wn on Venice from the summit of the Campanile, has been given a
dress of battleship gray that it may not serve as a landmark for the
Austrian aviators. Over the celebrated equestrian statue of
Colleoni--of which Ruskin said: "I do not believe there is a more
glorious work of sculpture existing in the world"--has been erected a
titanic armored sentry-box, which is covered, in turn, with layer upon
layer of sand-bags. Could the spirit of that great soldier of fortune
be consulted, however, I rather fancy that he would insist upon
sitting his bronze warhorse, unprotected and unafraid, facing the
bombs of the Austrian airmen just as he used to face the bolts of the
Austrian crossbowmen.

The commercial life of Venice is virtually at a standstill. Most of
the glass and lace manufactories have been forced to shut down. The
dealers in curios and antiques lounge idly in their doorways, deeming
themselves fortunate if they make a sale a month. All save one or two
of the great hotels which have not been taken over by the Government
for hospitals have had to close their doors. The hordes of guides and
boatmen and waiters who depended for their living upon the tourists
are--such of them as have not been called to the colors--without work
and in desperate need. In normal times a quarter of Venice's 150,000
inhabitants are paupers, and this percentage must have enormously
increased, for, notwithstanding the relief measures which the
Government has taken, unemployment is general, the prices of food are
constantly increasing, and coal has become almost impossible to
obtain. Fishing, which was one of the city's chief industries, is now
an exceedingly hazardous employment because of submarines and floating
mines. Save for the clumsy craft of commerce, the gondolas have
largely disappeared, and with them has disappeared, only temporarily,
let us hope, the most picturesque feature of Venetian life. They have
been driven off by the slim, polished, cigar-shaped power-boats, which
tear madly up and down and crossways of the canals in the service of
the military government and of the fleet. To use a gondola,
particularly at night, is as dangerous as it would be to drive upon a
motor race-course with a horse and buggy, for, as no lights are
permitted, one is in constant peril of being run down by the
recklessly driven power craft, whose wash, by the way, is seriously
affecting the foundations of many of the palazzos.

It is an unfamiliar, glo