House & Garden 
THE PIAZZA AT TRENT 
REARS OF HOUSES AT KLAUSEN 
ment and repose. Detail can seldom bear 
examination where foreign motifs have been 
affected. Recent Rococo ornament in plaster, 
as it is found upon the Catholic Casino at 
Innsbruck, is a fair sample of a Tyrolese 
designer’s gentle mood. But here, as in all 
countries, the indigenous, unconscious archi¬ 
tecture is the best; and it is that alone which 
gives character to the Tyrolese towns. 
Means of subsistence in the Tyrol does 
not require gregarious work; and the factory 
life, so largely responsible for the enormous 
growth of modern towns, is here unknown. 
The people are individualists in earning their 
bread. Many of the industries are carried 
on in the home; and from time immemorial, 
certain valleys have been famed for the 
household products peculiar to them. 
Upon the mountain heights dividing these 
small worlds, the solitary herdsman tends his 
flocks, relying upon the shelter of the most 
primitive hut until winter comes and he joins 
his fellows in the city below. At the other end 
of the social scale the wealthy tradesman of 
the town has his summer home on the neigh¬ 
boring hillsides. This becomes general about 
the warmer cities of Botzen and Trent and 
ever tends towards the segregation of build¬ 
ings as far as the verdant foot-hills of the 
mountains extend. 
Of all the features of Tyrolese towns, the 
arcades of the streets in the older portions 
are the most characteristic. Under these 
clumsy stone vaults the highway extends 
level and curbless. Only a paving of stone 
slabs marks off the foot-way from the tiny 
cobbles of the street. But pedestrians roam 
freely within and without the arches, fearless 
of the informidable light dog-carts or slow 
lumbering ox-teams. At dawn, pavement 
stands are brought out, and each arch is 
transformed into a booth like that at a fair. 
Shop doors open in the shadow of the arches 
and the turmoil of minute trade fills the day 
there. Cabinets, fastened to the piers of the 
arches, and small show-windows in the house- 
walls are filled with toys, pictures, pipes and 
books. Clothing, food and household furni¬ 
ture, press upon the foot-passenger, and 
buying is made easy. The more sedate 
merchants occupy the shops at the rear ot 
the arches and their signs, painted by local 
artists, are often ludicrous. A flock of out¬ 
stretched umbrellas and parasols escorts a 
bevy of canes across a whitewashed vault in 
the old Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse at Inns¬ 
bruck,—and nothing further is needed to 
proclaim a useful trade. At an early hour 
in the evening all the stands have vanished. 
The little wall cabinets are closed and quiet 
reigns. Soon afterward the shops themselves 
fold their green shutters, and street life gives 
place to merrymaking and entertainment in 
the second stories. Here are located the 
wine-rooms and dance-halls, extending over 
the arcades. Until late hours, they shed 
lights, music and song through leaded case¬ 
ments into the silent and deserted street 
below. 
Small as the towns are, they have their 
suburbs both old and new. The former 
supply homes for the poorer classes, the 
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