The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1899-02-16
GOOD-NATUREO NEW YORK.
The People of That City Are "A Sweet
TEMPERED Lot,

wy
Tempered Lot.
If we look at the worst aspects OF
New York in a serious spirit, it GER.
tainly does not ~exemplify the gospel OF
kindness, as, after a little, / shall try
to explain. But looking at it super.
fcially, or studying its population, not
in the abstract aggregate, but in the
myriad individuals one meets, up town
and down town, in aristOcratic or in
extremely sOrdid precincts, good ma.
ture seems the mote" Of the New
Yorker, provided, of course, that you
are good-natured yourself. What pa
thence he has with municipal t~yrannies
and corporate i~nhumanities, and en-.
livened by what a salty touch OF
humor!
One would not cite an elevated rail.
road car or a ferry slip, jammed full Of
tired and hungry New Workers, as a
school of courtesy. Yet | think such a
throng might easily be less courteous
anywhere else, at least anywhere in
northern Europe, if we can conceive of
its existing there. And no woman with
pleasant words on her lips need
shrink from asking help or guidance in
TIE streets OF New York; usually il
will be given with a good many kindly
trimmings, whether it be asked from
the dude" or the hurried business
man, the lawless street boy or the
Italian sweeper, or even the tradition
a11v uhnCn1 nor nAn1naf,- n. ~
whole, a woman is more likely to meet
with incivility from her own sex than
from men of any class; and if, like too
many New York women, she expects
courtesy in return for brusqueness, of
course she will be disappointed.
| have a friend who was born and
who lives on an island in a far-off
southern sea, but who has had much
European experience and is a keen OBJ
server. He CHANGED to be in New York
during our last presidential election,
and was shown its workings through
many diligent hours. What impressed
him most was, not the way in which
order was kept, but the small necessity
for keeping order-the extreme good
temper of the people. AT a big club
house where the losing side had been
supported, the members, he said, as
the returns came in, buttoned their
coats like stoical Arabs and silently.
almost smilingly, stole away. And in
the City Hall park, in front of the big
newspaper building where, as state
after state reported its vote, efigies of
the rival candidates correspondence
climbed up the tall facade on the num-
bered rungs of synbolical ladders, one
might have thought, he declared, that
every man in the enormous crowd had
voted for the winning climber, and felt
q kindly compassion for the climber
Jagged behind Yet we knew, and
he could see, that a pretty strong-nay,
a very observation-disclosures was felt in
that particular election.
Facts such as these tempt us TO fancy
what a nice place New York NAV be 10
live in when oppression, extortion and
stupidity succeed in provoking us into
collective bad temper for a long
enough time to bring about conditions
which will permit individual amiabili.
ties to display themselves unham.
pered, unexasperated, unabused. Per-
haps it may then seem almost as pleas
int-tempered, polite, and kindly as did.
,ne summer, the p%opulous fair grounds
1t Chicago. Mrs. NJ. G. Van Rensse.
aer, in Century.