New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1884-11-23

his legs. There Is no horse-car or stage to help
him, and the cabmcn who doze along the margin
of broadway have net yet been obliged by the
competition of the cheap cabs to contemplate
the possibility of reducing their charges below
preposterOus figure. The gentle decline from
Broadway to the river is precisely adapted
for fast walking, and the traveller might reason
ably hope to make quick trip IL his
ocomotion were unimpedcd. But as he gazes
down the vista his eye veriiics the prophecy of
Lis experience and describes score of obstacles
to progress-and first and chief of all, the Skid.
Ii is the periodical custom of New Workers to
rise in their wrath and declare that the skid
must 90 But this is mere vocileration. No
living being has ever had the rcmOtest reason
for surprising that the skid ever would go.
The formal opinion of civil justice a few
weeks since raised gentle fluttcr of hope in
few simple souls, but it nickcred and died out
almost before the INK that recorded 1t was dry.
The skids, like the poor we have always with
ms, and it is altogether probable that the New
Zealandcr of future years who takes his seat
upon broken arch of Brooklyn Bridge to
sketch the ruins of New-York will sec more
skids than anything else. Like the first rabbit,
presumably a female, introduced into New
South Wales, it was the first skid that did the
business, and it is the skids that do pretty
much all the business Of lower NewYork to-
day. Extensive practice has made our traveller
an accomplished hurdle jumper, but as long as
it remains true that a straight line is the short
est distance between two points, so long will
the surrounding of skids cause delay.
But there are other obstacles which the ut
most agility cannot overlap. An express
wagon backed across the pavement, line OF
herring barrels sSilfully stretched from curb to
doorway, pair of truck horses, their days
work done, placidly standing tail to nose until
their owner is ready to lead them to their stalls
all these and many more distractions can
only be avoided by recourse to the street. If
the traveller had the time he might wait for
their removal, meanwhile wiping off from coat
and hat the oil which has drpped upon them
in his flight beneath the elevated roads, or the
tobacco juice of which some selfish beast in a
passing train has rid himself But this course
is ont of the question, and, springing across the
gutter, and dodgimg through the mud between
the crowding vehicles, he regains the sidewalk
half block below, and Is ready for another
skid. Arrived at length at West-st., he is by
no means at the end of his tolls and trbula-
tons. 1t Is not simply under the aspect OF
crowded thorOughtare in which horse cars and
trucks, express-wagOns and milk carts, cabs,
MAILMAN and licensed vendors struggle desper-
ately forthe right ofway ollthemselyesi nto
a hopeless tangle, that West-st. must be con-
templated. During many months of the year 1t
is likewise a veritable Styx through which the
pilgrim must founder amid the obstacles above
recOuntcd before he can hope to reach the
blessed haven of the pier and the actual ferry
beyond it. Let us hope that the passenger
whose course we have followed from Broadway
has caught his boat and found a seat in which
to recuperate.
As for the skid, we never expect, as we have
said to be able to sing:
believing, we rejoice to see the curse removed;
but perhaps some day there may be cheap cabs
for those who wish to ride and an arcade
above the turmoil of the street for those who
prefer that their legs should carry them be
tween Broadway and the North River