Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1884-02-02
A ROMANOEoF THE BRIDGE.

I The says) was recently engaged in
"A iittlessoperation with Frank Jaint'
and Henry james, Jr., in an ut
tempt TO rob the mail that obtaiiiet
q letter which contained a pointe
abpn Western UnionsiHa transit from
sl,Jay Gould to the Princess of NADIA
gascar. TO effect this happy resul
!. the drivers of all the mail wagon:
Z were chloroformed, and the mai
4 was .hurriedly searched. The letter
!. looked for was not discovered; : il
was afterwards ascertained that Mr.
Gould had used a postal card-bul
Pthe historian found the following
4 document which sufficiently ex-
plains itself. The letter was ad
dressed to young lady in Milwau-
kee, whose name is Withheld for the
sake of the historians relatives
who are dependent upon him for
support. threads thus:
.AsToR HOUSE NEW York, Nov.1
NY DARLINGEsT KATE.-I am
sure you will forgive me for wait
ing three whole hours before writ
! ing, when i relate the occurrences ol
this morning. 1t is so romantic,
i Just like one of Miss Brandon's stOr-
les for all the world. Now please
promise me, dear Kate, not 10 skip
down to- where the interesting part
of the letter begins, but read it right
straight through, or | shall never
! forgive you. You will, wont you?
r. Well, we had an awfuliy stupid
"Trip down here, the. only pleasant
incident was when a fat woman fell
out of a top berth onto the porter,
who was crawling under our berth,
right opposite, zafterApa's shoes, Pa
had tried to hide his shoes, you
know, so as not TO have to pay the
porter for polishing them, but it
was no use. The old lady gave him
| a'quarter (the porter, not pa) for be-
lihg there when shefell out. There
was absolutely no 0nes0n the train
worth speaking to, and SO l was
aWfully glad when we reached New
York at last, just little more than
three hours ago. But what an aW-
full lot of things have occurred in
these three hours!
Kate, it seems like fate that pa
brought us with him to New York.
You see, we came to the Astdr
House because pa has to transact
business down town, but of course
you don't know that the Astor
House is down town, after all. But
il is though. We were landed in
the Grand Central Station, and
when pa and ma and Toby-1 could
Just slap that child, he's such hor-
rid nuisance | came out into
the street, l really thought, Kate,
that those cabmen would put Us in
to their horrid old cabs. Pa had to
pull like everything to get his VA
iise away from one of them, and ne
did look ridiculous. Anybody
could tell that he and ina and Toby
didn't belong in New York, they
acted $3.50 interested in every
thing, but / just behaved as if had
always lived here, only | toiH admit
that thought the glass box they
put tickets on the elevated railroad
station was an ice-cream freezer,
and asked pa, so that a man heard
me, what in the world they wanted
to- sell cream for at this time of year.
How that 5horrid man, that heard
me. did roar /. don't see that he
had much to laugh about though.
His Overcoat was awfulIy shabby,
but really don't know what am
writing all this nonsense for. L star
ted to write about the Brooklyn
bridge and how we went across.
Pa was awfully anxious to see the
bridge, and the sieepingcarcondGc-
tor told himsthat it Was right at the
end Of the elevated railroad, and SO
pa. said we'd go across the bridge
before we Went to the hotel, as we'd
sent all the baggage down.
Kate, yuu have no ilea what a
frightlui sensation il Is riding over
the elevated railroad First we
went little way in one car and
andtien got off and waited for a
long train, and then we went down
an awful way in the train, and final
ly had TO climb over a great high
bridge, level witFsssAe roofs of the
highest building, a. urfiake another
train. We rode aik- e way even
with the second story windows of
the houses, and | should hate to
have to live in one of those rooms.
You know you can look right in and
see everything. Won't you ever
tell If | tell you something? Well,
| actually saw a man in one OF those
rOoms-l almost blush when ! write
it-in his shirt sieeUes. Don't you
remember we have always heard
that New York people are awfully
fast? L guess that's pretty true. |
Why, whole families frequent the i
saloons together. | know it be- |
cause every saloon we passed had a |
family entrance. Isn't it shocking? |
l should hate 10 live here because |
L haven't the slightest doubt that if
we did Toby would grow up TO
drink beer.
But haven't told you word
about the bridge yet. When we |
finally got down to what they call
the "City Hall Station''it was about
eight O'Clock in the morning-you |
see we got in on very early train
and everybody was rushing down
town in such hurry that we
thought that there must be fire,
and pa asked policeman about it,
and the policeman said it was only
men in "a hurry to get to their Off
ces Then pa asked the policeman
what that WAS we were standing
ny, anu IiC Sc1lO II " dSu L q OCPOts IL
was the Brooklyn bridge. Pa told
the policeman ned better nottry to
guy him, because he. was acquain-
ted with his superiors, and that hor-
rid policeman actually told pa to go
and fall off the dock, and said he'd
better Tie IA string to himself or he'd
get lost. Then ma said very digni-
fed to the policeman that he was
an impudent wretch, and do you
know what that policeman did?
He told ma to pull down her vest!
l was never so shocked in my life!
Then we asked another policeman
where the bridge was, and sure
enough that was the bridge we were
standing by. |
Pa said we'd walk across and
then ride back, and SO we started in
where a lot of horses and wagons
were coming out, and two more
policemen stopped us-I never saw
such an awful lot of policemen as
there were around there-and told
us to go in further up through the
ticket Office, So pa took hold of ma
and ma grabbed Toby by the mid
die of his arm, and we went In and
had to pay five cents apiece. Then
xvo ol;,r hod a hirh dinbt nf ctairs