The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-04-24
Ladies Waiting Rooms.

There is no pace in the world where
human nature shows to such sad disad-
vantage as in waiting-rooms at railway
stations, especially in the Ladies
Rooms" In the Gentlemen's Rooms"
there is less of that CHASTITY, apathetic
silence which seems only explainable
rs an interval between two terrible cat
astrophes. Shall we go so far as to
confess that even the unsightly spit
toons, and the uncleanly and loquacious
fellowship resulting from their common
use, seem here, for the moment, re-
deemed from little of their abomin-
ableness, simply because almost any
action is better than utter inaction, and
anything which makes the joyless, tact
turn American speak to his fellow whom
he does not know, is for the time being
blessing. But in the " Ladies'
Rooms" there is not even a community
Of interest in single bad habit, to
break the monotone of weary stiffness.
Who has not felt her very soul writhe
within her as she has first crossed the
threshold of One of these dismal ante
chambers of journey? Carpetless.
,lingy, dusty two or three low sar-
cophagi of greenish-gray iron in open
spaces, surrounded by blue-lipped wo-
men, in different angles and attitudes
Of awkwardness, trying to keep the
soles If their feet in perpendicular
n no Oh
have been led to believe is a steam
heating appara us F; few more women,
equally hstless and weary-looking,
standing in equally difficult and awk-
ward positions before a counter, hold
ng pie in one hand, and tea in a cup
md saucer in the other, taking altern-
ate mouthfuls of each, and splitting
both +; the rest wedged bolt upright
against the wall in rrow partitioned
seats, which only need length of per-
forated foot-board in front to make
them St to be patented as the bets
method of putting whole communities
of citizens into the stocks at once All,
ieet warmers, pie-eaters, and those who
sit in the red-velvet stocks, wear so ex.
actly the same expression of vacuity
and fatigue that they might almost be
taken for one gigantic and unhappy
family connection, on its way to what is
called in newspapers " a sad event
The only wonder is that this stiffened
desiccated crowd retains vitality enough
to remember the hours at which til
several trains depart, and to rise up anC
shake itself alive and go on board. On,
is haunted sometimes by the fancy tina
some day, when the air in the room il
unusually bad and the trains are de
iayed, n curious phenomenon will b.
seen. The petrifaction will be carried
little farther than usual, and, whel
the bell rings and the official calls out
Train made up for Babel, Hinnom
and way stations !" no women will com
forth from the Ladies' Room, no ey,
will move, no muscle will stir. Hus
hands and brothers will wait and searcl
vainly for those who should have me
them at the station, with bundles of tin
Cly's shopping to be carried out; home
viii be desolate, and the history of rar
fossils and petrifactions will have
novel addition. Or, again, that,
some sudden CONFUSION of nature, lik
those which before now have burie
wicked cities and the jewellers in then
we're to-day to swallow mp the grea
city of New Sodom in America. an
it under ground for a thousand year.
nothing in all its circuit would so pu2
zle the learned archeologists of A. L
1878 as the position of the skeletons /
these same waiting rooms of railroad
stations.