Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-19
SCENES IN,NEW YORK.
An OctOgenarian' PeculiaritieS-COm
petition of PhilanthrOpiStS and
King Alcohol.
Business-Like Astors-She Had MissiOn-BrO-
ken Down speculatOrs-Kate ClaxtOn
and Her Hubby.
VARIOUS VIEWS OF LIFE.

For the Gazette.
NEW YORK, April 14.-StroI the
streets if you wish to get widely various
views of life. Anybody who doubts that
New Workers read the papers should
watch the crowd in a street where sub
way manhole is near crossing. Men =,
women and children alike, no matter
how hurried they may be, shy sideways
whenever they find themselves in danger
of treadiug on one of those iron discs.
Y ct the proportion of accidents to the
number of manholes in town is so
slight that there is practically no danger
at all. A small jet of steam, which es-
capped from one Of the subways conduits
on the corner of Twenty fourth street
and Broadway yesterday, had an almost
stampeding effect on the throng. AS an
evidence of the superstition which people
feel about death and misfortune, if a
man raises a ladder on Broadway thou
sands will crowd out into the streets
rather than walk under it for fear Of the
bad luck. Some of them do it with
grin, but the majority take II in sober
earnest.
PECULIAR OLD MAN.
Every afternoon in rain and in shine,
a very old man in noticeably quaint garb
walks up the busy portion Of Broadway,
never changing his route except on Sun
days, when he takes Fifth avenue He
is six feet tall, spare of figure and his
emaciated face is the color of parch-
ment. He wears battered black hat,
q short, ragged pea jacket, blue jean
overalls and carries a rough, heavy
stick. He never ceases to smoke CLAY
pipe, and though he walks in most
thiekly populated parts of town his eye
never seems TO notice a face or object as
he hobbies along with q feeble attempt
at vivaoity. Many know this man, but
none has learned his story He is one of
the greatest mysteries of the town. Ar
rivIng alone from Italy about fifteen
years ago, he went into the room that he
still occupies IN the lower end of the city.
He dressed then precisely as he does now.
and it is fair to presume that his hat and
coat are the same garments that he wore
when he landed here. Why an Italian
possessed of means to live without labor
should give up every association to take
up a solitary existence In New York is
difficult TO say. If he were q
younger man the romancer might
fancy dark-eyed, full-lipped italian
girl over among the Neapolitan hills who
had discarded him for q handsome
man. But his extreme age renders such
a surmise unreasonable, and even the
passer-by who fancies the old man for
ever trudging away from the memory of
an awful crime is doubtless entirely in
error, IS the detective force of New
York would have him long before this
under those circumstances. There Is
surely something mysteriously interest,"
ing however in the sight of an octoge-
marian Italian walking up Broadway in
blue jeans oveTalls and smoking q clsy
pipe, when il is known that he has
scarcely missed the exercise q single day
for fifteen years. He is certainly ex-
isting in some sort OF dream, and has
becom an automatOn, Flooding along
to the grave.
PHILANTHRoPIsTs VS.. ALCOHOL.
The competition between good women
and the saloon keepers is brisk. One