The New York herald., 1920-01-27
DR.. Copeiand's Advice.

Among the valuable suggestions made
10y DR.. Royal S. Copeland, the Health
Commissioner, to the people of this city,
who are threatened by epidemic influenza.
is one which will have to be acted upon in
the spirit and not the letter. 1t is this.
That instead Of crowding into subway
and elevated trains and street cars the
workers should brave the wintry blasts
and walk to their places of business.
An inhabitant Of Englewood, White
Plains, East Orange, Staten Island.
Kingsbridge, the remoter parts Of Kings
or Queens, or even the upper part of the
island Of Manhattan, would find it ex-
ceedingly difficult to attend to his daily
duties in the central parts of this me-
tropolis without the aid Of the means Of
locomotion wherein lurk the mischievous
microbes which have the bad habit of
frequentine crowds.
New York city's commuters are, many
of them, persons to whom time and space
have no terrors, provided the trains are
running with regularity. There are even
those who sleep in Poughkeepsie or on the
banks of the Delaware River who earn
their money in New York and spend the
rest of the twenty-four hours Of every day
of the week but Sunday going back and
forth from home to office and from Of
flee to home.
1t is difficult to see how habtues Of the
smoking car and participants in morning
and evening bridge games among friends
could possibly live up to the letter of DR..
Copeland's exhortation further than by
trudging the city miles that lie between
the scenes Of their toll and the stations
where the most serious part of journey
tegins.
This is now a city of magnificent dis
as to what the present census will show
do but indicate the extent toswhich the
surrounding regions are tending more and
more to become the bedrooms and Incl
dentally the voting places of those who, in
other respects, are identified in their m
terests with the older parts of the town.
Yet it is curious thing that there were
men living not so many years ago who
had vivid recollections of the time when
most New York brokers, bankers, lawyers
and business men in general could walk
downtown and uptown without the slight
est overexertion. One veteran had been
as boy in the first mercantile house that
moved out into Broadway, near Bowling
Green, much to the apprehension of more
conservative reighbors.
It is difficult to US to imagine a Pc
riod, not so very remote, when everybody
who was anybody was sure to see every
body else who was anybody promcnading
on the broad pavement on the west side
of Broadway Of pleasant Sunday after
noon between Trinity Church and st.
Paurs. That was the time when young
mcn-so centralized was the town-werc
able to call on every girl they had danced
with the night before and to make the
rounds on foot.
A famous dining club at the original
Delmonico's was formed by the leading
business men who could not find time TO
go away uptown to the homes north OF
Chambers street" on packet days. And so
it went when New York was younger and
gloomy souls had not begun to complain
that there were too many people in the
world.
DR.. Copeland's advice is really to keep
in the open air as much as possible, to
keep as warm as possible and to be as
"as possible!