Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-08
CASH GOING ABROAD.
The European Exodus Viewed From
a Financial Standpoint.
IT MAKES Us s6O,OOO,OOO POORER.
New York is as Good Place as Any to
Spend the Hot Months.
TROUBLES OF SUBURBAN RESIDENTS
lcoRHEsroNpENcE OF THE DrsPATcH.I

peau EXODUS Oh american Citllehs n"o
fairly began. The steamships sailing from
this port last Saturday carried over 1000
saloon passengers. There were quite as
many second cabin and steerage who ac-
companied them. While most OF these sum-
mer wanderers are from New York and i'm
mediate vicinity they really come from all
sections of the country. New York at this
season of the year is a great clearing house
of pleasure-seekers departing for new scenes
and new countries.
This simple staten ent does not fully con
vey the idea. To quite understand the sig
nifcance OF the spring stampede visit to-
the great docks where lie the European
steamers would be necessary. These on
Saturday and Wednesday mornings, which
are the two great sailing days, present the
liveliest scenes imaginable. The roadways
approaching the docks swarm with trucks
and truckmen bearing supplies for the
ships, and amid this swarm excited passen-
gers find their way to the piers. These
piers seem at first sight to be disorderly
mass of workmen, passengers, visitors,
boxes, crates, trunks and every conceivable
sort of luggage entang]ed in one chaotic
mass.
EVERYTHING SYSTEMATIC.
As matter of fact, however, there is
system underlying the whole, and this sys-
tenn is the one which experience has
demonstrated the best adaptation of condi-
tions to the desired end. The close OBJ
server will note that the movements of
every gang of men are regulated SO as to
''get there" in the shortest possible space of
time. Ii you are stranger loafng on the
&c. 4 l. far ho MOO
of seeing friends off on the. departing
steamer, you had better look out for your
shins and your bodily belongings gener-
ally. Truck loads of baggage and truck
men are no respecters of persons. The long
line of them that crowd upon the pier must
be constantly restrained by policemen and
ships officers to prevent an lneXtrlcable
jam of matter and bodily injury to those on
foot.
The huge swinging cranes that grasp their
truck with iron hands creak merrily to the
time of the donkey engines as they dump
their loads down the matches. The crowds
of passengers and visitors creeping slowly
up the gangways are greeted by other
crowds already in possession OF the decks.
A little bit of pasteboard is necessary in
order to allow you to go aboard. A petty
officer in uniform at the foot of the gang
plank collects this, and glowers upon you
as if you were an inconsiderate bore and
better be some place else. From the decks
of the ship, however, is finer view OF this
pier pandemonium.
THE SCENE ON SATURDAY.
On Saturday the same scene may be wit
messed from hall dozen ships, which will
presently steam side by side or one after an
other down the harbor. Five hundred to
1000 people will wave handkerchiefs from
each pier, and thousands of tears will add
their quota to the briny deep. A feet of
tugs and other small vessels will accompany
each ship TO the lower bay. These will con-
taiL the many friends OF the more fortunate
or more notorious of the ships passengers.
Last Saturday was but a counterpart of
many Saturdays yet to come. 1t is estimated
that the average number of persons who go
abroad at this season of the year will reach
at least 1000 per day. This means that from
the middle OF May to the middle of July up-
ward of $4,000 Americans will have de-
parted from their native shores in quest of
pleasure and bealth on foreign SOIL While
the exodus will continue during the sum-
mer there will be considerable falling off
from the middle of July. Do you realize
what all this means from financial point
of view? From the poor steersge passenger
who will blow in a couple of hundred dol
lars in a visit to his fatherland to the mill
ionaire and his family whose expenses mean
that much every day of absence, it is a mod
crate estimate tu place the average expendi-
ture at $500 each for the trip.
MILLIONS FOR FOREIGN POCKETS.
For &C, 900 this means $40, ,0oO. 900. For
the entire summers crowd $50, 900, 900 will
be q more accurate estimate. And this is
for New York alone. All of this money.
mind you, goes into foreign pockets and
should be carefully set down in figuring the
balance OF trade between the United States
and foreign Governments. There is enough
expended on foreign pleasures every year by
Americans to create respectable navy and
sea coast de!enses, if spent at home for that
purpose. 1t would seem worth the while of
American statesmenship to provide some
means by which, through an American mer-
chant marine, large portion of this annual
expenditure might be retained at home.
The annual exodus from New York does
not simply mean that part of our population
which goes to Europe. 1t is the most OBJ
jectionable feature. But that portion which
leaves the city on pleasure bent within our
own domain is much larger one. It is a
great pity that some statistics can't be had
as to nearly the exact number of people who
leave the United States every summer for
foreign travel. 1t would also be interesting
to know just how many people leave our
great cities to spend their time in the mount
aims and at fashionable watering places. So
far as New York is concerned the number is
simply marvellous; if the empty houses Of
these people could be collected in a single
neighborhood, they would form a vast and
silent city OF themselves.
NEW YoRK's MANY ATTRACTIONS.
Yet New York in summer is one of the
most delightful cities to live in, and pre-
sents fewer excuses for its inhabitants to get
out of town than most any other city. With
sea water on both sides of it and Central
Park in the middle of it, with hundred
desirable resorts within a half hour and 80
cents reach OF it. there is little occasion for
business man to desert his desk or
family to pull up stakes, except the decree
of fashion.
There are probably 100, 900 New Yorkers
OF the middle class who can't afford to go to
Europe, or in any way break connection
with their commercial life, who swarm to
the suburbs in the attempt to extract there
by temporary pleasure. OF all those we
have alluded to this class is the most mis-
guided and to be pitied. l have tried
suburban life myself since have been in
New York. From the glowing accounts
of friends 1 sought one summer
to bask on the banks of the Hudson.
Every day at o'clock Joined
the rabble that rushed for the rail and ar
rived at my country place begrimed with
coal dust and steaming with persplration.
Every morning during that time I ate a
hasty and indigestibie country breakfast
and bolted for my train along with the rest
on husiness tn the great city 1t was onlv