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Immediately after follow the guards, and a great concourse of the populace closes the train. As Holy Week approaches, pilgrims begin to flock to Rome with their oil-cloth capes, their scallop-shell, their long staffs, their rosaries, and their dirty hands held out constantly for "una santa elemosina pel povero pellegrino."
Sometimes a santa elemosina is demanded after the oddest fashion. It was only yesterday that I met one of the confraternita, dressed in a shabby red suit, coming up the street, with the invariable oblong tin begging-box in his hand, a picture of Christ on one side, and of the Madonna on the other.
All the frati are going round to every Roman family, high and low, from the prince in his palace to the boy in the caffe, demanding "una santa elemosina, un abbondante santa elemosina, ma abbondante," and willingly pocketing any sum, from a half-baiocco upwards.
One of them called out, gayly: "Do you wish to find your sweethearts, signori? That isn't the way!" A little farther, Varhely and his adversary encountered a monk with a cowl drawn over his head so that only his eyes could be seen, who, holding out a zinc money-box, demanded 'elemosina', alms for the sick in hospitals. Menko opened his pocketbook, and dropped in the box a dozen pieces of gold.
One of them called out, gayly: "Do you wish to find your sweethearts, signori? That isn't the way!" A little farther, Varhely and his adversary encountered a monk with a cowl drawn over his head so that only his eyes could be seen, who, holding out a zinc money-box, demanded 'elemosina', alms for the sick in hospitals. Menko opened his pocketbook, and dropped in the box a dozen pieces of gold.
One of them called out, gayly: "Do you wish to find your sweethearts, signori? That isn't the way!" A little farther, Varhely and his adversary encountered a monk with a cowl drawn over his head so that only his eyes could be seen, who, holding out a zinc money-box, demanded 'elemosina', alms for the sick in hospitals. Menko opened his pocketbook, and dropped in the box a dozen pieces of gold.
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