The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-01-13
Railway observations.

halfway UD6efv1AOnSs
':Do you notice." the tall, thin pas
senger remarked, piling his valise and
shawl-Jtrap up on the seat before him, in
an effort to make it appear that he filled
the entire seat, and there wasn't even
room for atvo-year-old baby beside him.
"Have you noticed the characteristics
change in hats since we left New Eng
laud? Now down East in fifty miles you
couldn't hardly see one soft felt hat on
the train. The old buffers ran to the
graceful stove-pipe, which is just as
much out of place in railway car as 3
shooting jacket and pink necktie would
be in q pulpit, and the young men and
their sisters affected the stiff round hats,
the very young men browning their
lightness with the very fiat hat that is an
index to the wearer's character. But
there was no SLOUGH hats. Same way in
New York. In Ohio and Indiana the soft
hats began to insert themselves. In
Central Illinois they grew sufficiently
numerous to call for the yeas and nays,
and when we swung across the Missis-
sippi they had decided working ma
jority in beth houses. See, the plug
almost wholly disappeared only now
into the car wearing one jauntily, and it
is burden on his mind every mile of the
way. Once in a while only do you see
stiff hat on the train, but the soft hat is
here in all its varieties, from the nObby
little cocOanut with the rolled brim, to
the broad, picturesque SLOUGH that rests
on the head of the herder and rancher.
And between these two, runs all the
gamut of soft hats, and some of them are
fearfully and wonderfully made"
''And the manners change, also, as
you come West,'' said the new young
man, critically examining his cigarette
holder and toying with the watch chain
outside his coat, '.Did you notice that
when we went to dinner at Jefferson City,
everybody ate with their hats on?''
II noticed that" the sad passenger
said, turning his pensive face away from
the window where he had been con-
templating the cherries landscape, Il
noticed that, I noticed that every one of
US kept his hat on, too, and l also observe
that the gentleman who informed the
conductor and all the passengers within
hearing four times this morning that his
watch kept Boston time, it was so and
SO by Boston time, but he didn't know
what time it was out here. l observed
that he not only kept his hat on, but he
helped himself to butter with his own
knife, drank his coffee from the saucer,
and took in his soup with the labored
and audible aspiration Of a case of asthma
toiling up Bunker Hill monument"
''There are many people, my son." adj
ded the sad passenger, tenderly. ''who
wear more hats than manners when they
leave home. There is no reason why
people should not be as polite and OBJ
serve the requirements of good breeding
Just as much in a Western railway din
ing station, as in the Palmer or fremont
House, but the people who dine at the
railway station are travellers, and are
not, therefore, necessarily Western peo-
pie"
IF dining station manners are wolfish
and boorish," said the cross passenger,
barricading the end of his seat with a
valise. an umbrella, and pair of forbid
ding feet, ''it's the fault of the railway
companies. You tell man he has only
twenty minutes in which to eat his din
ner, and he is going to devote all the
energies of his soul, hands and jaws to
getting that dinner. He has to use every
minute of time, he is nervous about his
train, he is timed like an animal, and
naturally acts like one. Now, you give
the railway passenger a full half hour,
and
sPshaw," said the woman who talks
bass, ''that's what everybody says, and
yet half the business men in America,
when they are home, gobble their dinner
from soup to dessert in fifteen minutes,
and are out of the house before their
wives have helped the children a second
time.''
Somehow, every time that woman
speaks she closes the debate and forces
the house to understandable, in Ha,Ok-
Eue.