Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-12

act toward customers the way most Of the
attendants in the New York stores act
toward persons who want to buy things.
such an attendant would not only be minus
a job. but would stand a good show to be
arrested for disorderly conduct.
Ways of Shoppers.
Truth to tell, the conduct of most of the
New York shoppers seems to be little bet
ter than that of the attendants. The wo-
men never dream of holding doors open
for each other. On the contrary. they &C
tualy appear to derive a certain satis-
faction in slamming the storm doors on
each other. They all but crowd each other
off the stools placed in front of the coun-
tiers. 1t appears to be quite an ordinary
thing for them to almost snatch articles I'M
der examination cut of each other hands-
There were a lot of S24S silk shirt waists
piled up on a bargain counter of big
department store the other morning. An
over-ttilored woman picked up one that
she liked.
The girl in charge of the counter looked
al the tag and saw that a mistake had
been made-that the waist really belonged
on the S5iS counter. She told the Gus
toner so. not very decentralization the
whole thing over here as between customer
and clerk seems To be perpetualiy hostile
game. in which the one is only waiting Tor
a good opening to spring at the other
Il don't care-it's on the S2.4S counter.
and I'm gong to have it, said the over
tailored woman, hoarseiy-
There was an interchange of decidedly
sharp talk and then the manager of the
department was called The over-taiored
woman browbeat him. and he finally toid
her that. as long as the waist had been
picked up on the S2iS counter, she coaiu
have il for that price.
Immediately half dozen other women
who had been standing around waiting for
the outcome of the coiloquy surrounded
the manager.
Il was looking at that waist before that
woman came here at all, they almost
screamed at the manager lf ANYBODY
to have it for Sis it ought to be me-
The manager bolted for it, and the women
who had failed of the bargain giared dag
gers at the serenity triumphant woman
who had bulldozed the manager into selling
hit of goods at loss to his house
In the street Cars.
The behavior of New York men on the
surface and elevated cars, is an old. old
story that is told over and over again. even
in the New York papers. without ever hav-
ing any effect whatsoever. If stranger.
visiting this town. gives up his seat in
car to Il woman. he is covertly sneered al
by the cross-legged men who are reading
tEcir papers. They are privately of the
belief it is evident. that the stranger IS
Only striving for effect, that he Is posln
that he is endeayoring 10 be theatficai.
Extraordinary as il may SEEM so callouSSd
have the women themselves become to the
buurishnesS of the men on the cars that Il
young woman hesitatcs to accept the
strangers proffered seat. fearing that ne
may be a n3aShcr If a young woman re-
signs her seat TO a quite old woman in a
New York car-and this is something so I'M
common as to be starting when 1t docs
happen-the other females In the car smile
at each other as much as to say. Did you
ever see such playing 10 the gallery
1t may be that the New York women
have themselves to thank for the ungra-
cicusness with which they are publicly
s.i,, t1lt th.lr
display lizzie or no graciousness themselves
in return for the occasional courtesies
shown them by men men New YORK
man does have a sudden attack of cor
science and gives over his seat in a car to
a strap-clutchng woman, the woman rarely
thanks him. She deposits herself in the seat
with an air that seems to say that the cour-
tesy was an unconscionably long time
acoming. If one of half a dozen women Seat
ed together in a car abandons her seat 20
get off, the remaining five women bunch
up together and spread their skirts over
the spaces between each other. and ;hen
they smile at the glarinS women who are
standing II one of the standing womer
sits down in the narrowed vacant space
anyhow. there is generally an interchanS"
OF uncomplimentary, If not exceedingly
sharp. talk.
Decided Contrast.
No New York woman who stands In fear
of insult-in fear Of the law, in truth-ever
ventures out alone at ilSnt indeed, II re-
auires sutficiency of hardihood for a New
York woman to venture out acne even
when the sun is shining overhead. The
righteousness of the cheap masher in New
York is matter Of such common knowl-
edge that il is not worth writing about.
Washington women who go to the theater
in pairs trioS at night without being sub
ject to any annoyance would find it diff
cult to adapt themselves to the conditions
in New York. The New York man who
visits Washington and observes, on any
pleasant summer evening, the open cars
filled with merry, chattering young women,
bareheaded for the most part. out for the
air finds it hard to understand the situa-
ton.
He Knows 1t All.
The prevalence of the smart Alec spirit
in New York accounts In large measure
for the boorishness Of the upgrowing gem
Grafton of New York men, The simple fact
that he is a New Yorker is sufficient unto
the young New York man. He feels that he
is impervious to deception or hoodwinkery
In his inmost soul is imp anted the belief
that nobody do him. He IS going to
get all that is coming to him. to employ
his own expressive phrase, and he is not
going to be chiseled out of anything that
he gets hold of by any sort of cajOlery or
by any expressed or mute appeal to his
dormant sentiment. He is a cheap sort of
skeptic. He has no chiyalry. Feeling quite
certain that women have all the best Of
the game of life, anyhow-they don't have
to go to work in the morning. do they
he is at some pains to show them no defer
ence that might tend to Indicate his indi-
vidual belief that they are entitled to all
the best of it in the game Of life. In other
words. he might surrender his car seat to
a tired-looking woman-always providing.
of course, he was not tired himself-if he
did not know that she felt that she was en-
titled to the seat as a right If you want
to see the seat and center of that queer
sex-against-sex hostility that the decadent
school OF noveists and dranlatists have
been writing about for some years past you
have only to come to New York.
Cause of the Trouble.
If the whole truth were to be expressed,
the trouble with New York and Its man.
ners is that the town suffers from such a
perpetual influx of Observation-Disclosures
ton composed SO preponderantly of the
literal offscourings of Europe. with no more
manners or sentiment than the beasts of the
field-that it cannot assimilate the huge mas
fast enough Instead of the newcomers rising
to the height of comparative decency of the
native-born population, the native-5orn pop
uation is gradually brutalzed by peren-
NAL contact with a maloGorous tide of
humanity from the other side. and the re-
suit is that New York, not being in any
sense whatever an American city any more,
has lost almost the last vestiges of American
politeness. If an ordinarily chiyalroUs, Wo-