Evening star., 1901-11-09
Pedestrians in New York Menaoed
by Reckless Chaufeurs.
THEIR MACHINES OFTEN WRECKED
Great Laxity on the Part of the
Authorities.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

HPccidi SorrtspoHueuceo Oh Ine EFenlHg star.
NEW YORK, November 8, 1901.
Automobile accidents are becoming so
common over here that the newspapers bare
| ly report them, unless they are attended
| with fatal or serious results to the occu-
| pants of the horseless vehicles. The au-
dacious and often criminal recklessness, of
| many of the professional and anna eur chauf-
| feurs is such that the people the street
who witness these accidents manifest lit
| tie sympathy for the victims and,
| indeed indulge in derisive remarks at the
| expense of the unfortunates when the lat
| ter prove to be not seriously damaged
| The ordinance requiring drivers of auto
mobiles to take out licenses is virtually g.
| dead letter here, and an expert automo-
| biiist told the writer the other day that
| three-fourths of the amateurs who race
| their machines through the streets Of New
York are not only unlicensed, but utterly
| incapable of running the vehicles. The
| idiot who, in the day of the bicycle craze,
rode his infant about in a net or basket
suspended from the handle bars of his
wheel has his automobile prototype in the
chap who permits his little girl boy to
guide his horseless carriage through the
most crowded thoroughfares of New York.
The police have standing orders to arrest
persons who permit their children to drive
the automobile, but they don't bother them
selves complying with the order. The
streets of New York are rendered particu-
larly dangerous at night by whizzing auto
mobiles driven by individuals in a state of
alcoholic ecstacy. If there is any one
thing in the world that man is not capa-
Bile of doing when he is partially drunk it
is taking the lever of an automobiles; and
get the first thing that the average New
York roysterer "out for good time does
Is to hire an automobile, pile his equally
| irresponsible cronies into it, and turn the
thing loose on the pedestrian population or
the town.
Many Accidents Due to Rum.
1t is such an ordinary thing to see one
of these rum-guided machines converted
into kindling wood after collision with an
l. pillar. poked half way through a big
plate-glass window, up-ended in the
middle of a car track, or being dragged off
to it's repository on a couple of wheels and
Jury rig that such a spectacle attracts
little or no attention The roads leading
through and alongside the park are summed
by wise persons after nightfall, for they
are rendered extremely dangerous by auto
mobiles being guided -four bells,' as they
say at sea, by vociferous rowdies of the
sporting" class bound for the road houses
up beyond Harlem.
Even the law regulating the speed of the
horseless vehicles within the city limits has
proven to be a danger. Many Of the au-
tomoblists, especially those rendered alb
normally reckless by over-dining, pay
attention to the law and shoot their ma
chimes along at a speed two or three times
greater than that allowed. Then the bi-
cycle cops take after them, whereupon the
automobilists, determined to escape, throw
on the full power and careen through the
streets with incredible velocity.
Seldom Caught by Police.
Sometimes they are caught by the bicycle
policemen, but more often they are not;
but whether they are captured or not, these
chases inevitably endanger the lives of
hundreds of completely unwarned pedes-
trians, and many bad accidents have re-
suited within the past year in this way.
The suburban residents around New York
are not complaisant as the urbanltes IN
their acceptance of the automobilists' viola
tions of the law. In many places partlc't-
larIy down on Long Island, Where automo-
biles of all types are thicker than huckle-
berries, the residents whose wives ana
children are endangered by the flying auto
mobiles have taken up the shotgun policy
as the surest and sWiftest way of protect
ing themselves from outrage The time IS
near at hand when this question of the rae
ing automobiles on crowded streets and
roads in and around New York will have
to be seriously taken up. Up to this time
the problem has only been toyed with by
the authorities. Under most of it's modern
regimes class legislation has prevailed in
this municipality, and the class that fol-
lows automobiling as sport is of sort
we'll able to make good even for the bald
est evasions of law.
New York the Home of Slang.
New York is probably the slangiest city
in America. The argot of the slums Il the
verbal coin Of all classes in New York, and
they pay it out with prodigality amazing
even unto the ears Of visitors in New York
who employ an occasional bit Of expressive
slang simply for the better development
of picturesque or bizarre idea. All hands,
IL ~,,I md nh
fairly wallow in slang in New York. The
lovely, refined-looking young woman On
the street car who, before she opens her
mouth, impresses you as one on whose pal
ate marshmallows would scarcely melt, and
who looks as if her entire conversation
ought to be on the prsms-and-prune order,
gives you a frightful disillusion when she
begins to engage in conversation with her
companion. You naturally expect her to
begin a little girlish fanfarronade of re-
marks with respect to Browning or the in
tricacies of Chopin. or perhaps the latest
revelations concerning tatting, and when
she archly recommends her companion to
cut out the hot air talk and go anyway
back and sit down, the effect cannot but be
saddening. Even the elderly and old ladies
of New York are not chary in their use of
slang in public places, and the first Eng
lsh that newly arrived immigrants master
| is the current slang. Their use of it, twist
| ing it into strange formations as they inva-
riably do is grotesque and funny enough
| All of the eXpressiveness and illumination
| of some of the better slang words and
| phrases are crushed out by never-ceasing
| iteration over here. A piece of slang only
| remains in New York. 1t circulates with
| the rapidity and universality of the
monthly gas bill, and it is drilled into your
| helpless tympanum everywhere you go,
| even the waiter at your favorite restau-
| rant seizing the first available opportunity
| to infiict it upon you. The children on their
| way to school bawl it, the stage comedians
play with 1t as a kitten plays with ball of
| yarn, the janitor of your fiat spends half
| his time yelling it up the dumb-waiter
| shaft the office boy huns it with variations
| all day long, the typewriter young woman
| breathes it to- the chic as she fixes her
side combs. until 1t soon becomes sorrow
| to the soul and thorn in the flesh. A So
| ciety for the suppression of slang in pub
| lie places would be in, order over here just
| now. Eminent minds on both sides of the
| sea have expressed their approval of the
| patois Of the pave as an occasional pic
4 turesque variant in informal conversation,
and some of them have even approved its
pat and illustrative use in literature of the
| lighter and more ephemeral character.
| None of them, however. approves OF it as
| the current coin of the whole public tongue