have a quiet chat at the tops of their voices, as they loaf idly at the
ferries, or to scream repartees across the Grand Canal, than to tell
stories. In all history that relates to localities they are sufficiently
versed to find the notable places for strangers, but beyond this they
trouble themselves as little with the past as with the future. Three
tragic legends, however, they know, and will tell with the most amusing
effect, namely: Biasio, _luganegher_; the Innocent Baker-Boy, and
Veneranda Porta.

The first of these legends is that of a sausage-maker who flourished in
Venice some centuries ago, and who improved the quality of the broth which
the _luganegheri_ make of their scraps and sell to the gondoliers, by
cutting up into it now and then a child of some neighbor. He was finally
detected by a gondolier who discovered a little finger in his broth, and
being brought to justice, was dragged through the city at the heels of a
wild horse. This most uncomfortable character appears to be the first hero
in the romance of the gondoliers, and he certainly deserves to rank with
that long line of imaginary personages who have made childhood so wretched
and tractable. The second is the Innocent Baker-Boy already named, who was
put to death on suspicion of having murdered a noble, because in the dead
man's heart was found a dagger fitting a sheath which the baker had picked
up in the street, on the morning of the murder, and kept in his
possession. Many years afterwards, a malefactor who died in Padua
confessed the murder, and thereupon two lamps were lighted before a shrine
in the southern facade of St. Mark's Church,--one for the murdered
nobleman's soul, and the other for that of the innocent boy. Such is the
gondoliers' story, and the lamps still burn every night before the shrine
from dark till dawn, in witness of its truth. The fact of the murder and
its guiltless expiation is an incident of Venetian history, and it is said
that the Council of the Ten never pronounced a sentence of death