Homemade Gondoliers

1901

How many citizens of Buffalo who have watched the imported gondoliers on the exposition canals realize that we have developed a race of gondoliers of our own right here in Buffalo? The dirty old skiffs down in the harbor are not so pleading to the eye as the smart Venetian gondolas at the fair. The grimy ferry boys who propel them don't look so foreign or so picturesque as their fellow craftsmen from abroad. But when it comes to skill in handling a boat with a single stern oar, dodging around between steamers and tugs, through narrow passages and over the swells made by the big ships the Buffalo boys have no need to fear comparison.

It would be an interesting and popular exhibition if the Pan-American authorities some day would take three or four of the best of the ferry boys from Buffalo harbor up to the exposition grounds, put them on the canals in their old skiffs and match them in a contest of speed and skill against the imported gondoliers. I'd bet my money on the Buffalo boys. — Buffalo Express.