, Soot smears the winged Lion's marble piles, And Venice reeks like Hull, throned on her hundred isles. She looks a swart sea Cyclops, from the ocean, Rising with smutted walls and blackened towers; The _vaporetto_, with erratic motion, Muddies the waters with its carbon-showers. And such she is! Progress's dismal dowers Have spoilt the picture; now the eye may feast On garish signs and posters. Gracious powers! Sewing-machines and hair-washes at least Might spare the Grand Canal. Trade is an ogre-ish beast! In Venice Vulcan's echoes hiss and roar, And idle sits the hapless Gondolier. His Gondola is crumbling on the shore, The Penny Steamer's whistle racks his ear. 'ARRY exults--but Beauty is not here; Trade swells, Arts grow--but Nature seems to die. Hucksters may boast that Venice is less "dear," "_Progresso!_" is the Press, the Public cry; But, by great RUSKIN'S self, the thing is all my eye. For unto us she had a spell beyond Cheap dinners and Advertisement's array Of polychrome, of which Trade seems so fond. Alas! the Dogeless city's silent sway Will lessen momently, and fade away, When the Rialto echoes to the roar Of _vaporetti_, and in sad decay The Gondola, its swan-like flittings o'er, Neglected rots upon the solitary shore.