AN IMPENDING SACRILEGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1014, 14 May 1880, Page 2

AN IMPENDING SACRILEGE

Not only is St. Mark's, at Venice, threatened, but also its pigeons — thoße pigeons that thrust themselves so obtrusively on the notice of every visitor to Venice, and are so characteristic of the famous Piazza. Many, says the Pall Mall Bicdget, are the stories told of their jtfligin ; h<?v{ fcfc«ir, ancestors £gryed the Republic by bringing "bade news from its fleets, and so on ; but none of them are very well established, except that the birds have always been regarded as towa property, and have been fed out of a fund set apart for that purpose. This fund in now said to have been a donation from a private individual, the Countess Policaatro, who, during her lifetime, always fed the birds at 2 o'clook, and left money to be applied to a continuance of the custom ; certain it is that, as the clock striken 2, the pigeons swarm to St. Mark's from all parts of the town, and it is one of the sights to go and see them feed. Until lately it would have been thought little less than sacrilege to touch a feather of their wings, and they knew it so well that they would settle on any one they suspected of having corn concealed about him, and nevar dreamed of moving out of the way of people crossing the Piazza ; but when Venetian men lose respect for their church, Venetian boys cannot be expected to retain it for their pigeons, and some days ago one was discovered carrying off a pigeon, evidently with a view to pie. Had he been promptly corrected there would have been little harm ; but the case cam§.._before the law courts, and it was argued and decided that the pigeons. had never been legally conveyed to the town, consequently they were nobody's" property, but, so to speak, Vild'fowl, and that the boy was only following his natural instincts in catching them, end must be acquitted. It seemed hard on the pigeona, after having had it their own way so long, and being ted to believe that they were a regular institution.