Last of all my eyes perceived, over the stately entrance, the word "Macello," and with astonishment I became aware that this fine structure, so agreeably situated, was nothing else than the town slaughter-house.

Does the like exist elsewhere?
It was a singular bit of advanced civilization, curiously out of keeping with the thoughts which had occupied me on my walk.

Why, I wonder, has Reggio paid such exceptional attention to this department of its daily life?
One did not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibition of carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said in its favour, yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer scruples would perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and butcher's knife, preferring that such things should shun the light of day.

It gave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed into the world of those romancers who forecast the future; a slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon trees and date palms, suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism.

To my mind this had no place amid the landscape which spread about me.