The Washington herald., 1918-05-28

| SPECIAL CorreSpondeut OF Inc WaShtngtDu heralo'
New York. May 2s.-The vice
crusaders book has swept the
women OF the street out of the
Longscre section-the section popu-
larly known as the heart OF New
York. A dead line" has been estab-
lished like the old barrier for the
crook who went below Fulton
street where the gold of the world
is boarded.
The girls in the white shoes and
chalked and rouged faces have been
swept back to Sixth Avenue. These
women present one of the saddest
phases of metropolitan life. Most
of them came to the city with big
dreams of wearing diamonds.
Eventually they cease to become
individuals ana become problems to
be discussed at women's clubs and
clinics. They go down until a paint
\ ed slab with a number marks them
in the Potter's field. Their chief ef-
fort in life is to make an appearance
to achieve something of an ef-
feet Cosmetics and clothes are
.
over on Sixth Avenue they creep
out when the lights begin to blink,
Their souls seem to have been sud
denly cultivated out of existance.
They hover under the shadows of
the elevated stations ever watching
for the square toed sleuths the law
sends out to run them to cover.
Until all hours Of the morning they
1 ha fN,ar NhAE or %
loom. Sixth avenue in some sections
is like the old Bowery. The blocks
are filled with medical museums. con-
jurers' shops. white-tiled cafeterias,
chop suey caravansaries, and about
every fifth door the pawnbroker shop
displaying the three gilt balls Of the
de Medici cost-of-arms
In the early evening they flock TO
the table d. hote where the win ordi-
naire. popularity dubbed red ink" is
the chief attraction. Here they make
their pitiful efforts to attract by sly
winks, smiles and perhaps a scrawling
note dispatched by tired. phlegmatic
garcons.
At times when the cheap red wine
stirs maudlin sentiment they will cry
over a sentimental ditty about home
and mother" pounded out on a tinny
piano by a cigaret-smoking artist"
Broadway. 1t Is said, is to see no more
Of them. A new era has come and
! they are being moved nearer ard
nearer to the Hudson River, where
many of them find final resting
place by a plunge off the piers in the
dead OF night
1t has been discovered that among
other things not worth worrying
about New York hasn't a Real High
flier-a Broadway celebrity who basks
in the white-hot light OF publicity
through mis- ability to scatter golden
bills along the Great White Way.
Perhaps 1t is the war and perhaps
1t is because civilization is on the
jump. The late Diamond Jim Grady
represented Broadway, but he is gone.
New York used to have Berry Wall
the fashion plate idol. and before that
Ward McAllister, whose dinners
brought reporters on the run white
faced.
Harry Lehr had his day. too. and
used up gallons Of printers perfectly
good ink with his banquet to a mon
key. Nobody seems to have the cour-
age to essay these circus stunts any
more. There Is not q soul to have q
half-dozen walters break the arches
in their feet toting wine. Headwait-
ers do not get 800 tips. The world
indeed does move.
For four hours a man who may yet
be caught by the anti-loafing law
watched for horse on a Broadway
block. He did not see q one. 1t was
a surprising slant on the inroads of
the automobile.
The man who watched for the horse
was asked what he was looking for by
o man-about-town.
"a horse, he replied.
"oh," was the reply. you mean the
thing that pulls a hack"