Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-01-27
NEW YORK is $50 WICKED

"say. were you ever pfaatronized by New
York man. and, II. so. didn't it make you
wheeze right, out loud?" inquired the
square-jawed man who was clutching a
strap in 14th street car. 'Say, once
saw reporter for the New York Daily
Bug patronize a President Of the United
States. 1t was deiirious. 1t was lovely. 1t
is gorgeous to be patronized by New York
man. 1 have the experience every time the
exigencies of my business compel me to go
over there. My New York friend tolerates
my obtuseness. He bears with my mental
capacity. He puts Up with my cerebral dem
sity. 1t revolts him, but he does it. He re-
CARDS me pityingly, like the janitor of a
New York fiat house surveying a tenant.
MY New York friend looks upon me as a
yokel of peculiarly thick-skulled breed.
He generously tells me what to do with my
hands and feet. He smiles at the stitching
on my gloves. My hat CRATES upon his
nerves. He thinks that don't know how
to eat. He weighs me down with heavy
debt of gratitude by conveying me to a
dirty. soggy table dhote in an obscure part
of town. where fifth-rate actors per-
petually submerged in cheap cochineal
bath OF red wine, and he expects me to go
into ecstacies over it, and to call it 'Bohe-
mian' and 'devilish' and swift and the
limit
He drags me to some famous bar and
to declare that the tawdry pictures hung
on the walls there beat everything in the
Luxembourg. He hauls me to bum cafe
chantant. and is disguised when refuse to
compare 1t with the cafes chantant I've
seen in Paris. He forces me to a French
ball. reeking with musk, and is mad when
l leave early and decline to align it with
the festivities of the Moulin Rouge and the
fetes of Montmactre and the huiiy-gee fun
in the Quarter Latin. He pilots me through
Mott and Pell and Baxter and Mulberry
streets. and proudly inquiries of me if II
isn't just the horriblest outfit ever looked
at. He gets hot if 1 allude to Whtechapel
and the leper quarter of Hong Kong being
a trifie worse. Then he takes me through
the Tenderloin!
THE New York man of this era has been
taught to believe that the New York Ten
derloin Is just the greatest thing that ever
happened since the dawn of time. The
Tenderlo1n consists OF a bunch of all-night
restaurants and parade for actors out of
work and impecunious green goods men.
If you'd tell New York man that he'd try
to hit you in theey He thinks that the Ten
derloin is the most superbly infamous, the
most masnifcently vicious, the most rose
ateiy. aiiuringly bad bit of city territory on
the face of the globe. He gloats over its sup
positions vileHess. He raves over it's unique
imaginady shockingness Has he seen it all?
N-no. he hasn't seen it himself. me boy.
but. confound me eyes, doesn't he read the
papers, paper g. Bad? Why. it's awful! You
York Sink and few other high-class daily
journals over there employ as members of
their city stats kindergarten young per-
sons to cover the Tenderloin. These
chubby, pretty boys hang out at the Both
street police station, which is in the heart
Of the unspeakable Tenderloin, and in the
intervals between games of pnochle they
write those deliciously shocking hypothet-
ical narratives of peroxide soubrettes' skirt
dances on 9th avenue and that sort of
thing.
"well. my New York friend takes me
h0 and ~
develop a hectic flush over it, He pilots me
to an evil-sneling 9Th avenue restaurant
where sh1fty-eyed men, ingenious boys
with bloodshot eyes and rhinestoned hard
featured young women sit at tables guz-
Zling beer until 2 O clock in the morning
this?
He rattles me in a cab to the fiat of some
theatrical friends of his, where there is CAL
iforna Zinfandel. an atmosphere reeking
with the fumes of cheap cigarettes. a prop
erty, mandolin on the, wall, some soda
crackers and sliced tomatoes on the table
and exceedingly bad banjo music and coon
and berry sorgs.
'''Jast like the pictures in the sportin'
papers. isn't it" he asks me when we get
away from the theatricai fiat, and his bosom
initiates with pride: Jay? Why, my New
York friend is infaf1tiie..-i
"He ratties me 70 assth street Upper
Observation-Disclosures faro layout
Beats M nte Carlo all hollow, doesn't
it?' he inquiries of me,-apd swel,s up some
more. r. 1919 - =
, He hauls me up to a sd street opium
Joint. where a lot of bunco men and dealers
in gold bricks lie around on SaHish couches,
monkeying with yen-hoks.
'Red-hot, amt it?' he asks me- with
patronizing smile. =
He carries me to theater on Broadway
to see the tremendous extravaganza hit of
the year. I see three bow-Iegged French
women going through the idiotic motions
of a dolls quadrille, and the blase, fin-de-
Steele finished. worldweary New Workers
are sitting with their mouths open imag-
lining that it's all wonderful.
Ever see anything like it?' my New
York friend asks me.
No / reply, and he initiates some more
'1n summer he compels me to accom-
pany him to Coney Island, where he walks
me through the streets of Cairo. perambu-
lated by Cherry Hill girls in rakish cheese
cloth Turkish costumes and with rum-sod-
den countenances.
"I'll bet me worlds fair wasn't ahead
of this! he says. visibly taking on couple
of inches In height.
1--WE spent lot Of time in Painted Post
and Hayville and Rubetown and Zeke-
boro'. and I am perfectly positive that the
inhabitants of any one of those towns can
give your average New York man cards
and spades and big casino in common in
telligence and cosmopoltanism. and beat
him off the man, / have spoke"