The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-02-22
CHAPTER VII

America. To gain correct idea of the coun-
try one must go and see those hundreds
had almost said those thousands-of flourish
ing little towns which spring up day by day
on that immense continent
It is no use looking In New York for liors
umcnts In the sense which we attach to tks
word in Europe. There are massive build
mgs, few handsome churches, but nothing
which arrests your gaze The houses in the
best part of the city are built of brown stone
in the English style. In the populous quar-
tiers many are of red brick, with green shut
tiers OIL the outside
The streets are horribly i'll paved From
my windows, which looked on Madison square,
the carriages appear to rise and fall as if on
troubled sea. Drunkards have had to drop
their habits; they could not reach home from
the beer saloons.
Three fine squares alone break the monot-
ony of all these parallelograms of streets:
Washington square, Union square and Madi-
son square.
That which strikes the visitor to New York
is not the city itself, but the feverish activity
which reigns there.
Overhead is network of telegraph and
telephone wires, OH the ground network of
tram car rails. 1t is estimated that there
are more than 1900 miles of telegraphic
wires suspended over the heads of the passers
by; about enough to go half round the world
Tho whistles of the boats that ply between
New York and Brooklyn on the East river,
and between New York and Jersey City on
the Hudson keep up, day and night until
IN the morning), a noise which is like the roar
of wild beasts. It is the cry of Matter under
the yoke Of Man You fancy you are living
in menagerie.
In almost every street tram cars pass every
few minutes. 1t is an incessant procession
In Broadway alone there are more than three
hundred. The cars, as they are always called
in America, are magical, like everything
American. Built to carry twenty-four per-
sons inside there are no seats on the top),
they are made to hold sixty and more. In
fact, no matter how full they are, there is
always room for one more. The conductor
never refuses to let you go ON board. You
hang on the rail beside the driver or con-
ductor, if it is not possible to squeeze your
self inside and hold on to the leather straps
provided for the purpose; you gasp for
breath; it is all you can do to get at your
pocket to extract the five cents which you
owe to the car company; but the conductor
cries, in his imperturbable nasal drawl: Move
forward, make room.n
In Third avenue and Sixth avenue, you find
the overhead railway called the Elevated"
1t is supported on iron pillars, and the trains
run along on the level with the upper win
dows of the houses. This company carries
every day the fabulous number of 500, 900 pas
sengers.
All the existing means of transit are ac-
knowledged to be insufficient, and an under
ground railway is talked of. There will soon
be travellers underground, on the ground, and
in the air. Poor Hercules, where are you
with your "Ne plus ultraa" You had reckoned
without your Yankee.
The streets, i'll paved and dirty, are danger
GUS in winter. Coachmen do not check their
horses for foot passengers, but neither
do they try to run over them. They strike
the middle course between the London coach
man, who avoids them, and the Partisan one,
who aims at them.
The populous quarters, such as the Chinese
quarter, the italian quarter, the Jewish
quarter, with their tenement houses, those
barracks of the poor which visited one day
in company with a sanitary engineer, remind
one of some of Dante's descriptions: it is a
descent, or rather an ascent, into hell spare
the reader the impressions which that day
left upon me- Horrible A populace COM
posed of the offscourings of all nations, the
dirtiest, toughest one can imagine.
Hard by this frightfulsqualor,F Fifth avenue,
with its palaces full Of the riches of the earth.
1t is the eternal story of large cities.
As in London, hundreds of churches and
taverns Called beer saloons), it is the same
ignoble Anglo-Saxon mixture of Bible and
beer, of spiritual and spirituous.
New York is probably the most cosmopoli-
tan city in the world. To give an idea of it,
may tell you that there are newspapers
published there in English, French, German,
Russian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch,
Hungarian, Chinese and Hebrew
/ received one day circular of meeting
of the knights of Labor" It was printed
in six different languages
Nothing is more diverting than to hear the
jewellers of each great American town criti-
else the jewellers in the others. All these
societies, each almost in its infancy as yet,
arc jealous one Of another. At Boston, for
you will be told that the Chicago
people are all pig stickers and pork packers |
In Chicago, you will hear that Boston is COM |
posed of nothing but prigs and "precieuses
-
The English spoken in Boston is purer than |
any to be heard elsewhere in the north. The |
voices are less harsh and nasal, the language
ceases to be ''vurry, vurry Amurracan." If
you think yourself in England as you walk
along tho streets, the illusion becomes COM
plete when you hear the well bred people /
speak.
All the anecdotes told in America on the |
subject Of Boston are satires upon the pre-
character of the Bostonian, who
considers Boston the center of the universe.
Here is one out Of the many hundreds /
have heard.
A Boston man has lost his wife. As soon