The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-23

.::Now that you's here you may as l well drive me some more. Dan't you
 want somethin' to eat?"
 Well, am bit hungry, sir" says I.
 He goes in the sause again an sends
 the servants. out with roast chicken,
 some jelly an a bottle of champagne.
 l ain't drinkin' man, as I said; but, 1 of course, champagne don't count. didn't see no more of my fare for
 two hours, an then he came out an
 got in the carriage with his friends an i the hat-boX an some bottles.
 Drive me down where I can see the
 majestic ocean roll, fer my heart is
 feelin' sad," says he.
 So I drove 'em down the boulevard
 to Coney Island, and we got to hote
 there just when it was gettin' light
 They'd finished their bottles by the
 time we got there my fare remarks:
 I'm afraid ain't got no friends" but the others says: No, no, that ain't
 the case, an they would stick by him always"
 When we got out at the hotel my fare
 shook hands with me an made me take breakfast with him. When it come to pay the bill he opens the hat
 box, an tells the manager to help him. | self. It was full of money. There was
 over seventy thousand dollars there. He told the manager an me about 1 his trouble. He had married poor girl an they lived happy for week. Then she begun objectin' to his habits. | So he quit her. Then she gets a di-
 vorce. Then his father dies an leaves him three million dollars. Then what roes she do but git the divorce opened and come back after a slice of his mon ey. The court stands for her, too, an he has to pay five hundred thousand dollars to shut her up.
 He says that that sickens him of this country, an he must leave his native land.
 didn't say nothin' about money, but when I got back to town with him that man give me one thousand dollars
 right in my hand
 You're a honest man." says he, I'm | proud to meet Such. l Now if I had squabbled with that
 man about five-dollar bill where
 would have been?
 I found an eminent citizen one night tryin' to tip a lamp post ten dollars for l holdin him up. l took him in my car
 riage an drove him home, an he give
 me all the money what he had in his ! ak h.1yo md l dollars.
 ! Another tine I got five hundred dollar tip, but then I was on duty twenty-four hours, and just lately a man gave me two hundred dollars for | gettin' him to the Stock Exchange in
 time, so as he could place an order be- l fore it closed.
 All the good things ain't gone yet, an it's the quiet man with the civil tongue
 that gets most of 'en1.
 But there's no doubt that times has
 changed an money ain't so easy for us
 as it was when first begun. Whatev-
 CT people may say about Boss Tweed
 an Jim Fisk an Fernando Wood an
 them old politicians, they was good l 1TleIlQS Ol LIG hdChlIlCils II l5h al
 Tweed had carriages waitin' at their
 door all the time, an they'd give the
 driver twenty dollars for carryin 'em a few blocks. All the politicians was
 more open-handed then than they is
 now. They've got too many laws for
 hackmen now .'restrainin' what you call
 liberty of contrac'. It ain't fair. 1 What right has the law got to say
 how much I can charge my fare any more than to say what the grocery man
 can charge for eggs or potatoes? 1 Most of the politicians you see these
 days is not above takin' trolly car,
 or if they do ride in hack they know ] the legal rate of fare, an that's all they're agoin' to pay. They is what
 you call degenerated. Not to mention
 no names, I've seen mayors and con- ] trollers ridin' on five-cent cars. l 1 thought that was the limit. ! Then the sportin' men, too, has gone . down. They ain't so liberal as they
 was, maybe because there ain't so
 much doin' in their line.
 l When I first begun there was a ! whole row of fine gamblin' houses at I the foot of the Coney Island boulevard , goin' full blast, night an day; an in i Manhattan there was a open gamblin' house on pretty near every block. i They all did hig business an when a 1 man was a winner, he remembered the | hackman that drew him home. | The dog-fghts an the prize-fghts, l too, was frequent an profitable for six 1 gents would ride in one carriage, an
 they averaged about ten dollars each. | I've seen as many as two hundred car riages at a prize-fght that the police
 ls4 on they didn't know nothin' about.
 But them days is gone. There's lot | of laws agin prize-fightin' an dog | fghtin', an the police has to enforce | 'em now. Funerals, too, ain't what they were, l even late as twenty years ago. There ain't as many carriages goes to 1 a funeral, an money ain't spent so | free.
 i In the old days we went slow in pro- cession to the buryin' place; but after i the service at the grave was over, we raced through the cemetery gates to a