The Savannah morning news., 1904-06-26
THE EXTRAKAGANCES OF
NEW YORK MEN
How They Burn Up Money for Clothes and in
Other WAYS

vivals from Colonial days could find
Hundreds of thousands of dollars
have been laid out in making this
transformation, and the spectacles Of
fered are of such brilliance, beauty
and interest as could only have been
imagined few years ago. With rare
shrewdness the promoters of the new
shows transport all who wish to see
them from New York at such a NOM
inal cost that wage-earners of very
ordinary capacity can well afford to
make the trip.
As a result the throngs which $50
to Coney" this year are enormously
larger than formerly, and so are their
OUTLAWS. For, once within the con-
fines of the brilliantly electrified in
closures, the influence of the music,
the crowds, the beauty and the fact
that everybody about him is spending
money, causes the visitor to east all
thoughts of thrift to the winds. Nine
times in ten ne proceeds at once to be
as lavish in his own expenditures as
his pocket will allow.
A $50 clerk who went to Coney
Island a week ago to-day with his
little wife and two children, his salary
snugly butoned up in his pocketbook,
was bewailing the result to the writer
to-day.
THE fare cost only 30 cents for all
four Children half fare, you know),'
he said, but there were so many things
to see at a quarter head, and every
thing to eat and drink cost so much
that when l got home at about 2
o'clock on Sunday morning l had
mighty little left of my weeks earn
ings.
1--WE were all thirsty when we land
ed and l got some lemonade-four
glasses. When l came to pay the
waiter said so cents, only 10 cents less
than our transportation, and | had to
spend money on the same scale all
through the afternoon and evening
That may do very we'll for the swells
and the brokers and the likes of them,
but 1t doesn't do for me-"
The worst of it is that everything is
so attractive down there that the
clerks family wants to go again right
away. He says he knows half a dozen
clerks, typewriters and saleSpeople
who have already got the New Coney
Island habit so bad that they are
spending half their wages regularly
in gratifying their new-found passion
to enjoy the lights and the music, the
chutes and the brilliant spectacles that
have been created to divert them and
at the same time transfer the quarters
from their pockets to the promoters of
the shows.
One thing is certain however. 1t
is better for the wage-earner to spend
his money seeing gorgeous spectacles
than in poolrooms. 1t is also certain,
despite the earnings of the pessimstic,
that 1t is getting harder and harder to
run poolrooms anywhere in New
York.
This was true even before the tele-
graph and telephone companies stopped
the systematic gathering and distri
button of racing information. Even
then Police Commissioner McAdoo's
tactics had made the path of the pool
room man anything but an easy one.
For three months said poolroom
man in the hearing of the writer day
or two ago, I'VE have had to rent two
or three places for every room, so as
to be able to change locations every
day or two. The extra rentals have cut
our profits good and proper, and so
have the wages of our lookouts, who
have had to be more than doubled.
Besides we have had to hire men to
stand at the doors of the vacated
premises and tell our patrons where
we have moved to every time we have
made a change. It's quite true that we
are still doing business to some extent,
but pool selling is decidedly on the
blink just at present, and we don't
know when things are likely to get
back to the old, comfortable, profitable
basis. If / knew how to run one il
would be grocery store for mine dur
ing the rest of my natural life"
Duane.