The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1907-02-02


New Yorker will deal with the situa-
ton in the same masterful way he has
in the past, probing deeper and deeper
in the chambers of the living rock,
building tunnels and tubes and SUBJ
tunnels until the under world will be-
come one vast network consecr ated to
the needs of modern requirements.
1.-THE downtown section of New York
in the vicinity of Wall street is ahuge
exhibit of brick and mortar, stone,
iron and marble. Looking in any di-
rection from Wall street is like taking
a panoramic view of the canons of the
Colorado. These sky-scrapers are SO
tall that the sun never penetr ates the
streets except at the meridian. Any
structure short of twenty stories is
now considered old fashioned and
primitive. Imagine one of these iron
structures piercing the heavens to the
extent OF forty three stories. with
sub-surface of five. Such building
is now under construction, and I pre-
sumo it will hold the record only for a
short while.
GAS you walk down Wall street, see
the seething mass of humanity passing
to and fro, watch the curb brokers en-
ter the board of exchange and note the
careworn faces of the seekers OF for
tune, one can but agree with Solomon
that all is vanity.
ST is tremendous thought to weigh
the strife and contention, turmoil and
anxiety of the thousands of souls in
this throbbing section. Here individ-
uality is submerged in the vast vortex
of affairs where very man seeks not
honest fame and worthy distinction,
the benefits of true friendship, the
warmth of hospitality, the brother
hood of man, the spirit of sincere and
unselish helpfulness; but where ambi-
TONS goal is the dollar, to reach
which every manly virtue, honest prin-
ciple and native conviction must be
sacrificed to the rage of vulgar wealth.
1.-THE New York hotel is not to be
overlooked as one of the great feat
ures of Gotham. Hotels go up in New
York as if by the magic touch of an
Aladdin. beautiful in structure, gor-
geous and sumpIuous in appointments
and equipped with every device known
to man to promote comfort and pleas
ure to their guests.
1.-THE New York hotels, (about 1876
frst-class in number), it is said, en-
terrain three times as many people as
does London, six times as many as
does Paris, and ten times as many as
does any other city in the world.
Imagine the capacity of hostelries ca
pable of entertaining a floating popu-
lation of zoe, 200, or, by comparison,
twice as many people as the entire
population OF Atlanta, one of the
greatest cities of the south. The Hotel
Aston, not so large as the Waldorf,
ST. Regis or Knickerbocker, has under
its roof 1900 employees. On New Years
eve this hotel ha6 applications for 5000
people for dinner. Timon of Athens,
DiOnysius the tyrant, or Lucullus the
epicure, at the height of their pearl
dissolving feasts, could not have APP
preached such scene. The New York
hotel is a city unto itself. One may
take Turkish bath, have his photo
graph taken, purchase seats to the
opera, speak to a friend in Boston or
Chicago by long distance 'phone, or
negotiate with his broker for thou
sand shares of railroad stock. The
Waldorf has thirty-four elevators,
whose daily trips it is estimated
amount to about 120 miles a day.
This hotel spends in a single year
$4,000 for broken china, crockery,
etc. The fees of good waiter exceed
the salary of the governor of any state
in the United States.
But after one has visited this Bah
ylon of wealth and luxury, re-
turns to his quiet home in the south
or west and soberly reflects on the
many-sided New York, he is forced to
the conclusion that the average New
Yorker is travelling at too high a
speed and is not living the sane and
normal life, but one fraught with deca-
dence, disaster and distress. However
decadent may appear the elements in
the life OF America today, so similar
to those which brought about the
downfall of the Roman empire, let us
hope the diseased body polite is not
1ncurable, and in the language of that
great premier, Disraeli, that when the
turbulence is over, the shout OF tri-
umph and the wall of agony are alike |
stilled; when, as it we're, the waters
the sacred heights of Sinai |
and OF Calvary may again be revealed,
and amid the wreck of thrones and |
tribunals of extinct nations and abol-
ished laws, mankind, tried by so many
sorrows, purified by so much suffering,
and wise with such unprecedented ex-
perience, may bow again before the
decisive truths that Omnipotence in
His ineffable wisdom has intrusted to
the custody and the PRONUNCIATION of a
chosen people. J. H. D,
TTy ~