The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-06-08


OF piied-up steppes and spires and bat
Elements and gables is lost. It's one
glory of city that truly was Vene-
tan is lost. It's gilded facades and
cornices that made it shine in the
morning sun like a splendid shield cast
on the sea are lost. And lost with
them is the white linen of the finicky
New Yorker.
We had taste, during the days of
the Lexow Committee, of the alacrity
with which some of the New York
merchants tamper with the law when
we heard certain fine old gentlemen of
enviable reputation and standing con-
fess under the cross examiners gar
rotte that they had paid little and big
brides to little and big officials to en-
able them to store goods on sidewalks
and build sub-cellars and do other lit
tie and big things that were decidedly
illegal. But never before was there
such cheerful wholesale law breaking
as in this soft coal matter.
At first we could see by looking
diligently, that here and there dur
ing the day some particularly daring
concern was taking it's chances on a
heavy fine and Imprisonment by burn
ing soft coal in fits and starts. The
black smoke would issue in little bursts
and then cease again suddenly so that
one could almost keep track of the Of
tenders guilty palpitation of heart
That was in the day. Scarcely had
dusk begun, when all New York, as
with one wicked accord, began to spout
blackness. Even elegant partment
houses Joined in. 1t was as If the
whole hoarde of sky scrapers had en-
tered on one vast bachanalian bitumen
Daf ha fa1Inr1 OF
tirely the city was almost hidden from
voyagers on the bay. The rivers could
not be seen from any part of town.
The New York Yacht Club anchorage
was hidden as by the vapors from
a municipal Mount Pelee.
1t does not take long for the New
Yorker to accustom himself to being
killed, abused, or to committing mis-
deneanors. And the man who had
trembled at his own daring on Mon
day night in burning soft coal in the
darkness, was watching it with COM
plete equanimity by Wednesday as it
volleyed out of his stacks, hiding the
rising sun and choking all his neigh
bors. or course this wholesale in
fraction of the law has put the Health
Department in d hole. Practically all
the captains and sergeants and high
privates of industry in the whole city
would have to be locked up If the law
were enforced, and there aren't jails
enough for that even in this city.
In addition to these urban delights,
New York has been enjoying a climate
recently that has affronted even it, &C.
customed as it is to climate of all de-
grees of evil.
Everybody is convinced that some
thing has happened to the city. Some
argue wisely that the Gulf stream has
sought new diggings. Others think
that the earth has changed it's axis
maliciously for the especial injury of
their metropolis. The majority of
thinkers content themselves by com
pairing the matter of New York wealth
er in general and in detail to the wealth
er of place whose geographical loca-
tion can be only guessed at by persons
in the flesh.
The city's various discomforts may
be responsible for the fact that there
are more steam yachts already in
commission than generally are afoat
around New York in the entire season.
Never before have the club anchorage
been so well occupied. Everybody who
Is anybody owns a steam yacht and
many a nobody is owned by one.
Even Mayor Low has one. This
shows a wonderful change in New
York politics in at least one respect.
TON" Gilroy, when he was Mayor,
used to ride ostentatiously in the five
cent street cars to show that he was
a person of sturdy, simple. rugged sim
plicity. If he or Hugh Grant in his
term had dared to own a steam yacht
the Tammany sachems would have
boarded the floating palace of luxury
and sin and nailed the owners scalps
to the mast head. Mayor Low and his
yacht are accepted so calmly that the
innovation has been dismissed with a
paragraph in all the papers.
The feeling of bitterness against the
automobiles is growing daily. The
killing and manning that ended the
Staten Island speed contests of the
Club shocked the whole
city. and before the freshness OF II
had worn off the next days papers
brought the news 10 every breakfast
table that FIVE other persons had been
hurt seriously 1.-TWO probably fatality.
/ came into the city on a suburban
train that morning and I can aver that
IN the car IN which ! WIS the automO-
bile Was practically the sole subject
u conversation. One automobile own
n IN the car waf made misera bic by
he comments Of his acquaintancea on