The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-08-05
A Chicagoan on New York,

Inc New ork Herald prints an anus
ing screed on New York city, purport-
ing to give Chicago citizens views of
the metropolis by the sea as compared
with the metropolis by the lake. First,
the alleged Chicagoan instances the ig-
norance of the New Yorker about other
cities of the Union. The New Yorker is
charged with knowing no more than a
pig knows about Sunday of such places
as Los Angeles, Spokane and Chillicothe,
and the Herald compositor partly bears
out this charge by spelling the name of
the last named place "Chillicotta."
To the New Yorker his city is his
country. New Workers never travel at
all, but when they do travel they go to
London, not through their own grand
land. All there is that is nice about
New York anyhow is the river and har-
Dor steamboat trips, the opera, the good
horses and carriages and the 'pro-
mote,s" who float western peoples
money getting schemes. For the rest,
there is no public spirit-not "spir."-
and no respect for historical associa-
tions OF relics, not even of the Revolu-
ton. eve are too big to care for our
selves" says the New Yorker, and he
actually thinks this is something to be
proud of. But western people need not
complain of public lethargy in New
York, for while she reposes in this
Dutch Rip Van Wrinkle sleep Chicago
steals away her honors and her COM
merce, says the Chicagoan.
The reason there is no Americanism
in New York is because New York is
not American. Her aristocracy are slow
old Dutch, the rest are foreigners out
right. Nineteen in every twenty New
Workers are landlord ridden rent pay
ers." More than million and a half of |
people pay 5000 other people for the
privilege of living, and that is life in
New York. Then the writer speaks of
the murderous brutality and crowding
on>the elevated trains and at the mouth
OF Brooklyn bridge, the frightfully
packed Offices and tenements and the
bad air and light in which even well to
do men spend their business days.
In New York the leading citizens are having
their energy and vitality Slapped and dried
away by sitting in offices that are filled with
second hand air and lighted artifcially. 1t
amazes every visitor to New York to see men
worth millions in Wall street and lawyers of
national fame cooking their brains under gas
and electric jets at high noon, with bad and
stagnant air about them and no change posi-
BILE unless the toilet stands and closets leak and
let in sewer gas.
The best known men-the national figures of
New York-neary all look dried up, wrinkled
and aged beyond their years to us who work in
sensible office buildings
After giving flashing to the archi-
tects who build houses with dark rooms
In them and Office structures with dark
inner offices, where men and boys must
sit all day like rats in hole, this howl
ing villain proceeds to seattle the city
authorities who gave away for nothing
q number Of the principal streets to the
disfguring elevated roads. Then he
gives this picture of the people that
really make up the population of New
York:
If the New York reader has not read or
heard or seen these things that concern the
masses of his fellow citizens, he certainly has
seen the products Of the tenement regions
those dwarfed and stunted, ferret eyed.
shrunken children and young men and girls
VINO roam the streets, and every now and then
break into Broadway or emerge upon the CEN |
tral avenues and then shrink back again into ,
the congenial squalor of their home district.
These are districts, by the way, which the
street cleaners cannot attend to. since their
money and labor are all expended In polishing ,
the stones in front of the brownstone houses
and the newspaper offices.
The average visitor fancies that New York ,
Is that promenade on Broadway between the
Union square and the Metropolitan opera
house, past the hotels and Delmonico's. But
70 see New York, go east or west of Broadway
only few blocks to where the atmosphere is
!etid, the air is full Of the wind blown, sun
nried droppings in the streets. where the
streets are all a-litter with rotten fruit, waste
paper and ashes, where the tenements are
ranged along the tagging like never ending I
factories, where the children swarm and pill
Ter like Arab bands, where the young men
nang about the saloon doors in sullen crews |
where the mothers loll in the windows upon ,
lirty pillows, and the men come and go at
hight and morning with dinner pals or Shout
lers crushed down beneath piles of ready 7
made clothing. That is where and how as .
many persons as compose Chicago are living
n New York. {