Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-05
THE AIR Is RESTFUL.
Octave Thanet Has Found a Summer
Resort That Meets Her Ideal.
1T is UP IN NEW BRUNSWICK
:A4Series- of Yankee Invasions and the I'm
portance Of the Last One.
HISTORY OF ST. ANDREws-BY-THE-sEA

/
is not such simple thing as it seems t.
. decide where one shall spend the summer
We decided on the strength of q friend
letter to come to st. Andrews, N. B. I
reach this place you can take the railway o
line of 'palatial steamers. They ma.
be palatial for anything we know; my sea
manship is so low and degraded that Ineve
try to make it keep company with anythin:
palatial on the water; therefore, we chos
the cars.
Palatial is not the appropriate adjectiv'
for them. It is interesting to q traveller t.
watch the career of cars; to meet with thu
old friends of his youth. long since departed
out of his accustomed ways of travel, in tht
byways of the North and South. Myself
almost shed tears of recognition when
after so many years, my eyes again fell on
the once admired dark red plush cushions
and gilded black walnut and narrow berths.
| Like Long Lost Friend.
'It is" exclaimed to my friend, who
was gazing about her with emotion, visib1y
indicated by frowning brow and curling
| lip, ''it is the long lost sleeping car of my
chiIdhood! I know in the toilet room are
| the towels about the size of ones hand and
| the lock that will not turn to lock the door
| in the first place and will not unlock it in
the second, so you feel like the Prisoner of
| Chillon for quarter of an hour at time!
| We do wrong, West" I mnsed In a senti-
mental Sterne's Yorick's vein, 1--WE do
| wrong to abandon the old friends that have
worked so hard for us, as soon as more COM
| Portable cars are invented. You see, j,
| they cling to the old fashions, indeed, from
| the appearance of those seats, should
Il l. H. 1,,,,a l.
| baskets had clung to them; they are con-
tented with modest accommodations. I feel
| myself back in primitive, frugal, Spartan
time when we saved our money and four
people occupied a section. l almost am en-
boldened to offer the porter the unostenta-
tious ante bellum quarter instead of the
usual dollar"
j merely remarked that she wouldn't
and on reflection, I didn't. Too much de-
pends on the porter's opinion to expert
ment on it. Of course, on these cars, they
burn lamps of extraordinary heat-giving
power; and of course there are no screens
or brakes, but then, the window fastenings
have something the matter with them that
prevents raising them, so it really does not
matter. We are so Philistine and material
in the West, where 1 live, that we grumble
about such trifes and demand electricity
and screens and 'fbreakers" and yestibules
and ventilation, to any extent; but, East,
cultured, Christian population seems to ac-
cept them without a murmur.
The Town of a Dead Generation.
st. Andrews is not day, from Bangor,
but it is half century from our civiliza-
tion. A peaceful, decayed old town, where
the weather may paint the house walls,
where boarded windows and sagging intels
and moss-grown roofs tell of deserted ware
houses, where grass waves In the wide
streets, where old-fashioned flowers grow in
old-fashioned gardens and forgotten
schooners lie careened below tn rotting
wharves; it looks the town of a dead genera
tion, cast for a busy port, but by some
impish freak of fate robbed of its destiny
and SO sunk in Rip Van Winkle lethargy
beside its beautiful bay.
Only the huge hotels looming on the hill
sides disturb the image. They are all !
modern; but below, in the struggling
checker-board of streets that dot the penin-
sula, are 100 quaint intimations of age and
different race. The shops have odd names
and signs; the very wares have a foreign
aspect. One shop window displays quanti-
ties of Wedgewood and Beleek at astonish-
ingly low prices, imported directly. Every
one carries away q souvenir of ST. Andrews
from here. The other souvenir that one
should bring away is an Indian basket
Where the little park slips into the bay, in
grove of pines, are set the Indian TENTS
and there some families of Indians weave
baskets out of the sweet grasses and stained
withes. Daintier or queerer baskets one
cannot find in Montreal or Quebec.
Shopkeepers Are Not Brigands.
1t is pleasant prowling about the shops, |
because the shopkeepers are so invariably |
courteous and do not seem grasping, after |
the manner of their kind in pleasure resorts |
They actually appear to have |
only one price for their goods, whether you
are citizen or a stranger. Now, in st. |
Augustine Ito which our minds instantly |
turn when the pillage of travellers Is dis |
they had three prices; one for the dwellers
in the town, one for the cottagers and one
for the frank strangers" each price climb
ing little higher on the golden STAIR If |
there be pillage in st. Andrews it is so deli
cate, so slight that it shrinks out of obser-
vation.
The town as it is now was laid out by the
refugee loyalists from the States in 1850.
old John Jones, surveyor
for the Crown, cut its avenues at right
angles and divided the town by three
streets ESQ to 80 feet wide) into 60 blocks,
each 800 feet square. To every dwelling
house pertains yard, and to every yard,
flowers How the flowers grow in these
sandy soils! The old-fashioned darlings of
our childhood we can meet again, jostling
each other in the untrimmed gardens. Not
only in gardens; on the window stills, in the
porches, on the wee stoops, the colors
lance before our eyes. 'eThey only have a
of room on their porches," says
=, ''and they fill it with geraniums.
A City of Wonderful Drives.
The streets are very wide vnd nature has
made rough natural boulevard. There is
/ slegend-I do not know how trustworthy
hat convicts macadamized the streets.
They did their work WE'LL but they had
great advantages in the soil, which has
arge mixture of sand. The lovely drives
ire an attraction of st. Andrews. Every
where the roads are smooth, and even the
mountain roadways are smooth and good A
lozen picturesque drives come to my.
memory. There is Lake Cliamcook and
Mt. Chamcook, and for shorter drives, Joe's
Point, where you can see the st. Croix
liver, the Bay and the distant shores of
Nova Scotia. At low tide there is unique
lrive across the bottom of the sea to Minis
er's Island, a large island to the northeast,
lamed after the famous old Parson Andrews.
When the tide is out there is fine, dry
oadbed, but with such rapidity do the tides
Use here and in the Bay Of Fundy, that at
ugh tide20 feet of water cover the road.
st. Andrews is an old town, that is, there
we're settlers on the peninsula as early as
he seventeenth century; and one of the
orays OF Massachusetts reprisal was against
he Frenchmen and their Indian allies on
Bay. Do you recall
)hurch's narrative? He commanded the
troops. A very successful