News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-06-19
THE AGE OF UNREST.
Fearful Wear and Tear of Social and
Business Life in New York City.


A correspondent of The Boston Trans
cript says, respecting the people of the
metropolis: New York seems possessed
by spirit of unrest. Not only every
hour, but every minute of ones time is
taken up. The fashionable world is
just as busy as the world of business,
and | declare | think that it is the more
exhausting work Of the two. But the
trouble is we want to combine the two.
The girl who earns her bread by writ
ing society notes strains every nerve to
do as does the world that she reports.
The brokers' clerk who has to be at his
desk by 8 in the morning dances until
within a few hours of the time that he
is due there
The broker himself, too old to dance,
spends his evenings in hotel corridors,
where the money market is open till
midnight and the ticker ticks till
morning. Young women are not satls-
fed with one reception of an evening,
but they go to a dinner, theatre and
wind up at a dance. One house in New
York does not open its doors for dane
ing until all the others are closed.
Many of the girls who dine and dance
six nights out of the seven are interest
ed in other things as well. They be-
long to church organizations they be-
long to reading clubs, they are taking
course of scientific lectures, they attend
pianoforte recitals and they have
round of calls to pay that alone should
keep them busy.
A man who does not pretend to go
very deeply into the social whirl said to
me the other day, as he drew a mem
orandum from his pocket: ''Here is a
list of fffty-five calls that | have got to
make before the end of the season. l
am at my office until six, and am un-
usually busy with my work in the even
ings until the end of the week, so that
it is continually on my mind to know
how l am going to reduce this list. |
like my friends, and if they invite
me to dine there is no good reason
why / should not accept. That means
dinner call, of course, and so it goes"
He is not like one young man whom l
heard say: IF accept their dinner in
vitations do enough. They must not
expect me to call" Strange to say
this Chesterfield is always in demand
He is a good diner out, because he APP
preciates a good dinner, and he has a
fund of Just the sort of talk that makes
him agreeable at table, so his hostesses
pardon his rudeness and invite him
again. But it is not every man who
sets such price upon his society or
who is willing to have it known if he
does The wear and tear of business
life in New York cannot be described,
and I am not surprised that insomnia
is the besetting i'll of SO many men.
Their brains are so active that they
cannot sleep.
"a friend of mine who works like a
Turk, and who has one of those restless
American brains, told me not long ago
that he didn't believe that he averaged
four hoSlrs' sleep q right That he FIRE
quently got up and went to his library
and read through the small hours, hop
ing that would induce sleep, but it
didn't. He says that he expects moth
ing else but that his wife will shoot him
for a burglar some night. | don't see
how people can sleep after they go to
bed, even if they are sleepy-that is, if
they have front rooms. Did you ever
try to sleep in a front room in New
York; If you haven't don't, as it is
not worth the trial. | sleep at the back
of the house, which is pretty quiet, |
admit; but every night my bed is
shaken and the globes rattle on the
lamps as fire engine thunders through
the street. My brother has a front
room, but he says that he is getting
hardened to the noises--th fire engines
pounding over the stones, the sharp
rattling of the coupe Wheels the loud
voices of belated politicians-(therei is a
political club across the strickland
the slam bang of the iron ash cans on
the paving stones, mingled with the
soft Italian Oaths of the ashmen. For
six years, when | lived in another part
of the town, the head of my bed was
within rs feet of the elevated railway
track, and there was a station just out
side of my window.
perhaps you think that it was less
noisy to have a station there than for
the trains to go crashing by, but you are
mistaken The stopping and starting,
the shrieking whistle and kissing steam,
were nerve tearing beyond description;
but lived through it, and more than
that, slept through it. Idonot, how
hot cIo
restful, and do know that | came very
near breaking down, and probably
would have done so but for timely
trip to Europe, Perhaps the elevated
road was not wholly to blame, but after
a hardworking, noisy, nerve rending
day it did not have the effect of lulling
me to sleep. Fifth avenue does not
have the elevated road, but it has other
noises almost as distracting, SO that any
one who has a bedroom on that fash
ionable thorOughfare must necessarily
have a disturbed sleep. When think
of my room on much travelled London
street and another on the Rue di Rivoi
in Paris, where the carriages chased
each other in rapid succession all night
long, and where | never heard a sound
but the mufHed beating of the horses
hoofs on the asphalt pavement, l
couldn't but wish that we imported
something besides the fashions of those
two cities"