Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-01-31


TIE DEPARTMENT PROCESSION.
reckless disregard for expense. The women
have gay millinery and rich furs. Broad
way is a show in itself There are the idle.
the gay, the wicked, the butterflies OF both
sexes.
See Broadway of sunny afternoon, and
YOU would think no one in the world had
trouble; that every one had money. But a
block or two away the scene changes star
tlingly. On the side streets you may sec
poverty and squalor enough in Il half hour
to last you a lifetime. In New \ ork the
wratchedness is kept pretty wei. apart from
the more comfortable aspects of the town.
They are near enough together and run in
parallel thoroughfares. SUCCESSFULLY easy
is the transition from one to the other as
luck" changes or dissipation brings its
sure reward.
Chicago's Unemployed.
In Chicago all sorts and conditions OF
men and women are jumbled together.
Such an OLA podrida Of humanity never
saw anywhere else. Smart business men,
fashionable women, rub elbows on every
street with an almost infinite variety of i'm
fortunates. And the streets TEEN and pal
pitate SO with human beingsi Chicago is
almost terrible in it's outward evidence OF
poverty and distress The streets are liter
ally full of unfortunate men and women,
who seemingly do not know where the
meal is coming from, or where is the bed
they are to occupy at night. Mile after mile
OF this restless, surging, i'll kempt throng-
hungry and footsore, hopeless and desperate
-appalls one.
II m, t,a1 he, OF at
ments that Chicago has u greater number
of unemployed than any other American
city-not because the commerce and indus
tries of Chicago are suffering from stop
page, for they are not, but because tho
Worlds fair drew to the city hundreds OF
thousands of the shifting, floating popula-
tion of the country, the greater share OF
whom are still there, vainly seeking em-
ployment, and their ranks swollen by thou
sands more who have drifted in from all
the west for the winter months.
After Chicago, st. Louis is a distinct re-
lief. Compared with the city by the lake,
St. Louis is almost villagelike. The streets
are so quist; it is SO easy to get about with
out danger of being run over, without jos
Ting. Chicago is a maelstrom; St. Louis a
pleasant bay, with quiet waters and gentle
breezes. st. Louis impresses one as Il town
where most of the people arc employed,
where business is conservative, where few
large fortunes are made on the one hand,
or many failures on the other. Its street
scenes are indicative of an easy going, rath-
er comfortable population.
Where Street Scenes Are National.
But Washington is the ideal. Here the
street scenes are national rather than local.
T~,,,+ t,t, t..,I
and eXemplified. Take, for instance. two
currents of humanity that moycd down Penn
sylvania avenue between and O'Clock in
the afternoon. AbouttEe time the big pub
lie departments are closed congress ad-
iourns, and thus from opposite ends Of the
avenue two streams are let loose, gradually
approaching one to the other and fsa:ly
blending. 1t is difficult to say which of
these streams is the more interesting. That
from the departments shows by far the
greater number Of women Some of them
are women almost any man would want .
second look at too. They are stylishly at
tired. Their gowns and millinery are up
to date" and there are evidences of the fact
d. that when woman provides for herself she
is better taken care of than when she de-
ponds upon husband.
other departments are well behaved. They
are ladies. The wicked days of old, in which
service in the departments often went by
favor dearly bought and not by merit, are
10 more. With now and then an exception,
nothing of the sort is known in the great
executive departments Of today If the
civil Service law has done nothing else of
value it has paid for itself in the protection
which it has thrown about woman in pub
lie Office here at the capital.
Dressy and Debonair.
The men of this department stream are
for the most part dressy and debonair too.
Your average government employee finds
time hanging heavily on his hands. He
has not enough in his work to absorb his
Energies, and as q consequence he thinks a
GOOD deal about the clothes he wears, more
especially his gloves The department
young man has great ado about his gloves
Put him and them in u crowd, and they are
by far mere conspicuous than he is. 1t is
sad to think what the department young
man wcald come 10 if it were not for his
gloves. The work of selecting them, of
choosing the up to date shade, and the ef-
fort to carry them in the way most APPROX
ed by fashions fad afford him an employ
ment without which he would surely die
of ennui. If you want to make sure of the
latest things in gloves, the very newest
ways of carrying them and the freshest edi-
ton of the modern idiotic handshake,
watch the department stream as 1t flows
down Pennsylvania avenue.
There is in this throng refreshing alb
sence of the sense OF responsibility. OF seri-
business. Life to ali of them is an easy, in
Ilolent sort Of routine. The work they have
Z, do calls forth little of their crigiEalit,
or character. What they do today they die
yesterday ald will do tomorrow, in precise
ly the same way in which il was done Il
years ago as.i will be done 10 years hence
So it is with two-thirds OF all the gov.
eminent employees in Washington, and
this fact alone explains why the capital i,
considered snch good show town." and
why it has more furnishing goods, millin.