The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-04
NEW YORK $ IDLE CROWDS
From the New York Press.

From the New York Press.
 N EW YORK is commonly spoken of MI as a place of hurry and hustle, where everyone is on the move, and yet there probably is no city in the world which has a larger leisure class. This refers not so much to the idlers along Fifth avenue and In the big up- town hotels-they have money and can afford to loaf-but applies more especially to the so-called middle class" that is, the people who apparently are engaged in business and yet evidently are in no hurry to attend to it.
 Step into any pool and billiard parlor during the business hours in the financial district from the Battery up to Park row or the wholesale district from Worth to Fourteenth street and you always will find fair-sized crowd present. Nearly all the tables are occupied and the walls are lined with a surprisingly large crowd of spectators. Judging by appearance the crowd is divided into middle aged busi- ness men of prosperous exterior, clerks and office boys. The men sit around and speak of putting such and such deal through today or tomorrow, refer to Sucn anu SuCll d pSiSoi Hiio SsNAA~N "N NAN~ office yesterday, discuss the prices of stocks or cotton yarns, and in general give the impression of being men of affairs. Yet part of them play pool and billiards while the other part looks on, apparently in no hurry, with nothing on their minds. Other men of the same busness-like ap- pearance gather around a cafe table, where they smoke, drink and talk as if the passage of time means absolutely nothing to them.
 Standing on the sidewalk around the edges of the big excavations where the building of new skyscrapers is going on, there always are goodly crowds. Part or these crowds Is composed of persons who simply stop and look for a few minutes, yet extended observation will show that the members of the crowd closest to the scene of operation evidently have taken up their positions to see the job through.
 The number of morbid sightseers that congregate at any point where a glimpse of anything relation to the sensational may be caught often has been commented upon. This class will wait days and days for sight of any of the principals In sensational trial. &
 There are seven frst-class vaudeville houses in Manhattan, besides many bur lesque theatres, which give matinees daily Practically all of them are nlled every day. At some of the more popu- lar houses 1t Is impossible to get an or chestra seat a half hour after the cur tain goes up. It is probable that not less than 250O0 persons may be found in the variety theatres every day between the hours of 2 and D. m. And at least third, sometimes half, of these crowds are men who look as if they had posi- tions It is sometimes said that 1t Is the out-of-town population that fills these the atres during the day, but this cannot be true. as the houses somewhat removed from the hotel district and in Harlem are just as crowded as the others.
 New York has two league baseball grounds. The regular attendance in each varies from 4O0O to 5000, and on some days. not holidays either. the attendance is increased many thousands more. The baseball crowds. of course, are composed almost exclusively of men, and each per son present means the loss of half a day.
 The race tracks get many thousands more, the attendance varying from three or four thousand on disagreeabie days to 15.oo0 on bright, clear days. Here again the crowd is composed mostly of men,. The pool rooms. too, always are crowded, and the more pool rooms open, the bigger the crowd at each. Some stay a half hour or an hour others practically half day.
 Any athletic event of prominence in which track events, tennis, golf. what not, ~fr ,a1.1 +1 a substantial crowd, composed of men as we'll as women.
 Moreover. the different minor attrac-