paintings, now transferred to the museum at Naples, which adorned one of the pillars of the court.  There a workman could be very distinctly seen dressing, with a sort of brush or card, a piece of white stuff edged with red, while another is coming toward him, bearing on his head one of those large osier cages or frames on which the girls of that region still spread their clothes to dry.  These cages resemble the bell-shaped steel contrivances which our ladies pass under their skirts.  Thus, in the Neapolitan dialect, both articles are called drying-horses (asciutta-panni).  Upon the drying-horse of the Pompeian picture perches the bird of Minerva, the protectress of the fullers and the goddess of labor.  To the left of the workmen, a young girl is handing some stuffs to a youthful, richly-dressed lady, probably a customer, seated near by.  Another painting represents workmen dressing and fulling all sorts of tissues, with their hands and feet in tubs or vats exactly like the small basins which we saw in the court.  A third painting shows the mistress of the house giving orders to her slaves; and the fourth represents a fulling press which might be deemed modern, so greatly does it resemble those still employed in our day.  The importance of this edifice, now so stripped and dilapidated, confirms what writers have told us of the Pompeian fullers and their once-celebrated branch of trade.

However, most of the shops the use of which has not been precisely designated, were places where provisions of different kinds were kept and sold.  The oil merchant in the street leading to the Odeon was especially noticeable among them all for the beauty of his counter, which was covered with a slab of cipollino and gray marble, encrusted, on the outside, with a round slab of porphyry between two rosettes.  Eight earthenware vases still containing olives[C] and coagulated oil were found in the establishment of this stylish grocer.

The bathing concerns were also very numerous.  They were the coffee-houses of the ancient day.  Hot drinks were sold there, boiled and perfumed wine, and all sorts of mixtures, which must have been detestable, but for which the ancients seem to have had a special fancy.  “A thousand and a thousand times more respectable than the wine-shops of our day, these bathing-houses of ages gone by, where men did not assemble to shamefully squander their means and their existence while gorging themselves with wine, but where they came together to amuse themselves in a decent manner, and to drink warm water without risk."...  Le Sage, who wrote the foregoing sentence, was not accurately informed.  The liquors sold at the Pompeian bathing-houses were very strong, and, in more than one place where the points of the amphorae rested, they have left yellow marks on the pavement.  Vinegar has been detected in most of these drinks.  In the tavern of Fortunata, the marble of the counter is still stained with the traces of the ancient goblets.