Pleasantville weekly press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1890-1911, 1896-07-22
FROM THE CITY I, ., =,
BY THE SEA.
Mr.. White and the Elevated
Bicycle Track.
many Waiting COMPLETION OF THE ENTERPRISE
OPENING OF THE SEASON-ALL KINDS OF
HUMANITY IN THE sURF-WOMEN WITH
DOOR-KNOB KNEES-HOW THE FAT WO-
MAN DISPORTS HERSELF.

Pleasantyille and Atlantic City Bicycle
Track Company. He is very sure-and
| use the word sure adyisedly-that the
track will be built this summer. He is
sending out great many circulars and
driving as hard as he knows how. He
is hustler and q rustler, and one OF
those indomitablef fellows who never fail.
The Bay City, which, by the way,
ought to be the name of Pleasantville,
ought to take hold of the other end OF
Mr.. Whites tow line and help to pull the
boat to safe harbor. | am not inter-
ested in the bicycle track, one dollar, for
the last dollar had my laundress now
owns but if had ten thousand dollars
| would put it into that bicycle track.
1t will be of immense advantage to
Pleasantville.
If | were a member of the Pen and
Pencil Club, and as your correspondent
think | am entitled to membership, l
would move for some help for the prompt
promotion of the bicycle track. The toll
road company will do nothing to make
the meadow road passable for bicycles
until it is forced to do so by some enter
prise that will antagonize it's interests,
and that is what the elevated bicycle
track will do. There are mud holes
without end on that road, and there is
no reason why there should be. A few
loads of gravel and few dollars expend-
ed for scraper and roller will do the
work necessary. Sometimes | think that
your town is all cemetery and all its
inhabitants dead, but now and then
meet real live man, and read the PRESS,
which assures me that there is still some
life in the town. | was told the other
day that B. L. Stevens, a prominent
merchant in this city, with whom | am
not acquainted, would take some stock
in the bicycle track, but that he had
never been approached. My informant
said that Mr.. Stevens owned considera-
BILE property in your pretty little village.
There's awful dOin'S on the big new
Boardwalk. The Fourth Ward, which
is a close corporation, thinks it ought TO
support Richard I'll. Lee, the Obstruc-
ZIONIST in his determined effort not to
yield to the city council. DR.. Southern,
the Demosthenes of the Fourth Ward, is
the protpge of Lee, indebted to Lee for
all he has but his brains, and he stands
by his foster father just as if his foster
father was right. Lee is determined to
connect his nasty, rotten, unsightly old
rattle-trap buildings to the Boardwalk,
just as it they were as admirable as
Young & McShea's pier. The fact is that
if he signs the easement deed he will not
be cut off from the pier he has built, but
he won't be allowed to put Jim Crow
affair on the ocean side.
The outcome of the dispute between
Lee and the city council, us l suggested
last week, is apt to develop some spicy
things.
The Atlantic City season is open; but
up to date it has been holy terror to
many of the amusementS in this city.
Even the Academy of Music has suffered.
The Empire vaudeville, which as Music
Hall last year sunk money and went into
liquidation, is earning dollar or two.
The Iron Pier is having a tough time,
and has lost money, though giving agOOd
show. Young & McShea have made
some money, but not near so much as a
year ago. The fact is that the show
business in this city has been overdone.
The amusements are all better than they
were year ago.
spent few hours on the beach yes
terday and today. One of the daily
papers on this side of the bay said that
the fad this summer was short bathing
robes for women. The critic was right.
The next surprise | look for is surf
bloomers. On Sunday the cOnglomera-
ton of feminine skin and bone, crooked
ness, obesity, vulgarity and beauty was
too awfully awful to contemplate. That
is, for sensitive person like myself. To
see a woman with crooked legs in q
bathing suit OF white, trimmed with blue
and scarlet, the skirt above her knees
and her knees stuck up like the doorknobs
on the Philadelphia city ball, is enough
to shock any sense of decency. But O
course Atlantic City can't help such exhi
bitions. We poor folk on this side of the
bay must take what fate sends us.
There is some delight in seeing rea
fat woman waddling into the surf. She
knows she is not Venus, and she knows
that she will be laughed at, but in G
good natured way. But you show me
and have seen them the past two days
a twenty to thirty year old duckling
who has the reputation in her town Ol
neighborhood of being pretty, and nc
matter how misshapen she is in body
she will saunter down the beach for al
hour or more before going into th'
water as a sort of free exhibition. Mos
of the wel-shapen women go out of thu
lighthouses with sort of business air
They walk to the surf with a stride o
confidence, as much as to say, "l'm her'
to take bath and have some sport il
the water" and into the surf they go.
Most men go into the water to swim
but there are O great many boobys who
think they are smart and make them
selves obnoxious by Offering to assis
women, to teach them to swim aud tt
float. OF all such, my dear off-shor
maiden, beware. They are base deceiv
ers. Vulgar curiosity and diseased mind
prompts their offer of aid, and more thai
one silly girl has been drowned through
trusting herself to these sehimpose(
impostors. Let them alone. A manly
honest man never offers his assistanc,
until danger arouses his courage.
Returning to Pleasantville, why doe
not some one open the Revere, the bote
near one Of your railway stations
When some of us bicycle riders take {
morning spin to Pleasantville we like tt
have a cup of coffee, and some Of us lik,
a cup OF something stronger. But W,
can't get either. A road house would b.
| a good thing. A temporary affair, will
coffee, chocolate, sandwiches, etc., with
out the strong drink, would be accepta
BILE. A score Of us We're in your town OF
Saturday, tired and hungry, and W,
couldn't get a morsel. The privat