The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-13
Human Nature as Observed on Street
Cars Is Not Always to Be Admired
Manor the Ends the r. Tha the Women
the Marke size ash

tention to it. no matter how rapidly the
car nils up. She is indeed utterly oblivious
TO Its existence until somebody insists
upon claiming the seat. simply because
there is no other seat left to claim. The
newcomer usually hesitates beside the seat,
casts an inquring glance or two at the
woman behind, who finally wakes up TO
existing conditions, reaches forward and
removes the basket, generally with an ag
grieved air. That is not always the order
OF things, however. One market day last
week a prim, long nosed woman entered
into southbound car and swept up the
aisle as effectively as her straight draper
les would allow. Far up in the car a mar
ket-bound woman had deposited her basket
on the seat before her and sat in happy
oblivion. Just behind her there was an
other vacant seat but the Iong-nosed Wom-
an needed IL not. She moved straight as an
arrow 10 the seat in front, where the basket
sat. There was no hesitation, no doubtful
giances in her method. She reached in,
picked up the big basket hoisted it over
the back or the seat and plunked il down in
the lap OF the surprised woman behind,
who sat for the rest of the journey down
town with the expression of the bad little
girl who has been caught i'm mischief.
But the women haven't all the funny,
trying little ways of street-car travel. There
is the baby who takes the seat behind YOU
aided and abetted by a grown-up accom-
plice Babies anywhere else in the street
car are fascinating bits of humanity. us
ually, but baby just behind you is never
anything but bore. If il is a big baby
three or four years old-it always hangs
over the back of your seat humping your
back hair with its big hat-that kind of
baby always wears a big hat-putting
sticky fingers indiscriminately on the rat
tan back of the seat or your own silk
shoulders. If 1t is tiny baby which is
carried in the arms of its doting parent,
~ is always an enthusiastic baby, one of
the KIND that hobs up and down and pokes
it's head forward franticaliv i'm an effort To
show how glad il is that it is alive and on
that particular street car. OF course, the
Dobs land against your hat brim and usu-
ally the baby gets Interested in your stray
locks and you are lucky indeed if you es-
cape without getting mixed up with its
clutching fingers 1t is of no use to glare;
NOBODY ever knew baby 20 wilt before
glare and the parent usually takes any
notice whatever for admiration, and IL YOU
giared he or she would merely think that
you mad an unfortunate face, but a kind
heart.
The two most obnoxious types of mascu-
line street-car travellers are the men who
lean and the men who read newspapers All
the men who read newspapers are not OBJ
noxious-far be it from newspaper writer
10 make such an assertion; but some of
them are. The some" includes all those
men who, when they read newspapers on
the car, do so with a total disregard for
passengers in the seat in front That kind
OF reader opens his paper to its fullest ex-
tent, usually spreading il wide with his
two hands Its edges strike his neighbor
anywhere about the face head and while
a blow with the edge of newspaper isn't
likely TO cause conclusion of the brain ii
is a serious menace to wells and coiffures
The only thing that the unfortunate in
front can do is to crook her neck forward
at an aching angle-or get off the car. AS
In the case of the baby, glares are of no
use for the one laudable thing about the Of
Tender is that he is really absorbed i'm his
paper The other man, perhaps isn't so
much to be blamed, for one can almost for
give any offense III the offender is driven
to IL because he has TO stand in a crowded
car. But II is scarcely n pleasant thing, if
one occupies the outside half of q seat TO
have some large and "hefty" man take n
notion to lean on ones shoulder rather than
on the edge of the seat. Shoulders as lean
ing places are well enough i'm their way
but one prefers to discriminate i'm the mat
ter of leaners. To move would be a serious
matter; the resulting conditions might be
even worse than the existing one. So if
the passenger happens to be a weak woman
she sits meekly with the weight of Il two
hundred FOUNDER against her fragile Shout
der and longs for home and mother.
AN OBJECTIONABLE MAN.
But the very meanest phase of human ma
ture as represented in street car travels
is found In none of these types. Neither is
it found in that oft-berated being, the man
who keeps his seat In the car while women
stand. OF course, a man who gives up
his seat I'm the car tn n woman FIST becauSa