The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-13
IN STREET CARS
SHOULD BE A LAW FOR KEEPING
THEM OFT OF THE AIsLEs.
of the Windows, Anything to Keep
Them Out of Sight.

New York Sun.
A wise man once said that to appreciate
the unpleasant points of any person you
must travel with him. That wise man
must have Travelled about New York. He
must have been on the elevated road, and
on the cable cars, and bridge trains. Evil
IDENTIFY that is where he evolved his wise
saw, and the unpleasant points which he ap-
preciated were undoubtedly the feet of the
average New Yorker in his travels around
the city. Chicago is famous in legend as
being the city of gigantic pedal extremities.
But If Chicago has bigger feet, New York
can claim to do more execution with her
feet They are more distributed and more
dangerous, and harder to dodge. If you
have any doubt of this just board a Third
avenue elevated train any evening at 6
O'Clock ar the city hall station.
A Broadway car and a bridge train are
about the same, but a Third avenue train
is sure to be crowded about that time, and
any way an elevated train seems to afford
peculiar advantages for people with a SUI
perabundance of feet. The cars are always
full of them.
Perhaps you reach the car door after the
seats are filled, and find yourself gazing
along a vista of feet. The aisle is literally
full of shoes of all descriptions, and all the
shoes are full of feet. They meet in the
center. Sometimes they contest for the open
space.
You look longingly at the straps that
swing from above. If only you were a
gymnast you could swing from strap to
strap and thus gain the center of the car.
Being only a man, you had better stay on
the platform, particularly if it is a muddy
day. Or perhaps you are a woman, and
believe that those feet will move when you
start up the aisle.
You f1atter yourself, madam. They are
there to stay, and nothing short of a derrick
will rnDaoya fbaD ,,,~, tIn ~ r- nvn m
get out; And if you try to pick your way
along that perilous path of projecting feet,
temper rufled. Better get out and walk. At
least, your fellow pedestrians will have
other use for their feet than to form
chevaux-de-friSe with them.
A PEDALIAN EXHIBITION.
Viewed from the platform, however, there
is something interesting in this pedalian ex-
hibition. You will find all kinds of shoes in
it; light and heavy, thin and thick, rough
and fine, polished and muddy, pointed and
square, old and new, and considered as
obstacles you will find one kind about as
bad as another.
First, you will notice the idiot who
stretches his legs straight out across the
aisle, reclining gracefully as nearly on the
back of his neck as circumstances will per-
NIT. He usually conceals his identity behind
a newspaper under pretense of reading.
Next to him is the social outcast, who
sprawls on his side in the seat and sticks
his feet out sideways. There is this to be
said in his favor, that his extremities forsl
his ~neighbor. the criminal who crosses his
legs and holds one of them at such an
angle that. it catches the passer-by just
below the knee.
Then there is the public nuisance who
joining seat and sticks one leg straight out
while the other foot rubs dust and dirt
upon the trousers of his ~neighbor.
BY a rare poetic Justice his Eeighbor is
sometimes the moral leper who, projecting
his underpinning straight out, balances the
heel Of one shoe upon the toe of the other.
pedal poses that barricade the elevated
train aisles.
Perhaps there is a seat in the middle of
the car. You want that seat, and you are
going to get it if it takes a leg: any num-
Der Of legs, in fact, provided they belong
to other people.
While you are considering the best method
! He is a well-constructed man on a two
hundred-pound scale. and he walks in a
sternation among the freaks full of feet.
As he lands solidly on patent leather or
wrathful howls follows him.
WHAT THEY YELL.
"Oh, Ouch! Get off,
Look out where you're stepping. you
IDIOT"
oh-h-h-h. my corns!. cThis a Iongdrawn
wall of anguish).
-! - ---ii" (From the
horney-handed son of toll who had been
asleep.
"Oh! my toes.' Cant you see where
you're walking?' Damn .'Soiled me new
boots, bah Jove, the brute. This from
Chappie). "Ow!' You're walking on me.,
"---!ir
But the guard is a placid man and big,
and no one offers to get up and hurt him.
Besides he has been all over those feet, or
similar ones, before, and he rather likes 1t.
But unless you've had practice you will not
/ he yricn in -, - IT,
If you do there may be trouble. Suppose
you start with q gentle leap that lands
you on a par OF progans. Ihey are sud
and your feet leaving you simultaneously.
OF course the elderly man opposite who
has been busting his congress CATERS on
your trousers is indignant when you sit
down in his lap.
Your apologies are not accepted, and you
achieve an airy flight which lands you on
the instep of one of a pair of russets. This
is withdrawn hastily and with a howl and
you seek refuge on a broad-toed patent
leather, which heartlessly deposits you, in
an assorted mass of leather. in which you
become frightfully entangled.
Some way or other you manage to reach
the far-off seat, but you are followed by the
bowls and growls of the injured foot own
lar man in the car. and you catch yourself
indulging in a furtive wish that all your
fellow-travelers may soon become legless
survivors of railway catastrophes, or, bet
ter still. non-survivors.
Now that you have reached your seat
remember what you have been through, and
beware of your ~extremities.
Curl your legs inward. Keep your feet
where they belong. Crowd 'em together
and as close In as you can. Jam 'em back
under the seat. SIT on 'em. Put 'em in your
pocket. Hang EN- on the straps. Stick 'em
out of the window.
DO anything and everything with 'em,
except stretch 'em all over the aisle. There
are only two of 'em. Keep 'em within
bounds. Don't be a freak with your feet.
WHERE WILD GEESE SILLY.
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