Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1891-09-17
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.
Natural Differences Between Country
and City Boys.
The Jersey Commutor- Stray Child Scheme.
Don't Go Near the Water.
Weather Toots.
Special correspondence OF The Chronicle.

| Weather ToOtS-
Special correspondence of The Chronicle.
NEW Y YoRK, September 15 1891.
Dr. Talmage said recently in sermon,
''the most of us were born in the country"
The truth of the remark is remarkable.
Nearly all the men in city life who have
risen to eminence were country boys.
You will find them in every ine-literary,
legal, medical, theological, business
Either they have come to the town as
young men, or they have come to enlarge
their field, after attaining eminence in a
smaller community. The country boy
rises. Why is it? There are several
reasons. His isolated life in the country
has developed abnormally his Individual
ity. His 81" is larger than you will find
it in the city boy. He has been of some
Importance in his small circle. He has
dom from the liberty of nature about
him. Your city and country boys of
America are very different beings. The
city boy is better hammered, and better
bred in all respects. The average city
boy is courteous and polished; the aver
age country boy is boor; he is either
painfully shy, or rudely boisterOus. Your
rural youth comes up out of the bosom
of nature; he is unused to men, which
accounts for his bashfulness, and his lack
of cultivated manner. He has been ac-
custOmed to "boss" things in small way
in his limited circle, and this fact ac-
counts for his ambition to get ahead in
city life He has breathed good air all
his life, lived IN sweet sunshine, and
handled instruments that have left their
marks on him of hardened muscles and
expanded lungs. His heart thumps great
rivers of rich blood through all his frame.
And hence his energy, and untiring zeal.
1t is so much easier to conquer with a
vigorous body. Then good digestion
makes it worth while to conquer. Some
times your country boy rubs off his
roughness, but more often not. The very
elements which lead to his success-his
ambitious striving to put himself at the
top, his bounding health and exuberant
joy simply in living these have tenden
cy to deaden his finer sensibilities, and to
keep him what he was when he came to
town, in everything that is worth at
tanning at all. So very often, though
he attain wealth, position, fame, he re-
mains gem in the rough; it takes, as
some one has said, five generations to
make a gentleman.
Talmage himself was country jake"
w. FL. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Robert G.
Ingersoll, Russell Sage, Murat Halstead
these are few of the thousands of
New Workers, who actually own and con-
troll New York, who were born in the
country.
***
The man who lives down in Jersey
and does business in New York is
class of man unto himself. He is usu
ally most pushing individual, though
not unusually one of the wealthiest. He
likes cottage home, in the eountry,O or iii
a village, where he can have, if he chooses,
a garden, and a COW, and other impedi
menta of semi-rural life. The attenuated
ozone of the city does not content nm.
He wants the full sweep of the unbur-
dened breeze to till his lungs withal both
at morn and night. Accordingly he lives
out in the country some ten, fifteen,
twenty, thirty miles, not only in summer,
but likewise in winter. His life is tur-
moil From catching trains, he becomes
nervous, and unable to take his ease any
where. Up early, he walks perhaps some
furlongs to the depot. If it be blizzard
morning h. goes with gum coat, umbrel-
la, and guri boots. He has the matter
of train sc..odules down fine, and loses no
time. In fact he aims to do no waiting,
but to be there just as the train starts.
He is the first man off the train and leads
the rush for the ferry. He is all day pre-
pairing for going home at night, recalling
things that he has been told to get, and
scheming deeply to get away on an earli-
er IL ain than usual. On the trip up he |
has read the morning papers, and return
ing he does the evening papers. Hence
he is well posted on current happenings.
He is a hustling, live fellow. You will
find him very different from city deni-
zen, but on all go-ahead items he is thor
oughly UP. He is less dilleta1te but
more a man. He gets his sleep of nights,
hence his liveliness. He knows but Lit |
tie of the city's night life. He is only a
day-city man. And he shows the differ
ence in his whole manner.
***
don't know why persons make such a
grand and impetuOus rush to get off
ferry boat. A ferry boat will draw slowly,
with ringing of bells and clanking of
chains, up to the landing. The crowd,
daily for years, perhaps, watch the opera
tion of drawing the boat up, with the
most intense eagsrness. They have push
ed into a compact mass about the gates.
When the guards get all in readiness and
the gates to open them, every
man involuntarily crowds little nearer,
jams his hat down hard, and stands ready
TO run. Back slide the gates and they