The Wichita daily eagle., 1894-02-02

THE DEPARTMENT PROCESSION.
reckless disregard for expense The women
have gay millinery and rich furs. Broad
way is 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 see
poverty and squalor enough in half hour
to last you a lifetime In New York the
wretchedness is kept pretty well apart from
the more comfortable aspects of the town.
They are near enough together and run in
parallel thoroughfares Suggestively easy
is the transition from one to the other as
luck" changes or dissipation brings it's
sure reward.
CiicagO'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 un-
fortunates. And the streets TEEN and pal
pitate so with human beingsl Chicago is
almost terrible in its outward evidence of
poverty and distress. The streets are liter
ally full of unfortunate men and women,
who seemingly do not know where the next
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 iS - hoIiouo ho cb baJ {,fa
ments that Chicago has 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 the
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 en-
ployment and their ranks swollen by thou
sands more who have drifted in from all
the west for the winter Eaenths.
After Chicago, ST. Louis is distinct re-
lief. Compared with the city by the lake,
st. Louis is almost villagelike. The streets
are so quiet; it is SO easy to get about with
out danger of being run over, without jos
Ting. Chicago is a maelstrom; ST. Louis
pleasant bay, with quiet waters and gentle
breezes. ST. Louis impresses one as a town
where most Of the people are employed,
where business is conservative, where few
large fortunes are made on the one hand,
or many failures on the other. It's 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.
Here the whole United States is typified
and eXemplifed. Take, for instance, two
currents of humanity that move down Penn
sylvania avenue between 4 and 5 o'clock in
the afternoon. About the time the big pub
lie departments are closed congress ad-
lourns, and thus from opposite ends of the
avenue two streams are let loose, gradually
approaching one to the other and finally
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 a
second look at too They are stylishly at
tired. Their gowns and millinery are ''up
TO date, and there are evidences of the fact
that when woman provides for herself she
is better taken care of than when she de-
pends upon a husband.
Most of these girls of the treasury" Or
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
no 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 itselfin 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 consequence he thinks
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 crowd, and they are
by far more conspicuous than he is. It is
sad to think what the department young
man would come to if it were not for his
gloves. The work of selecting them, of
choosing the up to date shade, and the eff
Tort 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-
tion of the modern idiotic haIdshake,
watch the department stream as it flows
down Pennsylvania avenue.
There is IL this throng a refreshing alb
sence OF the sense of responsibility, of ssri-
BUSINESS Life TO all OF them Is 40 easy, in
dolect sort Of routine. The work they have
TO do calls forth little of their originality
or character. What they do today they did
yesterday and will do tomorrow, in precise
ly the same way in which il was done 10
years ago and 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 Is
considered such good ''show town. and
why 1t has more furnishing goods. millin-
cry and haberdashery Snaps than any other
city IN the country of the same size.
Washington is exceedingly fond of the
AeaIer. The humdrun. routine grinding