Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1909-04-30
new YORk'S WONDERS.
The Biggest, Noisiest, Fastest thing
That Helps Make Night
H1deouS.
NEW WORKERS WHO DON'T KNOW ENG
LIsH FROM CHINESE.

If you ever chance to visit New York
and are outdoors late at night, when
the streets are almost empty and quiet
and you suddenly hear an ear-splitting
hair-lifting, soul-chilling wall, a swell
ing and diminishing howl, that doesn't
stop for second and always makes
the justly celebrated "Rebel Yell"
seem gentle lullaby, don't waste time
in wondering whether it is Gabriel's
trump or perhaps Satan calling in his
children, most of whom get to New
York when they can, and especially
after dark. The noise will be that of
the alarm-siren attached to the wagon
which hurries some hundreds of feet Of
hose to the scene of any fire that is to
be treated by the new high-pressure
service. The siren must sound its alarm
loudly and steadily, for when the
streets are clear of the daylight tangle
of trucks, carriages, autos, ETC., the big
horseless hose-wagon can and does
make faster progress than most torpe-
do boats.
Just before you begin to stop your
ears to keep the increasing racket from
getting into them and lifting the top of
your head off, you discover that the
siren had an accompanies great
gong, that produces enough changing
to supply hundred trolley cars, could
the noise be divided up for distribution
among them. It will be of no use to
try to run away from the composite
din unless you are wearing seven
league boots. Besides, the wagon is
worth seeing for it's own sake. At first
view it looks like big ocean steamer
coming up the bay, but appearances
are deceptive in the semi-darkness, for
it is not quite as long as city building
lot is wide. The hose, which is as
great in diameter as the snakes man
sees after week of emptying saloons
into himself, are laid in 50 many fore
and-aft lengths that a circus giant
could not zee across the heap, yet upon
them stands the hose crew of dozen
men clinging to handrails and making
the dark mass fully six feet higher, for
a stocky fireman of ordinary size isn't
sure to be equal to the demands of hose
under the new pressure of water; the
work requires giants in stature as well
as strength. When the wagon has
passed you and you succeed in unglue-
ing your feet from the sidewalk, you
will be sure that you haven't drawn q
full breath in half an hour, and it re-
ally may have been full half minute.
The spectacle is worth looking up, as
some men do, by lounglng in the vi
cinity of the hose-house night after
night, but it is not advisable to have
any other fellows bunch of nerves
with you, your own will be all you can
manage.
1t is pretty serious thing to be the
biggest thing of the kind, whatevel
the kind may be, unless one can ge'
full consolation by blowing ones OWL
trumpet, which New York seldom can
Among the city bignesses most recent
ly discovered is the proportion of for
eign blood in our hundreds of Thousand
of school children. More than one
third of these youngsters were foreigl
born, more than two-thirds are of for
eign parentage, and nearly one,-half ar
of parents neither of whom can speal
English. The outlook didn't worry u
much when most of the immigration
was from Ireland and Germany, TO
the Irish spoke what passed for Eng
lish, and the germans made haste t
pick up enough tenement house dialec
to make themselves understood; bu
since Italians, Russians, Hungarians
Greeks and Poles began to flock in, an
a colony larger, numerically, tha
some state capitals, has been forme
solely of Syrians and other. West Asia
les who speak several lingos and d
most of their reading and writing i
Arabic, there is a big problem befol
the school teachers. The principal el
couragement is that "Blood will tell,
for there is lot of good blood insie
the shabby garments of many of thef
immigrants with many children an
outlandish names. The manner
which the immigrant sections of tt
tenement house districts are crowdir
children into the Normal College If
girls) and City College for boys,
both of which instruction is absolute
free, but must be earned by graduate
with high marks from the publ
grammar schools, is quite startling
thoughtful observers and exasperatil
to many easy going pupils of nativ
born parentage. Often list of pri
winners at the City Collage recalls
roster of Frances noted "Foreign L
gion," which contains names from
most every European race but t
French. And the way those boys al
gins with jaw-breaking names ASSN
late with native-born Americans
soon as they are old enough to go in
business and marry is puzzling to thu
old-world parents, who remind one
other of the story of the hen whi
hatched ducks. GARGOYLE
Specializing About The
III Il IT, Wo.I