The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-27
NEW YORK TOPICS
GOSSIP AND CURRENT COMMENT
FROM THE METROPOLIS.

The New Year VIII Come i'm Under
Different Conditions From Those
ExistiuE Two Years AEO-Then
Anti-Tammnny Was Preparing 10
Take the Reins of Municipal
Power, Now Tammany Is About to
Come Into Its own Again-DistFict
Attorney jerome and His Follow
ers Purpose Fighting the Tendon
cy Toward an open Town With
All Their Night-If the weather Is
Good New Years Eve Will Prob
ably BE Extremely Hilarious.
Many WeII-to-DO New Workers
stiu Continue the Custom of Maxi
ing New Years Calls.
New York, Dec. 26.-This town is
closing the old year in a different spirit
from that which prevailed two years
ago. Then the anti-Tammany forces,
which had won at the polls after long
and desperate fighting, were preparing
TO take the reins of the city govern
ment and Tammany was getting ready
TO relinuuish them. Now the situation
IS reversed; Tammany with great joy,
is about to take over the town and the
Reforners are about to step down and
out
These circumstances will make the
coming New Years Day a noteworthy
one in the metropolis, and all hands
predict that the year 1904 will be
lively twelve-month. Far from being
discouraged, the Reformers are al
ready planning to continue their fight
against Tammany, District Attorney
Jerome, who was specially out of sym
patty with Mayor Low, it will be re-
membered, being foremost in the new
campaign. He and his supporters be-
lieve the town will be opened as wide
under Mcclellan as it was under Van
Wyck, and they don't propose to per-
init that without making a big show
of resistance.
That there will be many demon
STATIONS of joy among Tamany's
friends on New Years Eve there is no
manner of doubt. Should the weather
be moderate the throngs on the
streets, always large and always joy
Gus here on New Years Eve, may
perhaps be as free and unrestrained
in their expression of satisfaction as
abandon then was something I'M
precedented, and it showed conclu-
sively that the mass of the people was
glad of McClellan's victory.
The advent of the New Year in
New York is not matched anywhere
else in the world. Though the old-time
custom of New Years calls has
been abandoned by the smart set, it is
still honored by many thousands of the
middle class old-timers, many of whom
are decidedly substantial citizens,
though not ostentatious in the matter
of display.
These are the people who carry on
much of the regular routine business
of the big town. Their names do not
appear often in the newspapers, and
they rarely furnish the push and drive
for big enterprises, but without them
and the Europeans of various nation
alities, who have fallen into routine
ways, the big city would be a sadly
disorganized place. They keep the
small shops and work in the big ones
they act as janitors and superintend-
ents of the big buildings, they are
skilled artisans, and they carry on all
sorts of modest businesses-and they
still make New Years calls
1t may ALMOST be said that you can
tell where these good people live, when
passing casually through the streets
at this season, by the wreaths which
hang in the windows of their houses
and flats, showing that they will re-
celve visitors on the first day of the
year. Go to Greenwich village, which
is section of Manhattan on the west
side where Christopher street ends at
the river front, inhabited chiefly by
native Americans of Irish, English and
Scottish descent, and you will see hun
dreds of the wreaths in the windows
h ATrTe 1.4s-
There are a dozen other localities
where they are also now in evidence.
One of them is that Southern stretch
of Second avenue just north of its in
tersection with Eighth street, where a
number of old-time American families
still exist and where the late Will
liam M. Evarts, ex-senator, ex-cabi-
net minister, legal luminary and aris-
tocrat of the aristocrats, insisted on
living to the day Of his death.
Other similar locations are in that
part of the East Side near the cross
ing of Third avenue and the Thirties.
where there is large, interesting, in
telligent and altogether desirable pop
ulation, much of which has dwelt there
Tor generations. Many of these people
keep up New Years calling along with
other traditional customs, and are
likely to continue them for many years
to come
These people exercise a profound in
huence upon the Germans, the Scandi-
navians and other Europeans who
come to dwell among them, and are
profoundly influenced in turn. The
result is a truly cosmopolitan combi-
nation Of manners and customs and
traditions not paralleled in any other
city
Undoubtedly the portions Of old
New York thus briefly indicated would
furnish wonderful field for the fic-
ton writer who should study them as
they deserve. Down to this time, how
ever, no one with sufficient knowledge
and ability has attacked the problem.
The purely foreign sections of the
town have received attention that has
been fairly adequate in a number of
snort stories, notably those dealing
with East Side school life recently fur
nished to one of the magazines by
Myra Kelly, which show a degree of
intimate knowledge and sureness of
touch that offer great promise for the
future.
Myra Kelly is herself American
born. and as a teacher in a district