Nineteenth century street scene in Valletta

Abstract

One wonders how many of the present day visitors to Valletta ever stop to reflect how the hustle and bustle of the streets of this city would have appeared to them had they lived during the last century. One of the oddest scenes that would have met their gaze was the sight of convicts condemned to hard labour engaged in sweeping the streets of the city. ''The business of cleaning the town", wrote the English traveller George Waring in 1834, "is performed by convicts, some drawing a cart and a party of five or six sweeping and shovelling attended by two soldiers with bayonets in their hands. The poor convict scavengers are all in chains which make a melancholy clanking noise and those who are condemned for life have irons on both their legs". [excerpt]