LITTLE ITALY

Evening Star, Issue 20033, 26 November 1928, Page 3

LITTLE ITALY

RAPIDLY PASSING AWAY Little Italy, the home of the Italian colony in London tor .a hundred years, is passing away. '.lhe visitor who kneiv it even a veal years ago sees it now as the remnant of a once-crowded district., and from the surviving streets looks across the open spaces where tenements lately stood to the walls ot comparatively lai-ofi buildings. Ihc people arc spreading themselves about tho London districts, and one must go elsewhere to find the mosaic workers who plied their cratt hero loi generations. 'Perhaps it is as well that they could so, writes the London correspondent ot the ‘ Manchester Guardian,’ for the sodden ground beneath which now the tributaries of the Fleet River is more suitable to business premises built ou deep Inundations than for homes. When the first-corners, some ot whom were political refugees, sought shelter here it was a network of slums Alter them caruo moro poor emigrants, hopine for work in London there were sad times in Little Italy, for many Italian lads, lured by stories ot plentiful work and wages, used to tramp from Italy via Paris to the Channel coast, playing their way, only to find when they reached .London that the work was bard and tho payment, nothing but such food as would barely keep them alive. Mazzini tried lor twenty years to do away with this regular system of exploitation, which was little more than slavery, but what really ended it was the vengeance taken by a young hawkci ou the employer who had cruelly misused him. Little Italy used to have its dancing bears. A man who has known the colony for twenty years- remembers a shock he once received when his business took him into a cellar where he was unexpectedly confronted by three performing bears ot whose existence he had not known. 'Hie last performing hear was abandoned in one ot these houses during tho wai, am! had to be killed. Tho dancing boars have gone, but one can to-day still find boars, leopards, tigers, and even alligators there, all of them baby creatures, inhabiting an animal shop with lorcign birds And snakes. Much of the local colour that used to charm the occasional visitor has also departed; the organ-grinders who were accustomed to set out each day on long journeys through London streets have few survivors, and only one of them, an indomitable old lady, still drapes her head Italian fashion in a figured kerchief. The man who works in an' upper room punching notes .of. music cm to tho organ rolls has few ot" In's countrymen among his '.London- clients. Gone, too. are most of'the old artists whose little plaster statuettes were at one lime hawked about London on trays, but through the shop window, tilled with marble figures and charming little marble reliefs, one can look into a shop where sculptors and • stonemasons * are at work. A firm with a reputation I'di its plaster reproductions -of famous sculpture says sadly that there is mo present demand for them, perhaps because people nowadays have no room to display a. Winged Victory or a'Venus. This phase, they think, may pass, but 'meantime .they’find a readier sale tor decorative- bookends ami lor figures that advertise commodities.

The ico cream trade, ■which dales back to 1564,- when the hist icc cream barrow was brought over from Venice, is. now the chief industry connected in the popular mind with the' Italian quarter. The Italians themselves aro proud of the high standard of their wares, and, though they have to face the competition of hig linns, their barrows make their way to many London .districts. It is said there has been a greater improvement in the manufacture of ico cream jn the, Italian quarter than any other part of London. The regulations for manufacture aro strict and the premises carefully inspected. But the season is a short one. Its .most nourishing months "are. in the early spring before the fresh fruits come in. Then they thru their.".attention to roasted chestnuts and hot potatoes. Little Italy has -its own _ domestic arts; /presently mb ■will be -importing boxes of. little , black grapes, and then in many a'home the wine, presses will ho at work-crushing out the. juice which .four .months, later will he wine ready, for- 'private use. ■ Every .Italian woman, knows how lo rqake macaroni, and many of-them, do make it. , They make the paste with flour and eggs,' and when it is thoroughly mixed' they 'roll it to an extreme -thinness, using -such strength that they say you can tell the accustomed macaroni-maker by the smoothness of her palms. Then tho paste is made into a lone roll and cut across into the thinnest of slices ready for cooking. Green and red peppers fried in oil are a favourite delicacy, and several shops do a tln-uum; trade in olives.

Many of the littlu Italian hliopshave been centres not only of trade, but of advice and help to Italians who have never learned our language or become accustomed to our ways. The shopkeepers have sometimes, indeed, been occupied less with selling goods to their ciiistomers with advising them about regulations and legal documents or settling their family quarrels. It is a neighbourly community, ami on the whole it lives quietly. The people do not care much for theatres or cinemas; they have their clubs, whore they meet in the evenings and on Sundays and play-billiards or drink the light Italian wines. The lads, it is said, do not care to follow the icecream trade of their fathers. They remember the cries of Hokey pokey ” that used to greet the barrows, and they are drifting into other occupations, especially into th« catering trades. The women work very hard, and many of the shopkeepers owe much of theinprospenly to their wives. The girls are also excellent, steady workers', self-respecting, and well behaved.