The New York herald., 1922-01-08

impression that the poles on Broadway
carried as many as 129 wires. There
were no telephone or electric light wires,
for we had no telephones and no cleo
trio illumination.
do not believe the morals of the
city were any worse then than now, but
vice was more openly paraded then than
IL is to-day. The town was wide open.
Up town such resorts as the Cremorne
Garden. the Newport and at later date
the Haymarket turned out defaulters,
thieves and outcasts.
/ am not among those who believe
the city is perfect to-day, but see the
lower forms Of vice less openly fiaunted
now than forty or fifty years ago. There
were fewer holdups perhaps of the type
we read of to-day, but proportlonately
TO the size of the city / believe there
were fully as many murders. The Ma
than murder in Twenty-thrd street did
not attract the widespread interest that
attached to it because murders were few
and far between but because of the
prominence of the victim in the business
and religious life Of the city and be-
cause of the suggestion that the MUIR
derer was a member of his own house
hold. There were many shocking mur-
ders in the old days. and l we'll recall
that after a singularly brutal killing in
Fourth avenue. long known as the car
hook murder. the murderer who had
political pull, made the statement that
changing is played out in New York"
In some respects I think we had
proportionately more good restaurants
nal, 80 t,,i v,rff m
has never been excelled, and there were
Solaris in University place. Sieghort-
ner's in Lafayette place. and the Maison
Doree in Fourteenth street.-the latter
rival of Delmonico's. The old places
in which you could get delicious fish
and oysters and the old time chop houses
were vastly better. in my opinion. than
anything we have to-day. Though /
know this city from end to end and
have known it for sixty years, do not
know single place to-day where l can
get oysters as deliciously cooked as they
we're In some of the restaurants in Full
ton Market or some of the oyster bays
uptown half century ago, and since
the old type of chop house went out OF
existence 1t has been impossible to pro-
cure an English mutton chop that COM
pares with those of half century ago.
| Being an old fogy, / may say I don't
| like the way the young women of to-
day dress or deport themselves. And
l don't like their smoking in public.
am aware that there were extravagances
| in feminine dress and masculine attire
too half century ago, but think young
women deported themselves better in my
youth than now. If j had my way
would make every feminine stenographer
and telephone operator dress in a simple
black gown. to check extravaganza in
the same way that the doges Of Venice
made the youth of their day paint their
gondoas black. 1t is quite true, Of
course, that young ladies fifty years
ago wore bustles and doubled up like a
kangaroo when practicing the Grecian
bend, the affected walk of that day.
but they comported themselves like well
behaved persons on the street.
Fifty years ago we had few amuse-
ments compared with to-day. There
was no tennis, no golf no automobiles
no country clubs. But We had good the
aters and better actors and actresses of
the higher class. The young men played
baseball then as now, and cricket. but
football as we know It to-day was un-
known in the country. Nearly all my
companions were members of some one
or other of the many boat clubs that
thrived in New York and in all neigh
boring cities but the young men had no
nice sporting or outing clothes as now.
Half a century ago men did not con-
fine the wearing Of a silk hat to Sum
days. holidays or gala occasions, but
wore that type of headgear to business
every day. Linen suits or cloth coat
and white duck trousers formed our cos
tune in summer time. And i remember
at the great intercollegiate boat race
at Saratoga Lake, In 1874 or 1875. the
proper hat was white topper, swathed
around with yelling. loose ends flying in
the wind. d. G. J.
WHITEsToNg, January 7.