'vPV ^> *'T7^** .0^ * ^^ ^ C^ /. -^0^ A<=U 4^ - ^ - "^^ cfi- ^6 H<^^ -U-o^ A° ■^ 'bt? ^°-^*. V <5°^ A ir% 4iy ^ '^^^^A.* • » .ft' c » ' ° • ^ O^ . • " • ♦ O -i^^ -^r.^ ^' •• 4> Xv ^oV^ ^^* ^^-^^^ V 7 THE REM. NEW YORK THE ARION BALL THE REAL NEW YORK p.v Drawings ry RUPERT HUGHES HY. MAYER Drift if you will in Venice, Or drowse in Florence brown ; Drink till you drop in Munich, Or drench in London town ; Drudge out your life in Chicago, Or drone in old Rome your dream; Drain the delights of Vienna, Or Paris with walls of cream ; But drive me not far from Broadway, When New York's aglow and agleam. From Peter Simes' " The Muse in Town:^ I y < ' o ' > 3 3 •» i ' 1904 THE ^AiAkT SET PUBLISHING COMPANY 452 Fifth Avenue LONDON NEW YORK 5", , LIBRARY of noWGRESS Two Cooies Rer.«iveci JUN 23 1904 \\ Coo.vrJarht Entrv CJfLASS Ct XXc. Mo. S 1 1 z ^ COPY B Copyrighted, 1904, by The Smart Set Publishing Company Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, England ALL RIGHTS Published June, 1904 ,••■«, e -* I e e » i » < t « « CONTENTS CHAPTER n. — Getting 'Round The hotel for lone women — The New York sky vs. Italy's— T]^ Flatiron, its beauty and Its breezes — Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, and the pageant of fair women — A department store; shoppers and shop- girls— A steamer landing— Passing the cus- toms—The Elevated railroad — The Subway —The New York rush and transit problems III.— The Beau Monde The Waldorf; a revolving door — Peacock Row— The people in the corridors— The ball- rooms and dining-rooms— Oscar — The Uni- versity Club; its dining-room— The Lyceum Theatre— A New York audience— Supper at the Savoy— A midnight spin through Central Park— Riverside Drive and Momingside Park under the stars IV.— The Gamblers '^^ii/u^^^ ''—Chicago streets and New York's — When the town was "wide open" — Life under the Lid— The barrooms— A free Tunch"— The prize-fighters as hosts— The late Steve Brodie— Gambling— Runnincr the gantlet — Magnitude of the sport — Ex- changes and bucketshops— Women as gam- blers— Canfield's palace— Playing the races —A typical poolroom — A raid — A ride in the patrol wagon— At the Sign of the Green Lamp-posts v.— The Tenderloin at Night Broadway aglow— The women who loiter— Ihe theatre crowds— Music-halls— Auto- matic vaudeville— Herald Square at night— Ihe JournaVs free coffee— Emptving of the theatres — After-theatre suppers — Late extras— The Rathskellers— More trouble PAGE I. — Getting In |i A wreck and its consequences — The arrival- The sky line 23 49 67 91 Contents CHAPTER PAGE VI.— Sunday in Town 103 High and Low Church — the numberless creeds, rituals and languages in town — Fa- mous preachers — Church architecture — Fash - ionable churches — Wall Street on Simday — The Easter parade — Fifth Avenue — Upper Broadway — -When the college girls come home for Easter — Central Park on Sunday; the carriages — Riverside Drive by daylight — The Hudson — A sunset — The diner de luxe at Sherry's — A concert at Carnegie Hall — Great conductors who visit New York — New York as a capital of music — Supper at the Beaux-Arts Vn. — Assorted Sabbaths 125 The good side of New York — The crowded churches — The free hospitals — Organized charities — The Board of Health — Breakfast in bed — The Sunday papers — The Personal column as a secret post-office — The tameness of a New York Sunday — The Raines law — The "Family Entrance" — Hypocrisy and laziness — Quenching the thirst — Sunday night in town — The sacred concerts — A sur- reptitious prize-fight — Police interference — In prison — Professional bondsmen — Vice is expensive VI T I. —Chinatown 147 The number of Chinese and their industries — Their clubs, newspaper and religion — The joss house— The Chinese new year — The funeral feast — Chinese and white women — Opium — The half-breed children — A restau- rant and Chinese bill of fare — A Chinese shop — The Chinese theatre — A typical plot — The Chinese actress — The audience, the orchestra and the players IX. — New York's Garden of Eden 167 Madison Square Garden — Its beauty— Di- ana, the patron goddess — The size of the building and what it contains — The various shows — The Horse Show — Venice — The Arion and other masked balls — Typical scenes — An early morning drive — Sunrise in New York X. — Downtown 193 Boston vs. New York — The farmer and the schoolmarm come to town — The Broadway crowd — A tall building — A city under one Contents CHAPTER PAGE roof — The risks of modern city life — " News- paper Row" — The Brooklyn Bridge — City Hall Park — A monument to Boss Tweed — The Tombs Prison — The Criminal Court House — The Post-Office — Crooked alleys downtown XI. — Money 211 The Chamber of Commerce — The Clearing House— The Sub-Treasury— The Stock Ex- change — The Produce Exchange — The Wheat Pit — Fraunces's Tavern XII.— Clubland 219 How to get into a New York clubhouse — Various types of club — Political, religious, college, women's, Greek letter fraternities, trades, crafts, professions — Athletic clubs — Literary, Bohemian and social clubs — Club- window life — Some odd clubs — Clubland 's new centre XII L— The Many Peoples of New York 231 New York's cosmopolitanism — Its popula- tion and environs — Rapid growth — Tran- sient population — Foreign cities inside New York — Foreign languages, chiirches, papers, theatres, festivals — The various colonies — A Finnish bath — A Russian Easter — Bravery of the Irish — What New York offers the in- vader XIV.— Where to Eat 251. The cookery problem in New York — The restaurant system — ^The cosmopolitan menus— Cheap lunches — The street stands and the buffet luncheon— Chop houses — The American oyster and clam — Culinary aristocracy — Old-time restaurants — Some large establishments — The kitchen at the Waldorf— The lunch clubs— The New York table d'hote— Roof- gardens — The Park res- taurants — The sporty places — American menus— The Chinese restaurants— The French, Gennan and other national resorts XV. — The Hunt for Bohemia 271 Bohemia: Where and what is it? — The old Bohemia at "Maria's" — Professional Bo- hemians — Imitation Bohemianism — The secret haunts of Bohemians— Quick growth of the Bohemian cafes — Cafe Liberty— CHAPTER XVI. PACxE 289 XVII. 307 Contents Hungarian dishes, sauces, wines and music — The only Bohemians are Hungarians -Summer in New York The summer exodus — Father Knickerbocker a grass-widower in summer — Schemes for fighting the heat — Summer costume — Roof- garden dining — The suffering slums — May- day and May queens — Athletics in town — The coaches — The racetracks — The cool environs of New York -At Coney by the Sea The most elaborate pleasure resort in the world — The old Coney — Its two good points — The new Coney — Luna Park and its wonders — The Durbar — Dreamland and its ballroom over the ocean — The destruction of New York XVIII.