Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-09-17
STREET-CAR LIFE.
A TOUCHING TALE-THE KIND OF
PEOPLE MET IN CARS.
The Woman with the Baby-Going Down
and Coming Up Town-Fancies
Woven in the Cars.
SAN FRANCISCO. September Is, 1881.


that are written and talked about we must
lust settle back, with the conviction that
it is the every. day things that make up the
great balance of life. The scandals, the
the divorces, the murders, are
but blots that stand out SO prominently
because the other writing on the page is so
clean, even and fair, and they strike the
eye first. just because they are SO in con-
trast with their surroundings. But the
contented and easy going hours in the day
mount up into years, the years into a half
century, and by and by you have logged
through lifetime, and that is the way
the most Of humanity lives. have
thought a volume M got easily be written
a humdrum little volume, perhaps, yet
filed with its own quiet interest-about
STREET CAR LIFE,
And one sees it here. tt is life all its
own. People get in and out the conven-
lent vehicle, sitting for few minutes and
observing others mechanically whom they
may never meet again. Day after day,
perhaps, they meet the same faces and
build up histories to suit the countenances,
lit names to persons, choose fanciful dispo-
sitions to match frowns and smiles, cut a
career for the young men and women with
eager eyes, tell fortunes here and there and
everywhere, and all the while look COM
monplace and bored at the dust and neces-
sity Of car travel. Take the North Beach
line over and you will meet invalids going
for salt baths catohit going back and you
will fad restless passengers hurrying to
the San Jose depot on Fourth and Town
send streets. Either way the line is pat.
ronized by the negro and Spanish popula-
ton, since It passes through their thickest
settlements. Take Market street or Mis-
sion going down, and any time OF day you
will be certain to see impotence on its way
to the Oakland ferry, asking every five
minutes of the conductor. who never hur.
ries for any one, xviii | catch the 10.
or o'clock boat +"
COME IN THOSE CARS.
During the early hours, and they will be
filed with laboring men going to the
foundries, machine shops, and the other
work that lies down nearer the wharves,
passing on the route the men who live in
town and find their wages in the suburbs.
About 6 o'clock at night the laborers come
home with smutty hands and faces, tired,
with empty dinner pals, but merry with
laugh and Jest, and earnest sometimes with
discussion. From s to 10 the business men
are in the cars merchants, lawyers, brok.
ers, fresh from breakfast and toilet, dis.
cussing toothpicks and the morning papers,
daintily trimming tinger-nails, without re-
gard to the prophecies smoking cigars on
the platforms. From 10 to IL, on every
line, the ladies come in to promenade OF
shop, richly, neatly or jauntily dressed, as
it may happen, and for every face you
may manufacture a romance as you choose.
Early in tie morning on pleasant days
picnickers. with children and fat lunch
baskets. get into the Geary-street cars or
their way to the Park, and ON Saturdays
the children flock out Mission street tC
Woodward's Gardens.
SUNDAY
Is separate day by itself, for every one
is out, and every line of cars brought into
use by the church.goer or the pleasure
seeker. In any case it is a dress up day
and you may get clue to the individuality
of the passenger by the taste displayed il
the Sunday costume. There is the mar
with the red necktie, and the woman with
the cheap jewelry put on by the quantity
There is the woman who won't sit down OF
account Of crinkling the lace on her mantle
and the man who must sit down on account
of his tight boots, or die. There is the re
hgious, the esthete and the fast woman
there Is courtesy, drunkenness, refinement
coarseness, paint, ugliness, beauty, youth
age; and you see it most on Sunday
because then it has opportunity to b,
abroad. But on Sunday take the Geary
Suffer, Lone Mountain and California
street cars, and meet a new class; the
people journey toward the cemeterie;
which lie out that way, and the cars will
roll by professions of funerals slowly
tramping TIE same road. Dat yondsr is
Lone Mountain, Laurel Hill, Calvary, be,
side the Masonic and Odd Fellows Gene.
teries, and the shadow of the great eros;
held above the mountain standing neal
falls on each. You will meet men with
wide bands Of Grape on their hats, children
IN black, widows in weeds, others with
aching empty arms, all on their way to the
graves. Boys with bouquets greet each
passenger as he descends at the end of the
line, crying flowers at two bits a bunch
and
PASSING UP THE PATHS
The mounds to right and left are decorated
here and there with bouquets that look
just like them. What an interest to study
out the grief of these fellow passengers
DO you say sorrows are startling and
strange? Nay (; they are such everyday
affairs, that the days glide over them with
scarce q ripple on the surface, and yet tbs
they that make US all akin. A wondrous
gentleness and an unobtrusive attention
may be observed in the glances of these
people in mourning toward each other II
the car, and when in the cemetery
they happen upon each other again,
one passing, perhaps, and the other
ministering at his own particular
grave, half-look Of recognition and SYM
patty is gwen and received. Last Sun.
day afternoon, returning from Lone Mount
ain, lady very richly dressed entered the
car; one whose quiet and costly attire
would have attracted notice even on the
street, and then another lady quite as
neatly but not so richly dressed. By and
by gentleman and his wife came in from
She new grave they had made in the GEM
etery-the grave Of an only child, the
young lady of whom l recently spoke as
being so lovingly inquired of by Sandwich
Islands friends. And then, with much
pattering of little feet and iabbering Of
chatterbox tongues, there came woman
In deep mourning, and she had with her
SEVEN CHILDREN,
The youngest baby in her arms, and the
next but one to the baby was cripple. a
thought of what her trouble must be seemed
TO fash upon the other passengers, and
then the car started, and the children
tumbled over upon each others shoulders,
and laughed and tumbled up again, and
Strengthened out into decorum, and the
grown people all looked at them and
smiled. s. Perhaps it's another child she
has lost. l hope the husband isn't dead, >
IL .,eoapCar {briIl x,-e,,1