The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-11-19
ON Way TO WORK
Observations on Street Car Re-
veal Real Human Nature.
Best Time to Make Journey Is
Early Morning.
SHOW MANY TYPES OF SOCIETY
AristOcracy Has Its(TOeS Tram
pied on Many Times.
Majority of Passengers Do Not
Like to Work.
BY VERNON E. BUNDY.

BY REhNON 4. DOANO
The edict, the fiat the ultimatum
of the transportation wisacres has
gone forth, and the street car is
doomed When conversation on OTTER
topics languishes, there is always some
one to say that the day of street car
transportation has passed, and the
rolIicking, rocking. rocketting trolley
is to be replaced by some form of the
automobile.
All of which may be true, but it is
also true that the superseding of Che
street car has not yet come about. AS
a laboratory in which to study human
nature there are few places equal to
it. Human nature in the raW-and
the average human is lincined to get
pretty raw in the street carts well
studied in the street care
Reveals Human Nature.
A single journey from the end of
one of the main lines of the street car
system of Topeka reveals a lot of hu-
man nature as she is.
The journey had best be taken in
the morning. when the traffic on the
line is heavier than during the day,
because the residents in the district
which it serves are mostly employed
down town in one capacity or an
other. And they are on their way
to their days work in the morning
with the veneer of civilization and
suavity which they acquire during the
day, not yet affixed and hardened
That trip will cut a cross section
thru several strata of Topeka's So
ciety. 1t will include specimens of the
upper crust that is kidding itself
into a belief in its won upperness. 1t
will also include delegations from that
stratum which supplies the unskiIled
laborers of the city. both men and
women. AS the car rattles and bumps
from one district to another, the pas
sengers who mount the steps are
drawn from these various levels of
society," and mixed together, literally
and perforce, toward the end of the
journey when the car is getting pretty
badly crowded.
Tramp on Aristocracy.
Aristocracy in the person of the
professional man or woman, has its
toes tramped upon by the working
man from the shops, the yard, or the
street. And there is nothing aristoc-
racy can do about it. The working
mans funnYlittle token" rattles into
the glass box beside the conductor
with as impressive and CHEEKY a jingle
as does the token of the professional
man. and entities him to ride as far
And as rule. the up-tilted nasal or
gan of the aristocrat or near-aristo-
crat is cheerfully ignored by the low
er strata"
The passengers who ascend TO the
platform of the street car make an
interesting character study at any
time. In the chilly early morning
they are more interesting than at
other times.
More than half OF them are women.
which goes to show how much of
place in the business and professional
life of today the women are taking.
Many Are Fiappers.
Many of them are flappers. No
word has yet been coined which bet
ter designates the girl of uncertain
age who has not yet become a "busi-
ness girl but who is prone to keep
business hours and earn salary in
some of the offices down town.
They are attractive, these fappers,
with youth, sophisticated tho it may
be. radiatinS~ them as they hop,
skip, up the street car steps. The
rouge on their faces and the startling
contrast with their sharply spenciled
eyebrows is almost startling jim the
gray before sunrise. Their short skirts
twitch up to their knees as they climb,
displaying gorgeous expenses of the
fanciest silk hosiery. usually incasing
limbs of undeniably attractive con-
tour. The flappers. with their high
pitched voices and high-colored faces,
and high drawn skirts. are the high
notes of the drab color scheme of the
early morning street car crowd.
There is liberal sDrinkling of more
elderly women in the crowd, too. The
elderly women are dressed more con-
servatively than the .flappers. but with
a certain chic which the flapper never
attafns, no matter how flashy the
flappers' clothes may be.
They Age Rapidly.
Most of the women who are evil
IDENTIFY business women, are gray
haired. The professional life seems
to age women rapidly. yet without de-
tracing from their personality, their
charm, their attractiveness. Their
conversation, as a rule does not vary
widely from the conversation of the
fappers in subject matter, tho their
voices are more carefully modulated,
their accents are less affected, and
their opinions hardly so arbitrarily
stated. But clothes and social events
make up the majority of the topics
which each of them discuss.
Then there is a class of women on
the street car evidently intermediate
between the flapper and the woman
business executive. They would seem
to be the clerks, the women in sub
assertiveness of either. They are the
most quiet of the women passengers
on the car, with the possible exception
OF the Women who are evidently scrub
women, wash women and women who
work with their hands. at anything
them are white, Some of them are
colored. y All OF them sit in silence.
waiting for the arrival of the car at
their streets. The look in their eyes
lacks the agressiveness, the interest,
the anticipation of a business woman.
The majority of the passengers who
are on their way to earn their daily
bread, with perchance a bit of mar
malade on the side, do not seem to
relish the job. Here and there a per-
son goes to work with the air of go
ing to a fete" as a famous French
general said of the American soldiers
on their way TO the front. But as a
rule, the passengers look as if they
would not display undue regret if the
car were suddenly halted, and they
was not known in the College Hill To-
cality. Last week the negro family
residing on neighboring property noti-
ned the grand tire jerker of the order