— Let Us Go A-Slumming 315 New York's slums and those of other cities — Drunkenness in various capitals — Sor- rows of rich and poor — Amelioration — The crime of aiding beggars — The old haunts of vice — Teaching children to play — The Morgue — The city hospitals and prisons — • The Bowery of old and now — Baxter street — The Ghetto — The most densely populated spot in the world — The fish market — The sweat-shop — The Lung Block — A contrast — The Metropolitan Opera House on a gala nieht XIX.— Night in the Slums 347 A Bowery concert hall — A moral immor- ality show — A night's lodging for five cents — Amateur night — A concert saloon — - Viciousness on the tipper West Side — East Side gangs — Dulness vnder the lid — A Jewish vaudeville — A street fight — Pickpockets and low saloons — Knockout drops — A police court scene XX. — A Round-Up 367 The many faults of New York: noise, crowding, impoliteness, expense, homeless- ness — Bronx Park — The Jumel mansion and other historic places — The Columbia Library — The Metropolitan Gallery — Private collections — The Aquarium- -Battery Park --Bowling Green — The Statue of Liberty — A storm in the Bay— Daybreak — Bon voyage ! LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Arion Ball (frontispiece) Matinee Girls The Czar of a Departnient Store At the Custom House . Under Fire On the Rialto A Bowery Soubrette A Box at the Opera The Old Coney Island A Knockout by the Police Chinatown The Arion Ball Committee After the Ball . Around the Ticker The Night Hawk The Ghetto . Hurdy-Gurdy Dance . A Busy Saturday Night A Gala Night at the Cafe Boulevard At the Races .... Coney Island . . . . , Amateur Night at a Bowery Theatre The Bowery . . . . . "First Visit to Noo York?" De Peyster of New York The French Twins The Parson Miss Myrtle Collis River Scene — Harbor at Night They Meet Again . The Flatiron on a Windy Day " Cash! " . The White Man's Burden A Sidewalk Merchant A New Yorker . The Waldorf-Astoria Cafe A New Yorker . Matches Mary The Kangaroo Walk . Riverside Drive at Night "Ananias" Blake The Pretzel Pedler A Gambler in Futures A New York Gambler . "'Diaphanous' Wins by a Nostril Astronomy for Five Cents The "Barker" "Kellner!" In the Haymarket A New Yorker •y FULL PAGE FACING 16 32 ^ 64 80^ 96^ 112 - 128 '^ 144 -' 160 -^ 176- 192^ 208^ 224 ^ 240 y 256 ^^ 272 y 288-"' 304 320 336 352 PAGE 13 14 17 18 21 22 25 27 35 39 41 47 52 58 61 64 66 69 74 77 84 87 93 96 99 101 105 Xi6t of 1[Uu0tration0 A New Yorker . Of the Broadway S(|uad In the Park Sunday Night Amusements A New Yorker . "Gargon" A Sunday Outing A New Yorker In a Chinatown Audience . In the Chinese Theatre A Stage Beauty . A New Yorker A Belle of the Arion Ball , In the Pageant The Surface Cars From the Twentieth Floor In the Astor Library A New Yorker A New Yorker . The Chart Expert on 'Change On the Stock Exchange A New Yorker At the German Club The Lotos Club Entertainer A New Yorker . A New Yorker In Front of a Yiddish Theatre On Darkey Fifth Avenue A New York Alderman At Dennett's A New Yorker .... The Syrian Cafe A New Yorker .... A New Yorker Spaghetti ..... When Two Hungarians Play Card A Roof-Garden "Stunt" Pitcher . Catcher The Tipster . The Steeplechase An Old Coney Islander The Gridiron A New Yorker On Baxter Street In Little Italy On Thompson Street A-Slumming by Night West Side Swell . " De Gang" The Morning After On Fifth Avenue . From the Fatherland "Bon Voyage!" PAGE 108 113 117 121 127 131 137 151 155 163 164 169 184 186 192 197 207 209 213 217 218 220 223 227 233 237 240 247 248 253 261 265 267 277 281 285 293 299 299 303 309 313 314 318 325 329 334 346 349 357 363 374 376 384 THE REAL NEW YORK Chapter I GETTING IN — A WRECK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES — THE ARRIVAL — THE SKY-LINE THE man from Chicago felt talkative. The clickety-clickety-click of the wheels got on his nerves. The sight of all these men and women stupidly riding for hours with no more conversation than goes on in a bed of oysters outraged his Western ideas of human brotherhood. At length he could stand it no longer. He resolved to break the ice at any cost. He juggled his Adam's apple a long while, then made so bold as to address the man across the aisle. "Train seems to be on time — for a wonder." The stranger across the aisle, realizing that they had never been introduced, simply gave him a look of pained amazement and returned to the advertisement pages of the Atlantic Monthly, which he had bought from the news- boy and read through three times. The man from Chicago felt the ice thicken; he muttered to himself: "Mean thing to say of anybody, but I bet he's from Boston." 12 Zbc IRcal mew ^ovk He subsided for awhile, but at last he bent forward and touched the man in front of him. ''First visit to Noo York?" (By the way, does anyone ever say New York ?) The man in front was that rare bird, a born New Yorker; he was insulted that anyone should fail to see this glory sticking out all over him. He grunted and said nothing. The man from Chicago grew desperate. He whirled his chair on its pivot, and, so to speak, faced the man behind him. "Who are the Democrats going to nominate this time .^" It seemed there was no escape. But this man was a genius; he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. The Chicagoan rose with a sigh and started for the door. On the sofa-seat he saw two sad and lonely-looking fellows, evidently twins. It would be a kindness to cheer them up. He sank down, with the leading remark: "This winter has put the oldest inhabit- ant out of business, eh ?'' '' Parlez-vous — .^ " said one. '' Francais, monsieur?'' said the other. ''Neinr gasped the Chicagoan, and he fled to the smoking compartment. It was packed with humanity and tobacco fog. Everyone was puffing desperately and no- body saying a word to anybody. The Chica- goan, being what is known as a sad wag, sang out: iBcttino 1In 13 "Full house beats three of a kind, eh?" Everybody looked up at him and nobody an- swered. The Talkative Man stood helpless in the aisle, feeling tliat he was about to die of ingrowing conversation. Suddenly there was a grinding of brakes, a jolting, thudding, creaking, and the "first visit to NOO YORK?" Talkative Man sat down in four or five different spots in rapid succession. The train had come to a short stop. When people had picked themselves from each other's lap, those passengers who were next to win- dows — and were powerful enough to get the windows open — popped their heads out. The others flew to the platforms. Reckless fiends of valor got off and walked along the ground. A young farmer had waved the train to a stand- still in the midst of bleak and barren meadow^s; he breathlessly explained, with a megaphonic voice and arms like a windmill, that there was a 14 ^be IReal IRew Oorh washout just ahead. If he had not stopped the train, it would have been ditched and somebody hurt. In their rapture, the passengers took up a purse, each contributing what he thought his Hfe was worth — after saving. These valuations, like tax confessions, showed a most commendable mod- esty, but the farmer had never before had a personal