protruding iron bars, such as are
commonly seen in the cities of Italy,--more suggestive than ornamental.
It is probably custom rather than necessity which prompts to this
fashion. There is a certain incongruity in passing through a populous
thoroughfare where the lower windows are thus barricaded, while bright
children and happy family groups are visible behind the frowning bars.
There is no absolute danger of mistaking these residences for prisons or
insane asylums.

The taste displayed in the architecture upon the Strada Reale makes it
both quaint and beautiful; though it is very irregular in expression and
after no fixed order, still it is not without a certain fascination and
harmony of general effect. The facades exhibit here and there curious
armorial bearings, emblems of their former knightly occupants, but
atmospheric influences are gradually obliterating these interesting
mementoes. Many were purposely effaced by the French during their brief
mastership, who waged a bitter warfare against all titles or insignia
representative of other than military rank. Judging by this immediate
neighborhood alone, one would surmise that the town was especially
cleanly and quite devoid of low or miserable quarters; but that there
are vile, unwholesome dens here, where decency is entirely lost sight
of, in certain lanes, narrow streets, and out-of-the-way places, no one
can deny. So it is in all large capitals. Are New York, Boston, and
Chicago entirely exempt from such conditions? We do not agree, however,
with those who have given Malta a specially bad name in this respect.
There is a section of the town leading from the Strada Forni, known as
the _Manderaggio_, which signifies "a place for cattle," where the poor
and needy of the lowest class herd together like animals. Why some
deadly disease does not break forth and sweep away the people is a
mystery. Yet even this questionable neighborhood is no worse in its
debasement than the Five Points of New York used to be within the
writer's memory. There can be no reasonable doubt that the average
condition of the place, as regards morality, is of a far more desirable
character than it was during the sovereignty of the famous--we had
almost written infamous--Knights, whose priestly harems were simply
notorious, and whose dissolute lives were unrestrained by law or
self-respect. One thing we can confidently assert: there is nothing here
so vile and so grossly immoral as Chinatown