National Republican., 1883-08-08
PNILADELPHIA'S CONEY.
The Sights and Sounds Of a Sunday in
Atlantic City.
A Strange outpouring Of Queer Char
acters.
The Way Excursonists Enjoy Themselves The
"ROosters and Their Growing,
The "Hythe" OF n Season that Practically
Lasts the Whole Year Round.
Special Letter.

for day of rest in America is marked all
along this foreign and hostile shore by u tre-
mendous increase of noise and general dis
comfort. Philadelphia pours her 'ci poltoi
into the edge Of the ocean with prodigal
freedom that leaves her little Of the same
sort to send anywhere else-which isfortunate
for all the other places. do not think it is
any exaggeration to say that yesterday there
were 10000 excursionists here. They began
coming Saturday morning, and continued to
como in one long train after another
and the beach swarmed and wriggled
like an old and overpopulous cheese.
The West Jersey and the Camden
and Atlantic lines run trains every few min
utes from Camden down, and every train is
full. The run is only ninety minutes or
thereabout. The whole arrangement is too
abominably convenient and cheap for any
use, except to Philadelphians and you find
very few but Philadelphians who want any
of it. The seasons population at the hotels
is but family sprinkled with people from
other cities. Atlantic City is peculiarly q
Philadelphia adjunct, with all of Philadel,
phia's narrowness and inconvenience and all
of her good traits, too.
There must be some place Of the kind for
that part of Philadelphia which Sir Joseph
Porter would describe as "the lower middle
class" If it were not here it would probably
be Cape May. There is reason to be thankful
that it is here, for to have Cape May boil over
of Sunday as this place does, to have it
turned into peanut and lemonade market,
and to have the beach covered by such
rabble as that of yesterday would be to ruin
the most delightful place on all the middle
Atlantic shore.
"It's the hythe of the season now" said
sociably inclined cabby, whom had engaged
for the afternoon. "Tleast suppose it is
znearz ye can git at it. It's grand mob to-
day, surely. Never git no more people here
no time N there is to-day" And he smiled
pleasantly at the dropping ears of his jaded
team. "'Tsa great place, this place is, that's
So"
To an inquiry as to how long the season
lasted before and after the "hythe," he an
swered that it "never quit"
81 hack il here the year round" said he
"'na nice life it is, n Pm a liar for sayin' so,
IN that's fact They amt never no snow,
v know. oh, well sometimes it gifts fearful
dull N October N November, but it perks up
agin in January N keeps right along till you
see it at the hythe, like it is to-day"
"Do you drive these horses tho year
round" l asked. They were as wretched
and hopeless looking pair as any 1 have ever
looked upon.
20 yes" he answered, drive 'em right
along"
"Do they ever get any sleep?"
mot much in the hythe O. the season, when
the gang is here. have to lick 'em morn
in's to keep 'em' alive. But it's tho same
with all the Others. IT'S as good team as
they is in town."
He was quite right on this point. There
is nothing but over-deferred crows meat in
the shaft of any vehicle here
When anyone is going anywhere, the
promptest way is to walk. My driver OK
planned the case by saying that it wouldn't
pay to keep good horses, on account of the
la aud tlA Nl,a Ia
and difficult and the beach has liberal
admixture of mud in its sand, by which
resistance to the wheels (he described il as
"a suction " is created and the pulling made
hard.
"Twould wear out q good hoss faster'n
it'll wear out one o. these poor old toughs.
Y'can't never make more'n about four miles
'nhow with 'em."
The beach is not a favorite drive, as the
case is at Cape May. 1t is not so fine a
driving beach, and the town avenues are bet
ter. And notwithstanding the miserable
quality of horse power offered, driving is
quite u favorite pastime, possible because it is
safe, whereas the surf is just little risky
There have been several drownngs this
season-three or four at least. 1t is really
wonder there has not been q greater number
of accidents, for the number of people who
go in is equaled only by the number of foolish
things thuy do. The frolicking that goes on
and scuttiings, and the swimmngs out to
sea-inVites trouble, and sometimes gets it.
1t is only at the cheap fare beaches near Now
York that such sights are to be seen as those
that offer themselves in this surf.
There was, for example, society down in
a body some two or three hundred strong-a
band of hopelessly confirmed idiots, far past
the age where anything but death can i'm
prove the conduct. They called themselves
THE RoosJers." Each man wore jockey
cap of brown cloth, with comb OF some red
material sewed into the top. They got off
big, middle-aged men though they
were, and nearly all of them
with families in tow and, made their neigh
borhood exceedingly unpleasant for several
hours. Each man of them had brought on
bottle of something beasty to drink, and
they all drank and smoked very bad cigars.
At the bathing hour they made the beach
peculiarly lively. They ran up and down in
Ia drove and chased each other and everybody
elsG, and had vast deal of the kind of fun
they should have been fined for; and in the
water they "thrashed about" at a
rate that churned the ocean white
for couple of rods out. One
wife was foolish enough to go into the suri
with him. At the first chance that presented
itself he sprang sharply out behind her, and
gave her push that sent her under heavy
roller, IRON which she struggled up in a mo-
mcnt gasping, sputterng, and without her
teeth. The anger with which she glared and
mumbled at the poor, unhappy fool who did
it, and the vet dignity with which she gath.
cred herself and marched ashore, would
have made an iron man laugh.
This was, of course but ono party out Of
maybe fifty. Societies and clubs of working.
men are here every day, but ON Sundays most
of all. They are not the worst sort that come
The hard lots are the unOrganized toughs OF
Philadelphia, who boil in and boil out by the
thousand, and make things very unpleasant
wherever they go. Principally they so 60 the
beach, and generally to the beach nearest the
railway stations On such day as yester.
day, being too numerous to accommodate
themselves comfortably in that space, they
spread up and down the beach along the whole
city front.
1t must not be Inferred that no comfort oil
pleasure is to be had in the place There is
much of both-though far less than
may be had at Cape May. 1t is moderately
cool at all times and the surf is jus
about as good at one hour as at another, 50
that nobody is compelled to bathe in disagree
able company. The nasal whang of the
Philadelphia young women, and the incrusted
provncalism of the Philadelphia men grow
easy to endure after a while, and may ever
lie enjoyed, ii yOu have turn for amusing
yours II with tho oddlieS of the people
Rbont you. W. d. H.
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