meeting with so much money except in the form of an inherited mortgage. When one of the railway officials, who dared to ride on his own road — like a rash physician who takes his own pills — told the farmer that he would get a life-pass, the rustic's delight knew no bounds. He allowed, vummed and s wo wed that he would just naturally not lose no time taking a trip to Noo Yark, a town as he had always wanted to have a peek at, but had never saw. So everybody was happy — rescuer and res- cued; till it was learned that it would require at least eight hours to mend the bridge. In time the most profane exhausted their vo- cabularies. There was nothing to do but loaf DE PEYSTER OF NEW YORK (Bcttino 1In i-^ and talk. Gradually strangers fell into conver- sation. The man across the aisle, the man in front, the man behind, and various smokers ad- dressed the Chicagoan. It was the chance of his life. He snubbed them all, cold and hard. But the ruling passion is strong in life, and silence gave him such a sore throat that he was soon buzzing away in a manner that led the others to regret their advances. The farmer brought buttermilk and crullers from the distant farm and added heaviness both to his purse and to the systems of his patrons. The upshot of it was that before the train started everybody knew everybody else. The most formal women and the most formidable were chatting freely to the train crew, to the farmer, or to anyone who cared to chip in. There was one knot of male passengers who, after exchanging that universal letter of intro- duction, a cigar, told one another their real names and their business — more or less accurately. They were all bound for New York and were interested to see how different their motives were. The Chicagoan, A. J. Joyce by name, was, it is needless to say, bent on trade; but, strange to say, not on any matter connected with pork. He said he was the representative of a manu- facturer of church vestments. This interested a bystander who buttoned his collar behind. He shook hands with the Chicagoan and said: 16 Z\)c IRcal mcvv l^ork ''I, too, am a worker in religious fields. 1 am a preacher, and I have been delivering a series of sermons on New York as the Home of Mammon. They attracted a good deal of at- tention in Terre Haute. You may have heard of them. No ? I'll send you a set. Well, you see, I have been basing my sermons purely on what I have read. So I thought I'd spend my vacation studying the evils in their ac- tuality." The Chicagoan looked a bit uneasy, and he walked aside with a New Yorker. " Take me away before I faint," he said. *' I'm going to New York to see the evil side, too; but I'm not going to preach. I want to practise. I know the warm spots of Chicago pretty well, and I'm tired of 'em. It's my opinion that New York is a Methodist revival compared to Chi- cago, but I propose to give it a fair chance, and see what it can do. But I'm afraid New York is a rank amatoor." "Let me show you round a bit," said his companion. '*I am from New Hampshire, but I've been a newspaper man in New York for ten years, and I know a thing or two. I think we can at least give you a run for your money." The reporter (known even in his own pro- fession by the modest name of "Ananias" Blake) registered in petto a vow that he would turn the Chicagoan's hair white, or die trying, all for the greater glory of Greater New York. MATINEE GIRLS (Betting lln 17 At the same moment a younger man was taking the minister aside and saying: "Perhaps I can aid you, suh. I'm from the So'th originally, suh; but I know New Yawk well, and I can show you the truth abo't its vicious- ness." There was an ominous twinkle in his eye, which the grateful parson did not see. "And may I ask what is your profession ?" ** Don't shoot, but I'm a poet by trade," said the youth, with a blush of shame. "By name, Peter Simes." He blushed again. '* My parents were not poets, and I'll never live down my name. But I'd like to show you the true wickedness of New Yawk." He did not add that he was a disciple of Walt Whitman, and, like him, believed that the city of Manhattan is the greatest and best in the world and can do no wrong. He did not confess his dark plan to keep the preacher from seeing anything but the good side of the metropolis, which is a metropolis in vice no less THE FRENCH TWINS 18 Zbc IReal IRew ^ov\{ than in earnestness and magnificent charity. But Simes vowed to send that preacher back to Terre Haute convinced that New York needs only a Httle jasper to be a heavenly home. Meanwhile, the born New Yorker, Gerald De Peyster, had unbent enough to strike up a flirta- tion with a girl from San Francisco, who, like most of the women from that Paris of the Pa- cific, was distinguished, sophis- ticated, pretty and vivacious, with a something different that could hardly be called frisky, but — let us say Sanfrancisky. Miss Myrtle CoUis said she was on her way to Europe to study painting in Paris. The ^v delay of the train made her ^v nervous. She had a steamer to \ catch the next morning, and she had certain purchases to make before she could sail, and she was afraid she would be left behind. "You're not going through New York with- out stopping!" said De Peyster. "Oh, everybody says there's nothing worth seeing," Miss Collis sneered, prettily. "It's just a big, ugly commercial town. Nobody lives there that can live abroad, and everybody who lives there thinks only of money and excitement. There's no artistic atmosphere. The Quartier Latin for me " THE PARSON (Betting flu i^ The lone, lorn Frenchmen, who had drifted about exiled by their languao-e, pricked up their ears at the two familiar words, and, lifting their hats, exclaimed: ^^ Pardon, mademoiselle, est-ce que ?" " — vous aimez le Quartier Latin? " ''Old, ouil beaucoup, beaucoup!'' said the girl, in purest San Francisco French. ''Mais je n etuis jamais la, vous savez, messieurs.'' The New Yorker spoke French too, so the four were soon rattling away, and De Peyster warmed to the task of defending New York as a rival of Paris. Furthermore, he added that an English friend of his was to land the next day, and he was determined to convince him that New York could also give London points on general joy. De Peyster kept trying to shunt the French- men off on a switch, and at last he got Miss CoUis away from their devoted courtesies. *'I wish I had a chance," he said, earnestly, "to prove to you how unjust you are to the most beautiful, the most cosmopolitan, the least ap- preciated city in the world, my New York." "But I must catch that steamer," Miss Collis protested. "If I miss it I'll have to spend a week." "I hope you miss it," he said. "If you do, will you let me prove what I say.^" " Isn't this a rather short acquaintance ?'' "Oh, but, if you'll pardon me, I'm a gentle- 20 ^be IRcal IRcw l?orh man, thanks at least to my family — the De Peys- ter crowd, you know." "All right," she answered, cheerily. **I'm not afraid even of a De Peyster. But to make it interesting, suppose we make a bet. If you can't convince me, you'll give me a box of gloves. If you do, I'll give you a box of cigars." "Er — who's to select the cigars.