Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-19
THE GRAVE AND GAY
As Seen From the Front Platform
of a New York Street Car.
WONDERFUL PANORAMA OF LIFE.
Visions of Wealth and Splendor Followed
by squallor and Woe.
BADINAGE OF SQUIRTING CROWDS
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH.


from knife-board" is what they will tel
you in the English metropolis. And the
places high up beside the London 'bu,
driver are always promptly taken and re-
tanned in all kinds of weather. From that
coign of vantage the visitor will get the full
est and most comprehensive view of the
crowded thoroughfares safe from the perils
| of the street.
See the American metropolis from the
front platform. You must stand up, it il
true, and very often you must stand between
bad cigar and worse cigarette, but the
very people who may share the front plat
form with you form not uninteresting part
of the whole study. 1t was one of Walt
Whitman's favorite methods of studying
mankind The leonine poet spent hours
every day on the front platform, conversing
with drivers and strangers who from neces-
sity or choice bore him company. For on the
front platform all men are equal, statesman,
poet, dude, car driver, clerk, servant; and
there never is man so common or ignorant
but from whom amusement or instruction is
to be gained.
FROM PARK TO BATTERY.
| Take white car at Central Park via
Broadway and Broome street to the Battery,
| pleasant afternoon, and you can see q
| greater variety of human life and of the evil
dences Of human endeavor, as illustrated In
| New York. than by any other single trip in
| the city. For one stretch of 90 minutes you
| glide along down Broadway, between the
| big uptown hotels and theaters, among the
| fashionable carriages with richly attired
| occupants, CAV trappings, liveried footmen,
rampant and ribboned poodles couchant.
The sidewalks are lined with well-dressed
promenaders, the brilliant shops are
thronged with customers, and the swell cafes,
through plate glass and graceful curtains,
betray the luxurious life within. You will
observe that In this neighborhood, at that
time of the day, nobody hurries. 1t is the
regular beat of the Broadway lounger, and
from Thirty-third to Twenty-third street
(the Strand) the lounger not sauntering is
portion OF pairs and groups along the side
walk, encnmbering the corners, lolling in
front oil the fashionable hotels, where the
man of the latest vest and trousers loves to
stand basking in the sun.
WEALTH ON WHEELS.
As you pass Delmonico's and the st.
James and the Hoffman and the Fifth Ave
nue. Hotels these swells divide your atten-
carriages that roll up and down Fifth ave-
nue. to and from the wealthy neighborhood
of Murray Hill. You have made the trip
thus far with but few stops, for the car is
not fashionable one and is chiefly occu-
pied by business men for the lower city who
take this route to escape the more crowded
Broadway line.
Slowly, nowi Here is Twenty-third street
and its great retail stores. And here are
the police, each of whom seems a circus
giant in, uniform, piloting the pretty girls
through the maze of carriages and cars and
hansoms and light delivery wagons, leaving
the homelier of the sex and the male pedes-
trians to follow as best they may. Your
driver with the other gehus respects the up
raised official finger. Across at last you
now plunge into University place. a clean
and almost deserted thoroughfare, leaving
the gay world behind. Here is where your
car makes time. The driver speaks
cheerily to his horses and the animals break
into rapid, unbroken trot.
A STARTLING TRANSITION.
Small, select hotels and boarding houses,
modest shops, churches, schools and lovely
park full OF baby carriages, white-capped
nurses aud children. 1t is as if you were
all at once transported to a street in staid,
old Philadelphia While you are thinking
of it you suddenly trundle into Wooster
street. The peaceful vision is dispelled in
a twnkling. A narrow, dirty lane, choked
with trucks and wagons and lined on either
side by small workshops, forbidding tene-
ments, low groggeries and worse. The
trucks are for the most part empty and
ranged between the single track and the
curb. .
The rum-mills are mostly full of the low
est class of human cattle. The windows of
the begrimed tenements show trowsy women
in calico wrappers and curI-papers. The
atmosphere reeks with foul odors. An air
of stale beer and last nights GROWERS and
filth and neglect and besotted poverty and
unconvicted crime stalking at MONDAY per-
vades everything. Bloated drunkards sit
on beer kegs and boxes in front of the
saloons. Blear-eyed rufiians lounge against
the empty trucks.
CHoKEs UP IN A MINUTE.
The children Of both, ragged, unkempt,
bare-headed and mostly bare-footed (though
you will put your overcoat tightly about
your throat) are playing In the gutter un-
der the wagons. The single track leaves
just enough room for the latter on either
side. In consequence of this limited pass
age-way, there is no room to pass the
moving van which blocks the street until
break on one side or the other admits of
pulling out. This attempt results in dis
aster. For the heavy van catches the wheel
of q delivery wagon and turns it over on
the track.
Two or three other trucks, loaded with
iron bars, tinware and hides, respectively,
come in from side street and make the
blockade complete. The car driver is a
philosopher and calmly leans upon his
brake and remarks that it looks as if we
might have some more rain. But the busi- |
ness men inside, who came this way to
avoid this very thing, chafe visibIy and |
swear with more or less animation. A howl |
of derision goes up from the rag-tag-and- |
bob-tail, who gather about to see the fun,
The gin mills exude a lot of young rowdies |
who begin to yell conflicting instructions |
to the exasperated teamsters.
JOY FOR THE LoAFERs.
"W'y don't yer pull outr' "Come in,
Dutchy, and ave beerp' "Water youse |
down an lick 'im!" can Young Wander |
bilt on de platform a waitin' to 90 down to
Wall street to cut his coups!' This recog- |
milton OF your good clothes draws universal |
attention. "Come off and set 'em up, Vanr" |
shouts 'steen- year-old who was never |
washed since his birth.
Fortunately, grocer's boy accidentally |
drops paper bag and two quarts of cram
berries rolling hither and thither over the |
narrow tagging offers new target for
Wooster street witticism. There is scram-
BILE of street urchins, male and female. and
the swamp fruit is quickly transferred from
the walk to the little pinched stomaches-
but not without much shouting and vicious
kicking. By the time it is over the block
ade has been raised in some unaccountable