The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-01

ly content myself with a seat in the ordinary smoker and l am yet to fall in hearing Italian spoken in these cars. When l ask in amazement, what are we to do with them politically, how will they vote In the Presidential con- test? the answer is always, See the Padrone." Fix the padrone and you fix the gang. This you know is an enlightened popular government. I be- lieve there are more, negroes to be found around the National Democratic Headquarters than .atythe Republican Headquarters. 4. 1T his you know Is an enlightened, popular government.
 The schools are battling manfully with New Yorks own problem of ig- ncrance among the multiplying alien born of its population. The city has just carried off every prize in sight at St. Louis for the excellence of its school exhibit, and while there is loud complaint of insufficient accommoda- tions, forty thousand children having been turned away in September, you see between and 9 o'clock. so many thousands of them trooping along and you see so many big handsome school houses, scattered from the Battery to the Bronx, you realize how largely benefcient and how great is the work actually accomplished. Down on Bax- ter Street l saw thronging out of a large kindergarten school all ages of children, from tots, almost, up, rag ged. dirty, unkempt and yet the city was trying to put the feet of these in pleasanter, more wholesome paths. Right in the same neighborhood was displayed the bulletin of a course of free Illustrated lectures designed to draw from their squalid homes the par ents of these little urchins. Indeed, the wide sweep of charity's wing here, with schools, missions, sanitariums, hospitals and homes even, reconciles one in measure to what may be night ly seen In the great restaurants of up- per Broadway and Fifth Avenue, where huge crowds of handsomely attired men and richly gowned women. eat, drink and make merry until the small hours of the morning.
 Was there ever such a place for eat ings Not ei. in the quality l mean. but eating. The small clerks crowd the cheaper restaurants in the early morn ing and the Bohemian appeal is made at an II o'clock breakfast. From that hour until or the next morning, 1t seems to me at least, New York does nothing but masticate and drink. Let the printer be sure he gets my word 'masticate" right. actually wonder they spend so lavishly. There is one place on Broadway affected by highly respectable fast women, and thelr gowns make Pine Level man wonder whole world to garb these women as the men garb them. I am reminded by way of contrast of seeing on Mot. Street corner, a young foreign mother, crying and wringing her hands because her child had dropped a nickle that rolled and disappeared down a sewer. At this BroadwAy place you would be charged 60 cents for a ,cantaloupe and $2 for tenderloin steak. .,~
 This leads naturally. hope, to point ing out the wide variety of life here from the midnight bread-begging line near Grace Church and the army of un- n rV4Ar md Ahnk nf~ the parks to the unexampled pomp and circumstance of life in the great ho. tels and the gay sweep of fashion and wealth along Fifth Avenue. Over 1t all there Is manifest that we are a cheerful race.
 Leave a newspaper on a park bench, 1t Is instantly seized and the owner ot the hands that clutch 1t buries himself in the news from the war or the cleo ton. He Is ill-cIad, but there is no misery in his countenance, To find suffering in faces you are compelled to East Side. Taking the whole popula- tion in the business and residence sec tions, the prosperous and the unpros porous alike there Is pervading air of contentment, well-nigh jolly content ment. It Is quite remarkable. This re- minds me that I came down from liar lem the other night. where had spoken in the Casino. with & New York Ia yCAs Wip olSO SPOhGn lnGES. ne confided co me the story of his life An upstate man, he had made his way in this city, but did not like to live here: would go away If he dared, but and this is what surprised me-"this Is the easiest place in the world to make a living in" At that same meeting q young Texan was present He. too, confided in me. He came here four years ago, with Is cents in his pocket and this was expended for a shave. He knew but one man in the place. Ho told no lies and stole nothing. He Is a lawyer. He now owns a flat and can draw his check for $50,000. That he is the Tammany nominee for Senator 1 know myself. -lt
 I find that I am spinning this letter out In way that will leave my topic essentially untouched. and I may at another time recur to it. You will na- turally want a concluding word on the political situation. Now, if this had only occurred to me at the beginning, how very easy 1t would have been. AS 1t Is, I believe I have written enough, land am a tri1e fatigued. Do not be skeptical. But you are skeptical. Hon est. if were not a trife fatigued I should tell you all about the election.
 Thomas Fl. Clark.