^" he asked, anxiously. "The winner!" she cried. And they shook hands on it, just as the French twins surrounded them again. They had been at one side quar- reling over the beautiful Americaine; each claimed to have seen her first. A light shower came up now, and drove everyone back to the train. Eventually it moved off, and, in an hour, was emptying its human freight at Jersey City. As they crossed on the ferry, they were all old friends for the time being. De Peyster had actually added Miss Collis's hand-baggage to his own. The rain had passed and the sunset was gorgeous on the sky behind them; but their eyes were only for the city ahead. It was silhouetted in glistening shadow against the ashen East, and loomed like a twilit sierra, star-sprinkled, and spangled with ten thousand lights. There before them was the famous sky-line, a contour as distinct from any other in the world as that of London, or Moscow, Constanti- (Bcttiiuj 1In 21 nople, or Benares; not low and scrawly as the profile of other cities, but bulking enormous; out of the mass of great buildings, greater build- ings rising unimaginably high, like huge stalac- tites thrusting upward. Compared with New York," cried De Peyster, "every other in the world is a quat little village." The broad river was rest- 1 e s s with waves chop- ping every which way, and these numerable with wet color The stream tumbling where tough g e r i n g and MISS MYRTLE COLLIS were scooped into in- ^^ little cups splashing over of all conceivable dyes, was crisscrossed with the wakes of ferryboats. Every little tugboats were swag- shoving the overloaded barges of commerce. But the gloaming sanctified all, and the briny smell of new-washed air was an incense that stung the nostrils with delight. The western sky, filled with the sunset, was one long banner of living glory. To the south rose a colossal statue of empurpled shadow, in 22 Sbe IRcal mew ^ovh whose exalted hand was a high torch, which at that very moment blossomed into fire. "Look!" exclaimed the young Southern poet, *' Liberty!" And he caught off his hat in an impulse of reverence. ^'W^^^^P ^^^1 1 ^^^HH H 1 ^^^^^E « hHmhj^H HH ■ ^8 1 ^^ " 1 ^_^pj ^ '"' ^^^M ^^^^^->^^ y Ju:i — L.^ — L ..:;.v:.^.:,,^,.-<;.:=^^.r-^T-.v.-: ' ■■ ■ n 1- .? Chapter II GETTING ROUND — ^THE HOTEL FOR LONE WOMEN THE NEW YORK SKY VS. ITALY'S THE FLATIRON, ITS BEAUTY AND ITS BREEZES TWENTY-THIRD STREET AND FIFTH AVENUE, AND THE PAGEANT OF FAIR WOMEN A DEPART- MENT store; SHOPPERS AND SHOPGIRLS A STEAMER LANDING PASSING THE CUSTOMS THE ELEVATED RAILROAD THE SUBWAY THE NEW YORK RUSH AND TRANSIT PROBLEMS THE next morning — a Saturday — De Peys- ter was swinging spickly and spanly down Fifth Avenue toward his chib. He was thinking of his chance acquaintance from San Francisco. No friends had met her the evening before at the New Jersey or tlie New York ferry houses; for, as she had explained, she knew no one in New York and was going to sail straight for France the next noon. She had allowed him to ride up with her to the Hotel Martha Washington, under the regis of whose name lone women are chaperoned from evil appearances. Miss Collis had insisted on paying her own cab-fare, and had almost indig- nantly declined De Peyster's invitation to join him at dinner, theatre or supper. But this morning he still thought of her — a long remembrance for De Peyster. And when he reached his club he passed by on the other 24 z\)c IRcal IRew lOork side. He said to himself that it was the crisp and spicy air, but he knew it was a desire to tempt Fate into a coincidence. He turned aside at what Mr. Henry James would call "the" Thirtieth Street and dawdled by the door of the tall, stern hotel, which, outwardly at least, bears more resemblance to George than to Martha. Several women issued from the door, but De Peyster regarded them with disdain. Then he walked round the block and dawdled past the Twenty-ninth Street entrance. More women — but not the woman. Just ahead of him, however, he thought he saw a familiar form. He doubled his pace. The Form turned down Fifth Avenue. De Peyster hurried after it in most undignified fashion. At length he overtook it. It was Hers. He luffed up along- side and spoke her. *' Lovely day!" She did not look at him. He repeated his observation. She answered sternly, without looking : "I'll call a policeman, sir, if you molest me." "Oh, I say, Miss Collis, have you forgotten me so soon .^" "Why, it's— it's— Mr.— " She had forgot- ten his name, but she put out her hand. He gave her his hand and his name as he lifted his hat. "Where are you going, my pretty maid .^" "Going a-shopping, sir, she sayed." (Betting IRounb 25 "May I go with you, my pretty maid?" "A shopgirl might steal you, sir, she sayed." The antiplional service was getting beyond him. He broke off, "But what about your steamer?" "I sent my trunks to the dock by an express- man, for, as I told you yesterday, even if I miss the steamer, I've simply got to buy some — some things." They strode along to- gether. He liked her because she took long steps and he need not mince to keep pace with her. "Take a little of this New York air with you," said De Peyster. " You'll get nothing like it in Paris. And take along a few yards of this cerulean sky — our own exclusive make." She expanded her athletic chest and said, " The air does taste good!" He went on: "I remember that when I went to Italy I set up a howl, 'Where's that marvel- ous Italian sky I've always read about ?' ' Right over your head,' I was told, * and a particularly fine one this morning, too.' But I answered, ' Why, New York can beat that on a rainy day !' And when William Archer came over from Lon- THEY MEET AGAIN 26 tbe IReal mew l^orh don to inspect us, he said the air was like old sherry with flecks of gold in it. It's a fact, this city has the most beautiful sky in all the world — and the finest climate, bar a week or two of Hades in summer and a few days of Green- land's icv in winter." "It's a little windy to-day," said Miss Collis, who was hanging on to her skirts with one half- paralyzed hand. "Wait till we come to the Flatiron Building!" he said. "There it is, dead ahead of us. Isn't it a beauty ? Some people say it is hideous, but I think it's as perfect, in its way, as the Par- thenon." "Sacrilege!" cried the art student. "What's the Parthenon but a very beautiful shed, built like a wooden barn, only with marble beams and gables and with statuary instead of circus posters pasted on it ? The Flatiron is like a glorious white ship. See ! 