The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1895-02-14
IN A HURRY OVER NOTHING.
A Strange Mania That Possesses Many Ap-
parently Sane Citizens.

a Strange
parentIy Sane Citizens.
New York is full of men who want to be
first when there is nothing in it for Them
Two chaps will scramble for an empty ele-
waited train, and although they are the only
chaps on the platform they will push ana
shove each other in order to be the first In
the train. Even when there Is only one man
on the platform he will have sort OF strug-
ole to get aboard, as if he were competing
with some imaginary traveller.
AS soon as train begins to slow up at
station the people lining the platforms
commence to eye each other with suspl-
cion, trying to devise what plan the rest
have for getting aboard first, so that they
can circumvent it. 1t doesn't seem to be
that they are afraid they will lose their
seats. but some imaginary triumph seems
to be connected with being the first on
board.
It's the same way on the big railroads.
In a train bound from New York to Phila-
delphia when it reaches Trenton the occu-
pants begin to edge toward the door and to
make arrangements to be the first to leave
the car. They writhe in their seat I'M
easily and glare at their companions, whom
they suspect of an intention to circumvent
them if possible.
When a ferryboat lands at a slip, there
are always three or four men and boys who
make a wild run for the street, looking
back at every yard to make sure they are
the first. After gaining the street they fall
into a snail's pace and don't do anything
more the whole day that costs them any ef-
fort. They had been coached for spring
ON the boat and in that spring they seem
to have exhausted all the energy set aside
by nature for that days work. Commuters
on the railroads practice this thing until it
becomes sort of mania with them.
At a theatrical performance there are
people who are made miserable throughout
the evening by the fear that they won't be
the first to leave the building when it's
over. They take very little interest in the
show. Any one who watched them fidget-
ing toward the close of the play would sup
pose that the management gave chrome
or something to the fellow who made the
best time into the street.
The whole thing is due to dense ignorance
about the proper value and use of time.
The chap who struggles and fights his way
to car in which t'.ere is plenty of room for
all hands has an insane impression that if
he ReUS Ill UuC Car lISG uc IL ItdCu 1AdI lCuI
before the other people, but of course that's
all nonsense 1t isn't so much that he wants
to reach Harlem in a hurry, but once in the
race he wishes to get there before some one
else. He will loiter 10 minutes from Broad
way to the Park place station, but as soon
as he reaches the elevated railroad steps he
becomes a comet, pushing, fighting and
climbing over people to save second. On
the platform he dives for the car, treading
on corns and leaving trail of blasphemy
behind him.
And having reached Harlem he stops for
three-quarters of an hour in One Hundred
and Twenty-ffth street and watches man
sticking posters on fence.
If he had any appreciation of the proper
use of time, he would have taken five more
minutes to come up town and done it like
a gentleman instead of savage. Then he
would have appropriated only 40 minutes
to watching the man daubing paste on the
advertising fence A little more thought
fitness and evenness in the use of time
would save a lot of unpleasantness- don't
mean to the wild eyed savage in a hurry,
for have no sympathy for him or his kind,
but to his victims.-New York Herald.