Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-24
READY TO Do NEW YORK.
Preliminary Firing Before Getting Down
to Business in the Metropolis.
The Trip to the Big Village was without Incl
dent-An Editors Easy Chair Tried-It
Didn't Seem too Big.
NEW YoRK, Aug. IL. 1890.
Dear Gazette:

NEW YoRK, Aug. H. 1890.
Dear Gazette:
There! just that address ''carries me
back as tbs old negro story teller
says, and makes me realize what a ram
bier am. New Orleans, Denver, New
York-South, West, East, all in year,
and yet that 'sdear GAZETTE" rem aims
the immovable pole star of my CORE
spondential heavens. Had fate premedl-
tatedly sent me to find and describe the
four antirhstic cities of the United
States, she would have had only to add
San Francisco to complete the parallelo-
gram. Beautiful New Orleans, with its
sunshIny ''banquets, Its quaint,
"slow' ways and charming people, its
shady old courts and jasmine-wreathed
walls; gay, dashing Denver, with its
snowcapped distances Its gold and silver,
its gorgeous homes and gilded vices; and
now New York, this Nineteenth century
autocrat, drawing tribute from the old
and the new civilizations, balancing in
its cosmopolitan hands the weight of the
financial, political, social and artistic
world! When we landed here the very
air seemed to harbor invisible lips,
which whispered "You live now
Taller, mIghtier than the ancient
colossus of Rhodes, the Bartholdi statue
lifted the giant arm over the earth and
sea proclaimins TO nation and individuals
that boon dearer than life itselt-iiberty?
Liberty TO dare aud do, to think and
speak, to work and strive, aye, to die
and not be missed, when dying seems the
best thing to be done! Liberty is revel
without question or price, in the very
holy of holies of nature and art. Why,
just the glow of the electric lights re-
feoted in the water as 1t curves around
the shore; the floating bed of lilies,
white, blue, yellow and red, under the
fountain in Washington square; the
hanging garden on the roof of the Casino
and its music and plays below: its throngs
of pretty women with toilets like fashion
plates and compilations like June
peaches; the white winged yachts lying
in Sabbath tranquility on the blue bay
any of these sights is enough to set ones
heart beating and to repay one for COM
ing so far from home to be
for season "a stranger in a strange
land.
l have made a grand discovery, one
which, think, skillfully managed will
place me "'long side by side'' with
Stanley, Columbus and DeSoto. l have
located "Mason and Dixon's line
All my life have heard about "Mason
and Dixon's line, - the vague unfxedty
of which, together with the kindred
esaterio condition of the terms "Jay-
hawkers' and "guerillas caused
many an unnecessary convolution in the
formation of my childish brain-but 1
never knew before this trip the true in
wardness of the expression. 1t is this:
1t is not a ''iine'' geographically. but
ethnologically. In short, it is ''color
lIne;" in shorter, race problem; in
shortest. the niger line. Now III
make myself understood. Southern
person will put up with pretty much of
anything, considering that he is in Rome
and must do as Romans do, until it comes
to the negro-eQuality question. There
he draws the line, that taut old stiff
upper-lipped line that never waivers.
Travelling east from Cincinnati TO New
York you don It have to look on q man g
valise to see 'twhere he's from;' you
just watch his manner of addressing the
sleeping car porter. It's funnyi There
may be little or no difference between
the words used by a Northern and a
Southern man, but the tone, the je ne
sails quoi-et any rate the result is re-
markable. Instance, two gentlemen
having reached pleasant stage of tray
cling acquaintance, en- route, each
having fine cigar not half smoked
in his mouth, and wishing to go INTO the
smoking room before the train had pulled
out of the Union depot at Cincinnati,
said No. to the porter: "'Will you be
so kind as TO see if the smoker is I'M
locked?" q can't write the tone, but |
ffttl
dodger among your borrowing friends,
requesting the loan of @ five for a few |
days.) Porter stalks on not SO much as |
deignIng reply. Said gentleman No. |
2,-uothing-until he had caught the |
porter by the collar and shaken Inn like |
a big Newfoundland dog shakes a terrier |
who has barked at him, when the sur
prised porter had unswallowed his |
windpipe and resocketed his eyes. said |
gentleman No. 2.-"Answer that gen |
tleman's question, instantly: Is the |
smoking room unlocked?' Answer-As |
polite as French waiter-"Yes sar, |
certainly sar, III unlock it sar. So |
much for the Cline Southern people |
carry it around in their-tempersl 1t |
looks so odd TO see negroes promenading |
and occupying the best seats in theaters |
and other public places, and ridiculously |
80 u soo NOTtHSFu mou TlSlu5 III me |
street car and giving their places
to "colored ladies' n. B.-The great |
majority do not rise at all, and
the only consoling thought. in the realiz-
alton of the custom, while you hang
onto the straps and show off your new
bracelets at the sacrifice of the set of |
your tailor-made coat, is, 'tit's no more
than they would do for negro, so they
may keep such cosmopolitan courtesy"
but you do feel queer, in spite of your
stoicism. Your collar gets awfully high |
and warm and you think, with Shake
speare, 'Alaa, can we to such base use
descend" Then, when the same men
go out of cir way to show you to a de-
sired locality or address, and are in
everything else like our own gallant
courteous gentlemen, you begin to get
ashamed of yourself and to understand |
that 1t is only custom, and very sens
ible one, on the whole, particularly OF
late afternoons, when the poor tired
Oninr harpa parhaps |