'It starts, it moves, it seems to feel the thrill of life along its keel!' And how wonderfully it dresses up the vista! After we lost the Dewey arch, because Dewey gave away the house they gave him, I don't know how we ever used to get along without the Flatiron. You ought to see a side view; it's not so pretty, but very striking." With malice prepense he led her round Madison Square, so that she could cross directly in front of the bows of the skyscraper — or "cloud scratch- er" (Wolkenkratzer) , as the Germans call it. (Bettino IRoimb 27 As they a p p r oach- e d , she noted little groups of men stand- ing in knots at lee-cor- ners. "What are those men watch- mg ? "They're art students and CO n- noisseurs, he said; "though some of them, I think, must be dry- goods men, waiting to learn the newest styles in hosiery." The wind was a zesty breeze elsewhere, but it was a gale r o u n d this building, whose owners were once actually sued for raising such a wind as kept smashing in the plate glass of nearby shops. THE FLATIRON ON A WINDY DAY 28 Zhc 1Rcal mcw) ^ovk "Look at that hat!" cried De Peyster. And Miss Collis saw a tiny derby soaring like a kite as high as the eighteenth or twentieth story of the building. Other hats and newspapers were dancing here and there at the height of a church steeple. But Miss Collis had little time to watch these aeronautics, for she had troubles of her own. She must tuck her chin into her breast to keep her hat from joining the others and tak- ing her hair with it. Indeed, she must bend al- most double to walk at all, and De Peyster had to take her arm to keep the wind from driving her under the wheels of passing cars and cabs. As for her skirts, though she clung to them with both hands, they snapped and swirled about her like a flag in a tempest. She was buffeted into other women, who were trying vainly to keep down appearances ; the skirts of some were actu- ally blown over their heads. But they rounded the dangerous point in safety, and in the lee of the building Miss Collis paused to rearrange her hair and put to her com- panion the momentous question: "Is my hat on straight .f^" "It's just right," he answered, with flattery pouring out of his eyes. Then he added: "By the way, you are now standing on historic ground. This is the point of which some wise man said — even before the Flatiron day — ' More beautiful women pass this spot in one hour than pass any other spot in the world in twenty- ecttlwQ 1Roun& 29 four.' And now that you are passing it, the proverb is forever proved." She paused awhile to watch the parade. It was, indeed, an Olympic sight, a march-past of goddesses, demi-goddesses, nymphs and dryads, with a few specimens of ordinary human femi- ninity thrown in, and a neghgible quantity of mere man. " Compared with these queens and princesses," said De Peyster, *'the English women along Re- gent Street are awkward and badly dressed frumps, the waddlers along the Unter den Lin- den are cattle and the women of Italy are only large-eyed cows. The beauties of France used to rival ours, and even the medinettes of Paris are well gowned, but so are our shopgirls, and New York is now supreme." Here, in a thick current, the daughters of lib- erty and commercial democracy moved in an overwhelming array of beauty. Those who were too poor to wear gorgeous raiment could at least wear frocks well fitted. Those whom nature had not dowered with the grace of form appealed to art to conceal the defects. And almost all car- ried themselves with that easy hauteur that dis- tinguishes the New York woman. They made no hypocrisy of meekness, but marched along alluringly, emphasizing their physical graces by their carriage and gathering their skirts about them with a frankness astounding to the for- 30 Zbc 1Real mew l^orK eigner, inspiring to the sculptor and bewildering to the plain, prim citizen. 'Tor the last few years," said De Peyster, "the costumes of women have been wonderfully beautiful. They always seemed fascinating to me, whatever the style, but they have seemed particularly artistic of recent years." "That's because we're staying close to na- ture," said the art student from San Francisco. "We always used to have to wear some mon- strosity. If it wasn't hoop-skirts, it was a bustle; if it wasn't barrel corsets, it was balloon sleeves. Now the women's costumes follow the lines of the form." "I should say they do!" said De Peyster. "Look at that stunner." One of those big, Juno-like New Yorkesses was passing. Her great hat was a tour de force of beauty; her hair was daringly handled in line and mass; her copious furs did not smother her gracile curves; her walk was defiant yet inviting. She was followed by two long, slender, aris- tocratic Gibson girls, and these by a bevy of Christy creations, Wenzell women, Gilbert graces. Clay dingers, Hutt houris, x\spell allur- ers, Smedley smilers, Stanlaws stunners, Crosby creations and all the other types that have made fame for artists and trouble for mankind. It was almost impossible to find one woman who had not some especial attractiveness of face, form, garb or carriage. The average was amaz- (Bcttino IRounb 31 ingly high, and those who were better than the average were so ravishingly fair that one could imagine himself a grand vizier at an Orien- tal slave- mart, or the conqueror of a great city reviewing the spoils of war. The reason for this wealth of beauty has been perhaps best sought in the mixed blood of the Americans; this mingling of races not only seems to redound to vivacity of mind and charm of mien, but it brings about an unending variety of feature, complexion and personality that for- bids a New York street scene any of that cloying monotony of type that marks the other boule- vards of the world. But, whatever the explana- tion, certain it is that no man ever stood and watched this thronging embarrassment of beauty who could not sympathize with De Peyster when at length he sighed deeply and said, ''Come away! Men have been known to go mad from lingering here too long. This is the rock of the ten thousand Loreleis." They moved on down the stream of woman- kind. As they started to enter one of the big department stores. Miss Collis looked at the clock and gasped: "My steamer! I'll hardly have time to make it. But I must buy those — those things." "I'll come help you," said De Peyster. "No, you won't!" she answered, grimly. "You'll wait here at the door." "You'd better check me; you might lose me." 32 Zbc IReal mcvo l^orft "No such luck," she answered, but she soft- ened the words with a smile. The swinging doors shut her from view, and De Peyster stood in the vestibule, feeling like a fool among so many women. Then he began to be almost afraid, although the battalions of charging Amazons paid no more heed to him than to one another. They stepped on his toes, hit him in the eye with their bundles, walked into him, glared at him — all without a word of regret. He held the door for half a dozen, but, as none of them acknowledged his existence or even looked a "Thank you," he let the rest bunt through as best they could and rejoiced at every one of those rudenesses that only bargain-hunt- resses can inflict. This department store was like all the others in every large city of either continent, for