Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-19
LIFE AT HOT SPRINGS.
People One Meets at the Great Arkansas
Health Resort - Northern Weather
Transplanted in the South-Pittsburg
Visitors Few-Rapid Transit in the
South

| |
cosmopolitan place." was the remark of Dr.
Garnett. who may be said TO be the Jupiter
Medicus of this fount of health. this morning
81 have been consulted by the Representatives
of six European countries in a single morning
and it is safe to say that every State in the
Union. and Territory too, has delegation
here"
A glance at any of the hotel registers here
will convince one of the correctness of the
statement. There are Englishmen, French.
men, all kinds of Germans and every stripe OF
American. Yankee merchants Southern
Colonels. and Majahs, Californians and North
western frontiersmen, all more or less seeking
for health in the peculiar waters which gush
from the medicine chest within the Ozark
mountains.
But every one is not an invalid by any means.
There are good many people here who are as
stout and hearty as they could wish to be: they
find in Hot Springs refuge from the eccentric
attacks of our great North American climate
in winter. This year this class Of visitors has
| been fooled to some extent. December and
January were delightful months here l am
| told, but not SO February and the first half OF
| March. Rain and chilly winds have washed
| and blown away the "balmy South" business
for the past six weeks to great extent. but
all the same. it is my opinion that the worst
| winter weather Hot Springs knows is good
deal better than the best have found in some
Northern Blasts in the Balmy South.
On Thursday the climax in bad weather was
| reached; it showed all day. and four inches OF
the beautiful" covered the hills and wales. to
the astonishment of the natives who protest
| with one voice that the like has never been seen
| here before Well, the snow is going faster
than it came under the compulsion of to-day's
| glorious sunshine. The sky is superbly blue
again, the air rapidly warming up, and the
i nhnf0 yirnnrn
the birth of spring before another week has
| passed.
Stranger even than the contrasts of nation.
ality among the visitors here are those of social
| station and calling. Yesterday. at the Hotel
Eastman, in one group noticed Senator Noor-
hees, baseball player whose name l don't
| know, New York banker, passenger con-
| ductor from Milwaukee, two estimable young
| ladies from Minneapolis, a saloon keeper from
| Chicago and several unidentified Southerners.
| The grouping was accidental, of course. for
| people range themselves here much as they do
at home, although there is the usual freedom
| OF manners that is generally permitted att
watering place-the canlurdderte born OF COM
mon exile.
There is an element here. and pretty large
one, too, that one can see much or little OF as
one pleases: 1t is an element that is not here
for its health, or anybody ese's. Its proper
field is the green CLOTH and its habits are noe
turnal.
The Gambling Fraternity There.
There are lots Of gamblers here, and
sprinkling of people for whom that term were
too polite by jugful. But they do not bother
anyone who is of ordinary discretion and not
anxious to be led into crooked paths. In this
the Hot Springs of to-day seems to be very
different from that of yesterday, when the
gamblers ran the town. and the humdrum OF
faro and poker playing was broken by nightly
affrays, and one riot week. at least. Hot
Springs to-day is as orderly as Pittsburg, and
the town is growing rapidly.
Ten years ago there was not brick building
in the town. Now there are dozen business
blocks on the main street, and two immense
hotels that compare favorably with the
great caravansarIes at Saratoga. Long
Branch, Narragansett or any other resort.
There are plenty of smaller hotels, and the his
toric Arlington Hotel still holds up its head.
The latest addition to the hotels the Park, was
only opened this season. 1t cost in the neigh
ure, furnished in the best of taste and in every
respect well equlpt, it is the equal of the finest
hotels in the East. 1t is curious, however, that
the architects of the Park and Eastman hotels
apparently believed they were designing PEN
ttentiaries or insane asylums when they drew
their plans, for the gaunt severity and formal
ity of each buildings lines would only be suit
able in public institution of the kind named
One Grand Element Remains.
But if the architecture of these mammoth
hotels, / forget how many hundreds or thou
sands each of them can house, is net pic
turesque or grand, the prices charged therein
are both-and be sure not to forget 1t, or the
comelated fact that visitors TO the Springs are
regarded as gold mines by the natives and
worked as such with vigor and insistence
seldom encountered elsewhere in the South.
1t has always been so at the Springs.
The Spaniards who discovered the Springs
some hundreds of years ago, were the only
visitors who have escaped with more than
they brought, but then they were lucky enough
to find gold mine In the Ozark foot hills at
the same time.
The Pittsburg contingent is not very large
here, and it is somewhat surprising. too, for
most resorts of the Hot Springs order draw |
largely from the Iron City. Doubtless there |
have been more Pittsburgers here earlier In the |
season. Congressman Dalzelrs son, Sam, is at |
her daughter. Miss Rose. and son. Mr.. Charles |
Gallery are staying at the Hotel Eastman. |
Mrs. Callery's friends will be glad to hear that |
she has been benefited already by her stay |
here, although she arrived but two weeks ago. |
But il you do not see many Pittsburg faces |
in the crowded corridors and lobbies of the |
hotels, the old stagers here the veteran visitors,
and especially the garrulous negroes who rub |
the virtues of the healing water into your |
bones until you howl are full Of "reminiscences |
OF Pittsburg celebrities of one sort or another. |
"reminiscences of Pittsburgers.
Napoleon, the coored artist whose bathing
studio is in the Park Hotel, has very high |
idea of Pittsburg humanity, and at very slight |
about divers brokers, lawyers merchants and
manufacturers from Western Pennsylvania
who have passed through his hands-leaving
golden deposit doubtless, for Napoleons words
are all kind,
Among the regulars-as the men who have
been coming here every month for some III to
20 years may be called-a name frequently men
toned, and always with kindly accent, is poor
Ben Vandergrifts who died at the Arlington
Hotel last year. Mr.. Valdergrifrs generous
traits made him very popular with the big
hearted fellows, old and young, who form a
large band here. and his memory is likely to be
kept green here for generation at least.
ReverIing to the contrasts to be seen here
in men and things.l don't know that ever saw
anything funnier than an interview that oc-
cured on the principal street of this town
between the driver of one of the
absurd bob-tailed street cars and farmer in
an ox-cart. The street was lake of mud after
the rapid thawing of the snow of the previous
day, and the farmer in his springless cart,
which had tolerably straight young pine tree
for pole. was urging his team OF long horned
oxen along the car track when the street car
Rapid Transit in the South.
Neither the farmer or the oxen liked the look
of the muddy depths on either side of the
track, and the latter Just stopped and stared
lazily at the diminutlve mules which were draw
ing the car.
who was driving the car.
"Howdy," politely replied the farmer whose
beard, clothes and hat harmonized
alike in the harmonious scheme of brown of
which his wagon, the oxen and the mud
we're consistent parts.
Fright smart snow yesterday, remarked
the car driver and the farmer nodded his head |
Then silence ensued for a few minutes. The
inside tile car, two young colored
women and a stylish New Yorker, were deeply
in the situation. but they made no
former because they were used to |
such delays and the latter because he had the
usual visitors surplus of spare time to expend
and had just as lief get rid of it in street car
Is anywhere else. don't know what the con-
versalion between the farmer and the car
1river turned upon while went up the street