housebreakers, and even when they make an arrest, people can hardly be got
to bear witness against their unhappy prisoner. _Povareto anca lu!_
There is no work and no money; people must do something; so they steal.
_Ci vuol pazienza!_ Bear witness against an ill-fated fellow-
sufferer? God forbid! Stop a thief? I think a burglar might run from
Rialto to San Marco, and not one compassionate soul in the Merceria would
do aught to arrest him--_povareto!_ Thieves came to the house of a
friend of mine at noonday, when his servant was out. They tied their boat
to his landing, entered his house, filled their boat with plunder from it,
and rowed out into the canal. The neighbors on the floor above saw them,
and cried "Thieves! thieves!" It was in the most frequented part of the
Grand Canal, where scores of boats passed and repassed; but no one
molested the thieves, and these _povareti_ escaped with their booty.
[Footnote: The rogues, it must be confessed, are often very polite. This
same friend of mine one day found a man in the act of getting down into a
boat with his favorite singing bird in its cage. "What are you doing with
that bird?" he thought himself authorized to inquire. The thief looked
about him a moment, and perceiving himself detected, handed back the cage
with a cool "_La scusi!_" ("Beg pardon!") as if its removal had been
a trifling inadvertance.]

One night, in a little street through which we passed to our ferry, there
came a wild rush before us, of a woman screaming for help, and pursued by
her husband with a knife in his hand; their children, shrieking piteously,
came after them. The street was crowded with people and soldiers, but no
one put out his hand; and the man presently overtook his wife and stabbed
her in the back. We only knew of the rush, but what it all meant we could
not tell, till we saw the woman bleeding from the stab, which, happily,
was slight. Inquiry of the bystanders developed the facts, but, singularly
enough, scarcely a word of pity. It was entirely a family affair, it