Rome in the Last Century.
It was a labyrinth of winding streets, unlighted, unnamed, and unnumbered. Every trade kept to its own special locality, and, in lack of shop fronts, advertised its wares by painted signs and emblems. Cattle were herded in the colosseum and forum, and the Arch of Constantine was half buried in the earth. Justice was administered with circumstances of barbaric ferocity. It was a common sight to see unlucky coachmen publicly tortured in the Corso for no worse guilt than that of driving through the streets during the hours reserved for carnival frolics; and the erection of the gallows on the Piazza del Popolo, the first Saturday in Carnival, was, in fact, the signal of the opening of the season for public sports. And, the condemned criminals dispatched, the hangman's assistants would presently join the gay crowd in the Corso, disguised as clowns and pantaloons. Down to the first year of the present century malefactors were quartered and burned on the Campo del Fiori, and for many years the pillory and the wooden horse remained familiar objects in other parts of Rome, although both were temporarily abolished during the Napoleonic rule.—The National Review.