The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-13
James vesey Pollok in the New York

James vesey Pollok in the New York Sun.
 VVYYHEN a man has passed the Tour N/ score milestone on life's hish- :" way and returns to the city or his birth. which he has visited oniy '"iee since he left it 52 years ago, his lm-
 nressions are worth recording, more espe-
 cialy when a granddaughter, now S4' re-
 cords on her typewriting machine what
 +h.+ o,d New Yorker thinks of the Goth
 am of today.
 left New York in the days of candle
 light and oil, when Hudson street. where
 my folks lived for nigh 50 years before
 my birth in 1s27 was street Tor gentle
 folk: that was in 1860. and I did not re- turn again until 1885, when buses were
 stiu on Broadway and the furthest Of the
 hest hotels was the Fifth Avenue. though
 inc Windsor, of Fifth avenue proper
 .hove Forty-second street. and the Bruns-
 wick. lower down near Madison Square
 were catering to the elite. And those days were the days of gaslight-
 I stopped. as I always did, at the As,or
 House, where guests were admonisneo
 not to blow out the gas. In 1860 we Ike wise were admonished to snuff the can dles and to lower the lamp wick De- fore blowing the flame out. The old In- ternational hotel. opposite to where the
 posteffice now stands, was the renoez-
 vous of many out of town people, who always took the opportunity to visit Bar
 num.s In fact, was in the museum the day the crowd was invited to view
 the wonderful exit and found ourselves
 out in Ann street. I had to pay to go hack. for was never tired of viewing the freaks.
 In those days q now mean 1S6o) the building in which the Sun Is housed nao been the Wigwam: I had often gone there on the Fourth of July with my
 father to hear the Tammany orators. and remember c. P. Van Ness. Cornehus Lawrence and Greene c. Bronson as readers of the Declaration of Independ- ence.
 when I was born New York had less than oOo. GOO. and when I left it in 1860 if had grown to over 100000, a tremendous
 nonulation for those days. but nothing to what found it in 1885. which has doubled since. I used to walk from Grove and Hudson streets to the theatre at the cor ner of Broadway and Prince street, and on Saturday nights we would attend the Tbalia in the Bowery. which was very fine playhouse. Maggie Mitchell was great favorlte in the late '50s, and in those days we had performers. and we were given real plays, not musical drivel or comedy interlarded with old time
 music hall numbersror melodrama punc- tuated with a ballet. We had the simon
 n,re entertainment, each theatre to itS own style, We were more independent in our day. If we did not like show we
 voiced our disapproval energetically. and to save his face the manager would take the play off and announce a new bill for the following night. But those. were the
 days of theatre managers. Commercial
 ism had not at that time tainted the
 houses of recreation and amusement.
 Believe me, my dear Sun, though an old man. a two weeks stay in New York in this year of 1912 has convinced me that the theatre is one ofsthe causes of high living. You may have too many theatres. You have too many bad at fractions, there Is too much billboard and electric sign lying about the amuse- ments offered. The papers may or may not tell the exact truth in the critical reviews, but the advertisements are mis-
 leading. My daughter has taken me to
 nine playhouses. and cut of the nine