Lon- don has its Whiteley's and Paris its Magazin du Louvre. But the New York shopgirl is perhaps distinguished above her fellows in other places by her contempt for shoppers. She has had a Laura Jean Libbeyral education, and knows that all haughty sliopgirls marry millionaires. The New York salesgirls have had beauty contests in the journals, and one newspaper published a novel, each instalment of which was written by a saleslady — or at least the paper made this claim. And when you see it in a newspa])er, it's so-so. THE CZAR OF THE DEPARTMENT STORE (Betting IRounb 33 Poor Miss Coll is was in a frantic hurry, and with good cause; but, as everyone else showed equal frenzy, the shopgirl was not moved. At last, Miss Collis exclaimed, appealingly: " Would you please wait on me ? I've got to catch a steamer." The sales-duchess only leered at her, shifted her gum to the starboard side and went on in a languid drawl to the cashgirl, who leaned down like a blessed damozel from her shrine while cash-boxes waited unheeded and distant cus- tomers were perishing with tedium. The shop- girl's conversation flowed on in a mellifluous stream : " Well, zize sayn, betchersweet life Idallow no ladifren to come between himman I. So, wen- neesez tumee, 'Ahgwan, Mag!' sezzee, *whadjer givinmi ?' I upsansez, ' Umabe a swell floor- w^alker,' s'l, 'butcherno gent,' s'l." " Onnesdidju .^" exclaimed the cashlady. *'Hopmadyfydiddn," and with a toss of her regal head she carefully manicured her nails, while eleven frantic shoppers gnashed their teeth. "Nizez — no, madam, we're all out of those — I haven't one left." There were half a dozen of Them in front of her, but she must finish lier story. "Nisez — funny how some people butts into a conv'sation, eh, Carrie.^ — Nisez " Miss Collis, by dint of ruthless football tac- tics, elbowed to the coiniter, picked out what she wanted and said, with vitriolic tone: 34 ^be IReal IRevo IPorh "How much are these?" "Nisez " "And I say, how much are these ?" There was murder in her eyes. The shop- girl gave her a scornful glance, sneered the price and turned away. "I'll take them," said Miss Collis, fiercely. "My change, please; I'm in a hurry." A long delay ensued in making out a dupli- cate bill, handing the money to the cashgirl, who took the things dreamily and after a while tied them up, made change with the speed of a lotos-eater and slowly handed them to the sales- lady. Miss Collis grabbed them and fled, while the countess of the counter went blandly on: "Nisez to him " In other departments Miss Collis had the same experiences. By the time she had finished her purchases, the Recording Angel had writer's cramp putting down her mental expressions. When at last she reached the door, she was a bundle of nerves. She carried several other bundles. Poor De Pevster was almost a worse wreck; he was so ashamed of himself for being a mere man and being caught in such a mael- strom of harpies that he even volunteered to carry the bundles. In a New York man this is a sign of mad devotion or incipient softening of the brain. "You'll never catch that boat," he said, an- grily. He was so mad at himself and her that (Betting IRounJ) 35 he almost added, "I'm sorry to say." They were both so distracted with ra^^e that they took the escalator up to the Elevated station. Witli characteristic American hurry, they walked up the moving stairway. They found themselves, of course, on the wrong platform, and were forced to cross the street. De Peyster was so befuddled with bundles that he led her across Twenty-third Street instead of Sixth Avenue, and they climbed only to find themselves again on the same plat- form. He called himself a special kind of fool, and both felt better. They descended again, and at last reached the right station, just in time to have the gates slammed in their faces by a triumphant 2: u a r d . The next train seemed a long while arriving at their starting point and a longer while reaching their destination. Then they ran. They reached the pier, just in time to expel their last breath in a sigli. The steamer was already out in midstream. The people on the dock had even ceased to wave their handkerchiefs at nobody in particular and yell "Bong voyazh" at everybody in general. "My ticket is good for the next boat," Miss "cash!" 36 Cbe IReal IRcw l^orft Collis moaned, disconsolately. *'But it doesn't go for a week." "Will you wait here on the pier for it.?" said De Peyster, weakly, from among his bundles. She withered him with a look and said that he might take her back to her hotel. He cast a farewell glance down the river and exclaimed: "By Jove! there's a steamer coming in. It's the Cedric, and my old friend Calverly — the Honorable John Calverly — is aboard her: younger son of the peerage and all that sort of thing. Let's find your trunks and send them back to your hotel with these bundles, and we'll go watch the Cedric come in. She's one of the biggest passenger steamers in the world. And maybe Calverly and I can cheer you up, Miss CoUis, while you wait for your next steamer." "This is all rather informal," she hesitated. " Nonsense ! A bachelor girl like you can take care of herself in New York for a week, if she's going alone to Paris for a year." What was there to fear.? Who was to know of her bohemianism ? She flung conventional- ity aside and said: "All right, come along." The huge steamer came slowly and gingerly up the river, trying to keep from stepping on any of the mob of tugs. The decks were crowded with voyagers rejoicing to see the land again. The rapture cf passing Sandy Hook, that welcome beacon which says, "The dangers (Bcttino IRount) 37 of tlie sea are ended," the exultation of tlie cruise up the noble Bay to the Narrows, with its two fortresses whose grim engines are hidden behind peaceful green lawns, and then into the harbor of broad waters, the quaint little cheese- box of the Revolution-time fort on Governor's Island, tlie strangeness of the mountain-cluster of tall buildings at tlie lower peak of New Yorl: — a sight radically strange to their Old-World- weary eyes — all these had raised the passengers to a state of almost hysterical joy. Homesick- ness was finished, patriotism took a sudden leap. The delay at Quarantine and the formalities of perjury before the customs officer had only whetted their excitement. As the leviathan was slowly and groaningly persuaded into the slip by the snub-nosed sharks of tugs, the people on the dock were picking out their friends and exchanging trite welcomes and silly jokes in loud, childish voices. De Peyster was a long while making out Cal- verly ; then he waved frantically at him and called him by name. Calverly alone seemed to be ut- terly indifferent to the excitement of landing; indeed, he looked rather bored, and even when he recognized De Peyster he simply flapped his hand, grinned wearily and gurgled: "Helloelloello!" Then he disappeared from the rail. "What will he think of me .^" said Miss Collis. 