The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-07-25
SCENES ON coNEY ISLAND.
Some Account of Peoples Doings at a Ger
tain Fashionable Resort.

tain Fashionable Resort.
New YORK, July 17-Most people who
come to New York primarily to 10 the
city and take in the sights choose the WIN
ter or spring as the time for their vis!t'
Nevertheless, the summer visitor, II ne
doesn't object to being parboiled trlf1e
and is an expert at dodging sun-strokes,
gets the most for his money.
It's worth the price and pains of jour
ney here from almost anywhere to 90 TO
C0pey Island on Sunday or Saturday
afternoon, which is a halfobserved legal
holiday.
"The Island" is in reality only q short
section of the ocean shore of Long Island.
It is less than an hour from the city by
steamer or train You take the boat Us the
more pleasant and pay half dollar Tor
round-trip ticket.
You land at an iron pier that Juts out
into the sea at section of 1.-The Island
known as West Brighton. Its patrons are
chiefly of the laboring classes and German
is the predominating tongue. Two or three
thousand people, men, women and chll-
dren, decked in their best, are sitting
around small tables, in mammoth pa
vilion, drinking beer and eating schweizer
sandwiches. a little army of white blbbed
walters are fitting about with elevated
trays ministering to their pleasure. At
one end an orchestrion is grinding out last
years tunes; and when the big music ma
Chine stops, q brass band takes up the
broken thread and sixty or seventy pairs
Of healthy German lungs pump wind with
great energy into the mouths OF their brass
instruments, the blare and din of it all
may be imagined-by people who have
been inflicted with it.
But it is outside the building that you
see to best advantage the merry, jabbering,
| motley pot.pourri of humanity. An i'm
mense fauciful edihce, Jumbo in wood,
| multiplied hundred times, is before you.
For dime you can enjoy the luxury OF
entering the end of his trunk, which trails
on the ground, and climbing few hun
dred eccentric steps to the car on his back.
Then there is the tower, 8 skeleton iron
structure of such dizzy height that you
begin to speculate on the possibilities of
| lodging up there in upper ether. On g
bright day the big cities and green villages
and the ships for miles at sea seem to nestle
at your feet. You look down Immediately
| Ol SOSG oL1 oSShCSoeioO VI piSoooAS
devic for those of simple tastes as the
continent elsewhere does not afford. There
comes to you above the roar of the surf
babel of voices from tens-sometlmes hun
dreds-of thousands of throats. Your
kaleidoscope reflects the commingling and
intertwisting of every form and color.
Merry -go-rounds'' by the dozen are spin
ming around people on the backs of the
most grotesque creatures imaginable.
There you catch a glimpse of big, fat
Duschman complacently revolving on a
meek-looking dromedary, by his side tot
of little girl gaily perched on the back of
a wooden crocodile. There are tortuous
tracks of uncertain length on which car
loads of people are whizzed about with the
speed of the winds. solely by the force Of
gravity, landing eventually at the starting
point. There are grind-organs and trick
monkeys, fortune-telling Gypsies and
dancing bears, stuffed cows that allow
lemonade to be MIXED from them for five
cents glass, photographers tents, bearded
women to sell you sandwiches, living
skeletons gyrating on tight ropes, and q
thousand and one other devices to arrest
your attention and call down your pennies
The beach is black with strollers and
loungers, while hundreds of others are
splashing about in the surf.
As you proceed up the beach, the "tone"
improves very perceptibly. The gimcrack
venders are left behind and the festive voice
of the hurdy- -gurdy smites no longer the
auricle The largest hotels on the beach
the Brighton, Manhattan and Oriental
most fashionable in the order of their re-
moteness from the West End, are ap-
preached successfully. They are vast
frame structures, surrounded by splendid
grounds. Gilmores and other world.re-
nowned bands give afternoon and evening
concerts. Porticoes and grounds all
thronged with men and women whose
dress proelaims them to be devotees Of
fashion. At night there are mammoth fire.
works shows-mimic Pompeiis over
whelmed with the fiery streams from We
suvius, Sebastopols knocked into smither-
eens by the allied guns, Londons licked up
by waves of fame that leap hundreds OF
foet into the air and spread their ruddy
glow over the yellow sand and far out into
the dark waters.
You lunched at the West Brighton, a
mile away. Sixty cents paid for a very
wholesome and substantial repast. In the
density of our ignorance we have just
struggled uncomfortably through supper
at the Oriental. The distingue-looking
Frenchman who served US suavely hands
US slip of paper.
Great Scott! waiter, what's this?"
"Check for Monsieur's supper eight
an1lars "