The record-union., 1898-04-12
NEW YORK CITY.
THE agETRoPOLIs EcTH BEAU
TIFUL AND INTERESTING
Excursions Out of the Beaten
Track Recommended All the
Countries of the World Nay be
Visited.

people of New York of their own I'M
pOrtance-or, rather, unimportance-ll'
this country They are fond OF saying
that we are un-American, and some
times we are declared to be in general
terms English and at other times spe
cifically English.
This last charge is always intended
to be crushingly severe. They laugh AT
our refirements and at our vulgaritles.
! they scot at our luxuries and al our
Vices-we are SodOm and Gomorrah IN
! consolidation, and over us hang the
curses cf the righteous, the condemna :
/ ton Of the patriotic. Doomed ana
damned, we await the awful fate that
we richly deserve.
Some time ago ct a meeting of the
/ Nineteenth Century Club | heard a
man from the West make speech III
which he varied to some extent these
| hackneyed charges. 1t was not ne"
note for he too thought that New York
was a mighty mean place; but it was q
variation. because he supplied a bill OF
particulars with the general indict-
ment, and was, it seemed to me, some
what imbued with the idea that we
might, if we tried very hard, turn from
the error of our ways.
While the light holds out to burn
the vilest sinner may return
He told US in his speech all the things
| l have set down in the first paragraph,
and then. with much emphasis and III
| sistence, declared that New York was
so ugly, so unattractive, so unplea >
urable, so indifI erent SO immoral and
so hypocritically puritanical that peo-
pie did not care to stop in it, but mere
IL used it as an embarking place when
on pleasure bent and hurried away &c
the greater and more beautiful cities
of the elder world, where they could
satiate their yearning souls in The
esthetic atmosphere in which the ma
ture art of a we'll established civiliza-
ticn flourished as a matter of cours--.
banishing by its influence the narrow
ness Of proyincialism and the sordid-
ness of a too serious commercial spirit.
\ REWARD OF ELOQUENCE.
This little flight of elCquence was re-
ceived with burst of applause, for the
ladies and gentlemen of the Nineteenth
Century Club are polite first and dis
eliminating afterward The little ora
tor. thus encouraged, went on to say
something like this: ~
on GO not KNOW WHAT vast sure VI
wealth these American travellers carry
with them to London and Berlin and
Paris. You do not stop to consider that
in his waistcoat pocket Che probably
said vest pocket and his steamer trunk
a traveller can, take abroad with him 4
million dollars Of American property
just as easily as he could take before
the days of bonds and drafts a thou
sand dollars in gold.
Why, ladies and gentlemen, you must
| if you would remain supreme, make
New York more attractive; you must
make it so attractive that travellers
will come here for its own sake-so at
tractive that those meaning merely to
pass through will linger with you and
spend of the store that was meant for
! the tradesmen of London and Paris.
You can afford to pave your streets
with gold and silver bricks rather than
miss an opportunity like this, rather
| than fail in being the art center, the
museum and the great pleasuring place
| of this new, vigorous and aspiring
| young world.
This burst, too, was applauded, and
| as the orator had in his manner and
| his voice that magnetic something
| which carries persuasion even to- un-
willing minds what he said was at the
moment at least rather peTsuading.
Then again, there is in the New York
er kind cf humorous complacency
which makes him relish very genuine
ly the preachments of those who know
nothing of the great town and who
show by what they say that they mis-
understand the spirit which makes this
community the most interesting in all
the world.
AS a matter Of fact we are ourselves
chiefly blameworthy in this matter ana
we ourselves have really given the cue
To our Western brothers. who, in Their
own more impetuous fashion, take UP
| our speeches where we leave off ana
continue them with picturesque re-
| iteration We are in the habit of say
ing bad things of our town. We say
them in our private conversation and
in our public speech, and, most of ali,
we saw them in cur newspapers day
after day.
To Judge by the local happenings and
the social functions chronicled by the
sensational press. it would only be far
to conclude that in New York criminal.
| ity was dominant IN our commercial af-
| fairs. that vulgarity was the motive
| power in our social circles, while the
| TenderlCfn was the metropolitan cen
ter of interest after the brokers' offices
and other gambling shops in Wall
street had been closed for the day.
WESTERN CRITICS AS POsEURS.
These Western critics take their cue
| from Us. and we have no right in the
cf
US who have lived amcng them, and
have studied them at home, know,
however, that they are not half serious
in what they say. 1t is pose with
! them-just as much of a pose as when
| the ruxtic comes to town and mounts
high hat before dscarding his tailless
coat Being pose-this pretended
scorn of New York-with the Western
people. it is not worth while to argus
with them
But with ourselves it is a different
matter. We have no more right to take
of ourselves the view that we do than
We have to depreciate the value Of a
neighbor's property by our own acts.
| When we do sucha thing we can be held
| liable and cast in damages. There is no
| law to be sure. protecting the more
| general rights to which ] have alluded
the rights to a community's fair fame
and q proper appreciation of a citys
natural and artificial beauties-but the
rights to the enjoyments and profits
which como from such reputation are
not vague in the least, as they are
| founded in public policy. in private
prosperity and that civic sentiment
which whenever it expresses itself
practically, purifies our political at
mosphere and stops for season or So