Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-19


wise to read the aforesaid poetry
a N whether we like it not. We may
refuse for time to glance at it, but
there will come the moment when,
tired and Indifferent as to what happens we
permit the eye to find recreation wherever it
will, and from that time forward the poetry
reading habit is fixed upon As Tennyson
truly says:
No rock so hard but that a little wave
May beat admission in a Thousand years
Finally with everybody in the street-car reading
poetry, the next step is for them to reflect and
repeat it in their daily walks rides. Naturally
may expect the conductors who are about the
all the time to be the first to show in their
mode of speaking the effect Of such intimate asso-
citation with so much poesy. Hence a student Of
conditions as they exist to-day must not be sur
prised to hear a conductor say, in addressing a
who by burying her face in book is seeking
to convey the impression that she has been on the
car since started from away in the open
lotted suburb:
Please pardon me, but may dare
To ask you, lady, for your fare?
Some may think that this manner of speech is
too polite for a street-car conductor to employ
but let it be borne in mind that one of the chief
missions of poetry is to promulgate politeness
more general use of the former will insure a more
widespread employment of the latter
In the winter time when the occupants of the
air-tight n-ventilated, overcrowded car are
breathing the so-called atmosphere it had in it
When II nrSC lett the morn
ing, some woman with weak lungs will summon up
just enough strength and courage to venture
say to the conductor:
Do you presume that it would rob
You of your public-servng job
If, just to a life you'd dare
Admit thimbleful of air?
And then that wise conductor a man of years
and long suffering will bend down close to the weak
woman's and whisper:
I'd like to- lady but you see
That red-haired there said to
That if I dared let in one lot
OF frosty air he'd have shot
1t isn't what do that counts for so much in
this world as it is the way in which do it. Man
ners are everything. The general employment of
poetry ought to work great change for the better
in the streetcar department of the public 1t will
certainly be lots nicer for all concerned when the
blunt remarks and the sarcastic retorts are re-
placed by noothly flowing softly modulated
coupets and quatrains. 1t is possible even
that in the days to come when conductor attempts
to collect fare for carrying youth nearly large
his mother the latter will be to express
herself less crudely than she is likely do at the
present time:
He's ridden nine years this route,
And you're the first say that he
Is than five years old, brute,
And III report YOU sir! You'll seel
And then too there is chance for big reform
to be brought about in the in which the
average gets out of seat and gets
into it. 1t is usually done in bungling unintelli-
gent and uninteigible sort of way. But once the
street-car public becomes fully imbued with the
spirit of poesy which the present display of versifed
lads" seems certain to bring upon it shall then
expect young to know what to say and how
to say it:
Pray. LADY,. have my seat but not
Because you look hot
Or ancient for it is so,
ruth 'cv-Ia- I ca+o l-,C1y