The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-04-24
J. ". DoNNELLy

might state, is the chief metropolitan ex-
element of their existence They don't
! live long In one street, because there $
| always another street exactly like II,
| which is supposed to possess some purely
imaginary advantage not to be found in
the old street. So they move
Otherwise nothing happens that would
cause you to become worked up and few
| erish. Father comes home on the subway
instead of afoot or in a side-bar buggy.
Mother does her shopping at Wanna
boomers 19-story department store in
stead of in the Racket Dry Goods Empo-
rum on the ground floor of the Masonic
building, but gets about the same thing
| for about the same price. The kitchen
window commands a view of somebody
| elses kitchen window, instead of a back
yard. which has its advantages, if moxher
is one of those amateur volunteer sociolo-
gists trying to find out how the other
| half lives
For these, mine own people, there is no
| gay Bohemia, with its Pink Ink For Pale
Poets and it's studio teas with the accent
on the stewed or them there Is no
mad, feverish longing to lead the Broad
way life, which really consists not in
| leading, but In following until total ex-
haustion results. followed by collapse. Not
| for them the DIR. Tanner breakfast and
| the canary bird lunch six days a week in
order to be able to wear swell regalia to
| Wrecker's or the st. Foolish on the 7th.
Not for them the mad, delirious joy of
sitting seven or eight hours in Louie
the Sixteenth chair on Peacock alley, in
a hotel where if a foreigner left his shoes
outside his door at night he'd find them
| gilded the next morning to match the
surroundings. None of these for them.
Some of them actually go to church
| of Sunday-a church where they have
! preaching instead of refined sacred vau-
deville. Art galleries and parks and nat
ural history museums still have some at
| fractions for them. Once or twice win
ter they go to the theatre, followed by a
supper at regular restaurant, this night
being remembered thereafter as the Big
| Night. Other nights ii is customary
about $50 p. m. to turn out the cat, wind
| up the clock and seek natures sweet re-
pose in series of snug bureau drawers
called apartment bed rooms"
"One never hears much about these
people in New York papers," I inter-
jccted.
! Certainly not" said Father Knicker-
booker IF they lived the same lives in
New England they would be types and
Mary Wilkins Freeman would camp upon
their trail by day and by night. But liv-
ing in New York they're not types;
they're merely people. and who would
edIe ~ ItdQ dDOul peOpict even III d
cent magazine?
Now, on little old Broadway, dear little
/ old Broadway, and getting dearer every
mirute, it's different, very. / wouldn'
1 care to treat myself on Broadway these
times I felt more at home there in the
days when our Dutch burghers used to
pasture the kind-eyed calf where now the
Flatirons and the restaurant prices pierce
the eclouds. For me thered be too much
10 of run in N r11r
down Personally, your old Father
Krckerbocker would prefer to haunt the
side streets and the little squares in out
of the way corners, keeping his paternal
eye on people who would keep a COW If
they only had the ROOM
But for those who prefer to think OF
/ New York as composed of one Tenoerloin
/ and some inaccessible outskirts, Broad
way no doubt fills the bill. This class, |
am convinced, is made up In the pro-
| portions of about one-third resident mani
| acts and two-thirds visiting lunatics. To
| the average male transient within the
| walls of New York consists of a rail-
| way station, display of fireworks and
a headache. Back where he comes from,
he probably teaches in the Sabbath school
and clerks in the bank. If he suffers
from that parched arid feeling, he irri-
gates from a private bottle behind a door.
If he has latent sporting instinct, he
era titles it making mind bets with him
self on baseball games But in from one
to two minutes after the .eastbound
crosses the country line, he's switching
his white tie and his Purity league pin
and inouiring of the Pullman porter
whether he has anything nice and cold
in the icebox. He has started for New
York and the muffler Is of.
HE comes, he sees. he corns up, as j..
Caesar once said on a somewhat similar
occasion. For him the bright lights burn.
For him the painted smile takes on an
added tint of squashed heart of water
melon. For him stage doors yawn on
/ CREASED hinges and the taxicab meter
pants like a lizard. Before dinner he
must have one of these delectable French
mixtures that tastes like barber 8
thumb; with his meal. nothing but the
real vintage stuff will suffice, and he
finishes off with something green that
gives him a breath like camphor chest.
He freauents only the hotels that are all
red and gold inside like colored mans
| idea of heaven. His mind, which here
tofore has done Its thinking in misses
| and c,lildren's sizes exclusively, begins
| to broaden until he cannot conceive any
| SUR smaller than a two dollar bill. The
! sight of change lying around seems to IT.
ritate him excessively and he forces 1t or
| a waiter. But when his pocket book
| grows skinny ana ne can slip MS nedc
ba elk inside his hat without injury tc
| either, he returns to his native haunts
and tells his Observation-Disclosures thai
New York has Sodom and Gomorrah look
in~ iilfe twin Chatauquas in Central Yer
mont
yet, after all" said, broadway Il
| a part of the city, and we love the cit.
and are proud of it"
so is the smell part of the cheese,
said sFther Knickerbocker, but neve
vet heard OF anybody who liked hi
cheese any better because Of the smell