The Savannah morning news., 1902-03-09
NEW YORK TOPICS.
DRIFTS AND UNDERGRADUATE OF
THE METROPOLIS.


District Attorney jerome King
Canute in Excise Matters-New
York Too Busy to Take Much
Thought of Prince Henry Despite
the Newspapers-New York Cen
trails TunneI-The Stock Exchange
Is Really an Association for the
Promotion of Horse PIay-March
I'm Wall Street.
New York, March 7.-As an Excise
King Canute ordering back the waves
of drink from the shores of Sunday,
District Attorney Jerome has simply
repeated history. The commanding
was well enough done, but the waves
paid no particular attention. Yester-
day wasn't any dryer than a spring
freshet. Apparently the district at
torney's threat that he would indict
any police captain who failed to close
the saloons in his precinct, failed to
impress those for whom it was meant.
The powers that rule the Retail Liquor
Dealers Association said to the sa-
looms go ahead and keep OPEN" and
what these powers say goes. If the
district attorneys sleuths were about,
nobody knew of it. They didn't bother
the saloon keepers; they didn't even
whole thing were an empty bluff on
Mr.. Jerome's part; but Mr.. Jerome is
one of those persons of whom it is
never safe to say positively that they
are bluffing. He is likely to spring
surprise at any moment. A curious
aspect of the whole matter-and one
that is discouraging to the friends of
reform-is that while the district at
torney, a county official, is doing his
best to have the law enforced, the
two city officials most concerned, May
or Low and Police Commissioner Par
fridge, are maintaining the calm and
peaceful neutrality of frogs in lily
pond.
1t was not very polite for Mr.. Hearst
in his New York Journal to tell Prince
Henry that his welcome here, so far
as the populace is concerned, was
largely newspaper-nl but like
many impolite statements, it was pref
ty near the truth. 1 have been una
BILE to- discern any vast popular en-
thusiasm over our German visitor. OF
course a great many people have
craned the prehensile neck of curiosity
with more enterprise than good taste,
has been able to fill up his opera house
with a high priced crowd, and his
pockets with the extra money charged,
and our captains of industry" have
met and greeted him at a banquet,
where, 1 am Informed, the solemnity,
not to say vacuity of expression pre-
vailing about the festal board drove
the walters to melancholia-excep
such as took a drink instead. But,
banqueting and display aside, the
Prince hasn't occupied the public mind
to any great extent. You don't hear
1.-THE man on the street talking about
him. He's an incident Of our growing
Importance; not really an event as he
would have been few years ago. 1t
isn't that we are becoming more DEM
ocratic. It's simply that we're too
busy to be bothered.
After a great amount of denuncia-
ton and much flambuoyant oratory on
the part of public officials as to bring
ing home the responsibility for the
New York Central tunnel disaster, the
whole thing has dwindled to the pitt
full result of Engineer WiskerS indict-
ment by the grand jury. District At
torney Jerome gives out statement
that is obviously apologetic for the
jury. He knows that public opinion
holds the New York Central authori-
ties responsible; he remembers his own
assurances that justice would be
brough thome to the guilty parties no
matter how high their positions, and
at the end of it all the unfortunate
green engineer, compelled to violate
rules in order to make time, is to be
the scapegoat. Apparently the rail-
road authorities have nothing to fear
less it is likely that the tunnel peril
will be done away with in a reasona-
BILE time. The railroad people have
committed themselves to this. While
their practical acquittal by the grand
jury gives them an opportunity to re-
consider, it is hardly likely that they
will wish to fiOut public opinion to so
great an extent. Moreover the investi-
cation must have convinced them
that the present system is dangerous,
and, once convinced, they are the kind
of men whom one would expect to un-
dertake the best and promtest practi-
cal system of reform.
Saloon keepers and the anti-liquor
element are practically united in say
ing that under the present system it
is impossible for a small saloon to be
respectable and law-abiding. Proof of
THIS is IOuIlQ III the uOWnLdH OF the uL-
tie place on lower Sixth avenue kept
by the so-called Gerken triplets. They
are three old German brothers, white
bearded, kindfaced, honest, self-res-
pecting and simple. Triplets they were
not, but called so for convenience in
grouping and because they looked
enough alike to have been. Their
ideas of saloon keeping they had
brought from the Fatherland, where
liquor is a decent and honorable trade
and they never found occasion to al
ter them in any degree. Their saloon
was almost like a club, which well-de-
fined rules. The habitual drunkard, the
man who spent his earnings
on drink While his wife
sought him from bar to bar
could buy no liquor from the Gerken
triplets. He might sit in the comfort
able back room and read the papers
and have soft drinks served to him,
but that was all. No woman whatso-
ever could get a drink of any kind on
the premises, a rare distinction in that
locality. In fact, the place was a
model saloon. Moreover the brothers
did much good. They were charitable,
giving generously for good causes