38 ^be IReal IHew l!)ork "That's true. I'll tell him you're my cousin — if you don't mind." "But aren't we getting along rather fast.^" asked Miss CoUis. "Oh, that's all right. We've only a week ahead of us, and we must make the most of our short honeymoon." "Well, I like that!" she exclaimed. "Good for you; so do I." The gangplank was aboard now, and the passengers, like driven sheep, came catapulting down it into the arms of friends and relatives. One fat man slipped at the top and came down with all fours in air. "Good slide! Keep your base!" sang out a voice in umpire tones. It was A. J. Joyce, the Chicagoan. He was with "Ananias" Blake, to whom he said, cvnicallv, "So that's an ocean liner! Why, it isn't so terrible much bigger than one of our Great Lake steamers." There were the usual meetings of fond souls whom an ocean had divided. Here was one who rushed into the arms of bad news; another who had left London a rich man and found in New York that he was a pauper, the stock market having taken a day off. Here were prim people who kissed like game-cocks trying for each other's wattles; here were young lovers who made no secret of long, lingering osculation. Here was a callow youth who greeted his fond parent with, " Gad, it's a good thing you met (Bcttlno IRoimb 39 me, Guv'nor: I haven't even carfare; came up another companionway to escape tipping the library steward." ''Poker in the smoker?" "Well — er — a little; there was a professional gambler on board, you know." Here was a wo- nian who cried out lovingly to her long- lost husband: "Did you bring me that pearl necklace and those fifty pairs of gloves .^" and the greeting which this Ulysses bestowed on his Penelope was, "Hush, idiot!— the customs officers!" Last of all Cal- verly ambled down and gave De Peys- ter a fishy eye and a fishy fin. "Do you know, it's awf'ly good of you to come; it is really," he moaned. De Peyster said: "May I present you to Miss Collis — my cousin .^" The Chicagoan was preparing to edge in, but when he heard the word "cousin" he looked askance at Blake and fell back, murmuring: "Cousins already! This is no place for us." THE WHITE MAN S BURDEN 40 XLbc IRcal IRcw l^ork Calverly was impatient for the fray. He said : "Come along, old chap! Where shall I have my luggage sent? Any decent 'otels in this vil- age.'' The English have not yet Anglicized hotel; they still spell it with a circumflex, and say ''speciality" — a pronunciation reserved for our illiterates. "We have the best and the w^orst hotels in the world," said De Peyster. "But your lug- gage hasn't been inspected." " But 1 say, old man, I swore to a lot of lingo on the steamer; didn't mention a few things, but — but nobody does, you know." "That doesn't make any difference. They'll have to see for themselves." " Won't take a gentleman's word, eh ? That's needlessly insulting, isn't it ? And it will be very embarrassing if they find those things I neglected, won't it .^" "It's a custom of the country." Calverly looked suspiciously at De Peyster, pondered a moment, then haw-hawed with start- ling abruptness. "Rather good, old fel! Custom of the coun- try— ' custom' ! 1 see that. Really! You Yan- kees have such a sense of humor! They told me I'd no sooner land than you'd begin spring- ing w'eezes on me. But I understood the first one, didn't I ? Oh, I'll get on!" Calverly grew sober as he saw his boxes pried (Betting 1Roun& 41 open and tlie contents rutlilessly ransacked. His amateurish smugij^ling was soon discovered, and he paid handsomely for the *' oversight." To many of the women passengers the scene was more embarrassing, and articles that are rarely sliown except in front of the Flatiron Building were exposed by the lialf-dozen. Some of the women were brought to the edge of tears by this medieval system of border hold-up. How much the fear of detection had to do with the hyster- ics it would be as impolite to sav as it would be to hint that woman is by nature a contra- bandista and would rather smuggle than eat. Calverly had been so long in getting an inspector for his belongings and so deliberate about paying his fine that he was the last to be passed. By this time every cab had )een filled. It would ^ake time to get one by jelephone, so De Peys- ter said: "Better wait till you're strong enough to stand the shock of American cab-tariff. It's just about four times yours. We'll ride up on the Elevated. You'll get a sight of the great democracy in action." A SIDEWALK MERCHANT 42 ^be 1Rcal 1Rcv\) l^ork The first train they caught was packed almost to suffocation, and the leisurely Calverly was for awaiting the next. "Anyone could tell you're no New Yorker," said De Peyster. " In the New Yorker's lexicon there's no such word as 'Next train.'" He led the way; De Peyster had played left tackle at Columbia, and Calverly had been on the Rugby team; so, with Miss Collis between them, they reached the inside of the car. "This is worse than our Tuppenny Tube," said Calverly. "Deucedly good-natured crowd, though. I must have bent in three or four ribs, but nobody complained. Heads would be broken in England." Someone rose and offered Miss Collis a seat, wdiich she took with a smile of recognition. It was the Rev. Mr. Granger, of Terre Haute. With him was Peter Simes, the sweet songster of South Carolina. "It is easv to see that he's no New Yorker," said De Peyster. " How can you tell ? He wears the usual num- ber of limbs and clothes." "Yes, but he got up to give a woman a seat." De Peyster and Calverly were swinging by straps — those poor substitutes for the convenient tails which Evolution lopped off long before she invented modern transit. The Elevated train was packed as only New York cars can be (Betting IRounb 43 packed. Tlie people who had seats were pinned together till their very iliums ached. The mix- ture was such a triumph of democracy as made the English aristocrat shudder, while Mr. Simes looked with such horror at the presence of Ethi- opians in any but a Jim Crow car that almost involuntarily his hand went to his hip-pocket. Here was a well-known millionaire, usually represented in the cartoons by a costume checked w^ith dollar marks. He had not had the time to ride uptown in his automobile. He w^as plas- tered against an Italian laborer who so loved his native soil that he carried his share of it with him. Between him and a profusely built negro washerwoman w^as squashed an exquisitely beau- tiful and perfectly gowned young woman, who might have been the daughter of the millionaire — or his stenographer. Touching on and apper- taining to the negress was an elegantly attired personage, whose black face and shiny eye were the only refutation of his aristocracy. Smudged against him was a messenger boy trying to peer through the elbows that hemmed him in and learn what happened when the Demon of the Gulch reached for his old trusty, and, finding that it was gone, faced with un})lanching cour- age the band of painted redskins, so many of whom he had taught to bite