The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1894-03-01
A WONDERFUL TOWN.
ITS NAME IS WAYNE, AND IT is NEAR
PHILADELPHIA.

Founded by Anthony j. Drexel and George
w. Childs-A Place of Quiet Residence,
Away From the Marts of T~rade-Police-
men Are Not Needed.
phia, on the main line Of the Pennsylva-
MIA railroad, is the wonderful town of
WAYNE. The wonderful town of Wayne
is a product of the philanthropy of
Anthony J. Drexel, planned to bring it
into existence for tie benefit of such Phil
a~delphians as yearned for more suburban
life than was afforded by the shady thor
cuyhfareS and placid highways of their
| native city, and as Mr.. Chllds and Mr..
DrcXrl had unlimited capital with which
to carry out the plan for an ideal sub
urban settlement Wayne was founded
on the tirlntst of foundations and has
! tlOurIshtd III a manner calculated to
cause the prove-hlal bay tree to wither
with "
The inhabitants Of Wayne number
several thousand and are all i%nordinate-
ly proud of being Wayneites. They are
proud with the pride which flushes the
o~Dsequious head salesman of the suspen-
der department when the firm recognizes
his worth and promotes him to the dizzy
altitude of second tioOrwalker in chief.
and their pride is a thorn IN the sides of
all the surrounding settlements and less
ostentatiOus suburban stations. Most of
them-that is. most of the males-are wor-
thy clerks under middle age and blessed
with wives and rapidly accommodating
olive branches, and if they are not wor-
thy clerks they are worthy in some other
line, for n but worthy persons have
ever found a foothold in Wayne, and the
breath of scandal has never smirched the
polish of its purity. Their wives are as
typical of the quiet middle class Phila-
delphia women and girls rs they them
selves are representative Of the average
spotlesSly conventional Philadelphia
masculine being.
Physically regarded, Wayne is as fair
to look upon as it is from a moral stand
point. 1t Is an exposition of the essencro Of
Queen Anne i'll architecture. tempered
with the colonial and the other popular
forms Of rural residence design which
have in the last decade run riot through
out the length and breadth of the land.
There are lark red houses and bright
red ones, there are those which are red
and green, and pink and green, and ca
nary and green, and there are orange and
white ones, and there are pearl colOred
types with dove tinted trimmings. And
there are just as many unconventional
designs III shape as there are in color,
and altogether the wonderful town Of
Wayne is d most satisfying spectacle to
any one who seeketh the beautiful, the
odd or the &bnormally hideous in mex
pensive but conspicuous dwellings.
Naturally such a settlement is above
reprOach III its government. 1t has
broad roads, perfectly laid, fine, broad
sidewalks, a waterworks and splendid
drainage, all of which were provided by
Messrs. Childs and Drexel, and it has "a
! president and council. a fire engine
equipment, an athletic club and ground
for both sexes, a debating society, q
series of winter dances, a sewing circle,
a whist club and d lot of other such at
fractions provided by the residents them
selves, anu oil llItSC llilIlS ) d1t IldL1dgcu
without a hitch or a jar, and peace
reigns supreme from Jan. l in any give,
year until the hOur of midnight on the
following 3lst of December.
Wayne has no stores of any kind, and
of course a saloon is as foreign to its
confines as a srOwstOrm would be in ali
equatorial jungle. On the other side of
the railroad there is also a WAYNE
an old fashioned Revolutionary times
Wayne-named after the American gen
eral who was known as Mad Anthony
Wayne, and there may be found shops
and stores and saloons and business
offices, but in the new and beautiful
Wayne such things are unknown and
must ever be unknown unless the laws
of it's organization be ruthlessly shatter-
ed and the dictates of its title deeds ig-
nOred.
Nor has it my police, but then why
. should it have: No one is bad. no one is
J other than faultless, the very dogs don't
, bark at night, the cats remain indoors
after sunset, and a policeman would be
as much out Of place in Wayne rs a
prizefighter at a little girls paper doll
party. But the sweet sense of security
which pervades the place is not without
/ its insurance clause, SO to speak. Even
Wayne might be invaded by a reckless
tramp Dent on securing a square meal or
} (hOrrlble as the thought is to the Wavne.
: ites) by a nocturnal prowler seeking tc
: enter and rob a happy home. And then,
too, the business hours of the day find
| its adult male population away in the
= city, and the women have not their nat.
{: ural protectors at hand.
Therefore each family has a huge tin
| horn on which a mighty blast can be
2 sounded as an alarm when aid is needed
to repulse a tramp or to fight the fire
f fiend. At first the alarms were frequent
because the children could not resist
testing the tin horns at unseemly hours
but a meeting of the council fixed a fine
| of s. on false alarms, and now, through
the agencies of repeated spanhings anC
t also of hanging the horns too high fol
the children to reach, no more false
alarms come to startle the community.