The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-09-04

: summer sojourn in the Adirondaeks and : the CatslIills and from their motor tours through the Berkshire and the White mountains, finger for q week or more in the metropolis. And to this hurrying throng may be added the southern CO.,
 teries at nearby beaches, hundreds Of sum
 mer tourists, and those are now being
 augmented by the returning travellers
 from Europe. So that New York at this season seems made up of varying ele-
 ments, none of which are distinctly it's
 own
 The shops are filled with southerners- you see them driving, lunching every
 where, motoring in the parks, in the
 thfongs leaving the Broadway theatres,
 at steamer piers-everywhere you turn in
 New York.
 As 1t Is said that all good Frenchmen go to Paris when they die-and many of them before they die-so will you find that those who live away from New York com
 sider a year wasted that has not held for
 them few weeks at least of New York
 life. And those who drift idly about those
 hurryngs streets here in the Indian sum-
 mer weather, what is il that faseinates them? What holds them here? What is 1 it that takes possession of them? Could there be a reason In these two paragraphs
 from some sketches of New York lite:
 The city of colossal crowds. eager Jumped masses, which move by the thous- ands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, helter-skelter from the of- fee to the baseball game, from the base ball game to dinner, from dinner to the theatre and home again. Always 1t surges en masse to work and to play, each man afraid to be alone each scurrying to keep up with the other, to be near the other; tnquisitiVe, sullen, weary, testiVe-but al-
 ways together. Surging throngs, like beetles by night, like ants by day, but never like men,
 It Is not pleasant to look down upon a
 vast Manhattan crowd; it is not awe in- spring. It is simply curious, freallsa
 thing, distracting, befuddling By a ter
 rible paradox you do not feel the mighti-
 ness of mankind when you gaze at
 city canyon packed with quarter mll-
 lion of men you feel only the insignifieance
 of each puny little speck. A human life
 in that vast throng seems as impotent as
 a period on printed page. Here is the
 magic of a big city, that 1t takes man
 and makes no man of him. He becomes
 d part of the crowd; it IS the crowd that
 drlves him, that pulls him.
 And, again, here is a description from one who knows the city from many years i experience:
 We rolled down the Great White Way, where flaming advertisements for beer, gin, whisky and champagne vie With others for dyeing and cleaning establish- ments, patent remedies, amusements, res
 taurants and hotels, in transforming America principal thoroughfare into an Illuminated commercial directory, and | saving Broadway from being one of tho l worst lighted streets, for its size, in tho 1 world. Motors went storming this way 1 and that Around bulletin boards opened | a frayed jam of men, discussing baseball 1 The respiring subway eXhaled it's dense. 1 black breath of people. The IL thun-
 dered. Newsboys besieged the cab win
 dows whenever we were blocked, their
 shrill, pert voices trading on robberies,
 suicides, murders.
 l This is the New York that is about you i daiy-the tangible New York-the New
 York from which there is no escape. But ] there must be another side, something in- 1 tangible perhaps, but dominant lasting, | permanent, normal-some phase whereon 1 you can adjust mental values, and not be | carried out to by the hurrying 1 throngs.
 Tn here, perhaps I said, entering l richly carved door. 1t was a great | church, shadowy, wonderful vast, empty | save for two or three persons at prayer. | woman spoke to me. She was bloated 1 looking, with peculiar and dreadful pale
 ness and expressionless eyes, and yellow, frazzled hair.
 T haven't any place to stay tonight,
 she said; "could you give me something?' And this was another side of New York
 encountered in the shadows of one of the
 most beautiful facades in the world.