The herald., 1893-01-16
A SUMMERS DAY IN WINTER
Scenes at Westlake Park on a
January Afternoon.
The Crowd and Some of the Charac-
ters Which Compose 1t.
Features of Typical Sunday After
noon Gathering at the Peo-
ple's Favorite Play
ground.

About O'Clock on Sundays you begin
to notice crowd about the Hollenbeck
corner. They are awaiting an electric
Car to carry them out to the open-air
concert at Westlake park. They fly up
the steep Second-street grade, perfectly
black with their swarms Of humanity !;
and from the other parts of the city
there are just as many who patronize
the cable cars that run out Seventh
street. Arriving at the little park you
find landscape gardening in perfec-
lion, with the heath of tue
cape of Good Hope elderly
side with the box thorn OF Tasmania,
the arancsria of Norfolk island, the
golden waffle of Australia and the
hibiscus of Hawaii. About the park is
a Gordon of carriages and buggies more
than mile in length, their occupants
being chiefly of the fair sex. The hour
of has arrived and the band is in the
stand already. Following is the pro-
gramme of the day:
March, Spring, Meyer.
Medley, Black Brigade, Boyer.
Waltz, Visions of Paradise. Bennett
Potpourri, Hugenots, Meyerbeer.
DANA MeseiSana, Rideugue.
March, Cimbal, Gruber
overture, Tampa, Hernld.
Selection. Robert lie Diaole, Meyeroeer.
La Belle Amazone, Loeschorn.
There are score of children playing
about near the band stand, as the music
strikes up the familiar strains OF Dane
ing in the Barn or Roll EN- Up Higher.
you hear the thin, piping treble voices
mingling with thu blare of the brass.
There are no end of young ladies, ac-
companied by their beaux, and between
the pieces they stroll away for talk
and walk upon the circular promenade
around the lake. The vehicles are all
handsome turnouts, drawn by horses in
whose veins flows the aristocratic life
current of such patrician sires as Grim
stead, Echo, Sultan and Rutherford.
Let us halt by the lake and watch the
passing show.
There goes young belle from Santa
Ana, who is, they say, in no particular
hurry to get married. She has $50
acres in her own right and an offer of
800 600 would be refused, because the
land is in high cultivation. Behind her
and her escort are two women draped
in quiet robes of gray. The older of
the two is messalina, for the writer
has known her 20 years and not in Los
Angeles. There was an army officer
dishonorably discharged on her account
and, although she is well up into the
forties, che is still batting her hook for
fresh gudgeons. Well, as long as such
women exist, there will always be fools
to run after than. There was never
yet supply, except in obedience to a
demand.
Here comes young belle from FL
gueroa street with cheeks like newborn
roses and an eye as blue as the far-of
sea. That young insurance clerk thinks
be ia going to get her, but he is mis-
taken. There is young fellow up at
Berkeley who will have something to
say about it. Behind her come two
stately young girls, in whose dark eyes
and heavy coiling hair you easily can
detect the Spanish blood not very far
off. One of them has been married and
was recently divorced from as worthless
a scamp as ever saw this town. Next to
them come a couple, mother and daugh-
ter, and you can hardly tell which is
which. Their ages are very uncertain.
The band strikes up the brilliant
overture to Tampa as we stroll west
ward and watch the great sun dipping
into the glowing waves, while the blue
vault overhead is fecked with vista of
purple and gold such as one never sees
but here on winters day. A few are
putting on their overcoats. while others,
w:.o have left theirs behind, are button
ing their cutaways up to the neck.
Already the eun has faded from the crests
of the Sierra Madre, leaving their icy
submits coldly pure in the light of the
expiring day.
The medley from Robert the Devil
strikes up, but the crowd has become
wonderfully thinned out in ,ha past &c
minutes. There is a mob about the
cable cars, and the electric az we'll. and
the young man who has Robert, toi
que Paine" for solo on the cornet be-
gins to fear that he won't have anybody
there to hear, much less applaud him.
The fiery sunset has turned to dim
cleaning. Long, triangular phaanxes
of wild fowl are lowering on strong wings
through the rosy sunset air and plash
ing into the lake as though shot from 9
mortar. Twilight steals on apace, an6
hailipg we'll lighted house and smok
ing hot dinner, the reporter says fare
we'll to the daylight and hies him swiftly
home.
THE GOSPEL UNION.