the dust. Next to him was a stockbroker equally absorbed in another work of fiction, an evening paper, which had already sunk each of the Russian ships nine 44 trbc IRcal 1Rcw l^ork times and captured Port Artliur on eleven dis- tinct occasions. Next to the broker was a row of immigrants who had made themselves con- spicuous by getting on early with half a dozen large and microby-looking bundles. Every seat was taken at least once and a half. Of the aisles you could only say that there was still room at the top. The car was a great bas- ket of eels, and men, women and half-smoth- ered children were so packed, melted and poured round each other tliat it would have been out- rageously indecent if decency were anything but a matter of custom. (How would you, madam, like to find yourself suddenly on Fifth Avenue in that bathing suit you wore between prayer meetings at Ocean Grove last summer.?) It w^as a wise passenger that knew his own feet in that mass of scrambled legs. If a man wished to unfold his newspaper, he brushed the glasses off his neighbor's nose; total strangers were rubbing noses like engaged Esquimaux, and unintroduced couples were simply wrapped up in each other. x4s for the platforms, they were worse yet, for there the passengers were pressed, not against the human form divine, but against the iron railino:s. Eventuallv these will be made of rub- ber ropes, but for the present they are unyield- ing, and with every new passenger that pushes in someone sjets a rib twisted or a thorax con- caved. This is why New Yorkers wear that (Bettincj 1Roun& ^s anxious look, which is sometimes attributed to business rush. The Elevated train platform is the daily disproof of a silly axiom to the effect that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Tlie revised axiom is this: There is always room on the train platform for as many more people as there are waiting on the station platform. The so-called "guard" stands a-straddle the coupling pins between cars, and before long he gets his elbows so pinioned to his sides that he can hardlv work the convenient levers of the gates, and he asks someone with a free arm — if such there be — to pull the bell-rope for him. New Yorkers often feel sorry for the trainmen and wonder, '' Who shall guard the guards .?" As for the passengers — they can take care of them- selves. And they deserve all they get, for in the mad struggle to get aboard the first train, and in the deep-seated horror of having to wait ten sec- onds for another train, everybody hangs on by the skin of his teeth or the tip of his nails and postpones breathing till he gets home. Then, when some woman gets scraped off a train and run over and her body is distributed along the track or drops to the street below, everybody blames the railroad and the so-called guard is arrested! Everybody swears at the transit sys- tem and goes on fighting his way into the next train. And everybody, young, old, lame, halt or blind. 46 Zhc IReal IRew l^orft reads for dear life, and mostly evening papers which proclaim with scare-heads in one edition what they deny with small type in the next. The universal custom of reading in this joggling lio-ht is what makes New York the oculist's paradise and the Mecca of the journalists. Then, too, the newspaper is very useful to those men who have a lingering sense of shame ; they can hide behind it when they see a woman standing reproachfully before them — this also is why newspapers are never printed on sheets of convenient size for reading; they are not meant for literature, but for concealment. "You must see some very startling sights from the Elevated," said Calverly, "riding along past people's bedroom windows like this." "No," said De Peyster, sadly, "the 'El' is one of the greatest disappointments of New York. I've watched the windows go by ever since I was a boy; I've always hoped to be shocked, and I'm always nearly shocked, but I've never actually had the pleasure of being really shocked. A lot of women hang out of the windows — the hanging women of Babylon — and you always hope they'll fall, but they never do, though they must grow — well, calloused on their elbows. Now and then you see some wo- men putting up their hair, or families eating dinner in their shirt sleeves, and Sundays most of the men seem to spend at the windows in (Betting IRounb 47 said OIIKER their underclotlies; but there's nothing very en- tertaining about that." "Must be terrible Hving by the 'El," Miss Collis. "You'd think so, but there are so many people who love the noise and the excitement of having something always doing that the rents along the ' El ' are as high as anywhere else. Some of the apart- ments that look right into the trains rent for five or six thousand dollars a year." "I suppose," she said, "they'll be fitting up apartments next in the basements, where people can watch the Subway trains go by." "Stranger things have happened in New York." "But they really ought to take better care of the traffic," said Calverly. "We'd never stand such crowding in London." "It's hard to have a large town without having a lot of people," said De Peyster. "London is a big circle of villages; the traffic can go in all directions. New York is a long, slim lead pencil, and almost all the lines have to run north or south. Everybody goes downtown in the morning. Everybody goes uptown in the even- ing — except Saturday, when there is this early afternoon rush that we have struck. The 48 ^be 1Real IRcw )^ov1x problem will never be solved till New York goes into a decline and moss grows on the asphalt." "I dare say I could solve it some way," said Calverly. "Pity you have been so long in getting here," smiled De Peyster, indulgently. "Several very intelligent men have been lying awake nights for several years, and the problem grows faster than the ideas." "I have been reading some statistics," said a voice. De Peyster and Calverly turned. It was A. J. Joyce, who had stood by unobserved. He read from a clipping he had taken from his pocket. " This paper says that, last year, the combined street railway lines of New York carried twice as many people as all the steam railways of the United States together. The Elevated carried, in one day last April, 917,060 passengers, the surface lines, on May 9th, over 1,700,000. The Interborough carried 246,587,022 passengers in 1903, an increase of 31,000,000 over 1902." The Chicagoan looked up, expecting to see the two men swooning. "You have a penchant for statistics," said De Peyster, coldly. "Well, I can't say I have exactly a ponchon, but I have a leaning that way. They call me 'St'istics' at home," said Joyce. „^« „^^v»™»,^.4W»M™'»»~«i»>»il<«(«l^^^ >" "^ijS'VsjV* AT THE CUSTOM HOUSE Chapter III THE BEAU MONDE THE WALDORF; A REVOLVING DOOR PEACOCK ROW THE PEOPLE IN THE CORRIDORS — ^THE BALL-ROOMS AND DINING-ROOMS OSCAR THE UNI- VERSITY club; its dining-room the LYCEUM THEA- TRE A NEW YORK AUDIENCE SUPPER AT THE SAVOY A MIDNIGHT SPIN THROUGH CENTRAL PARK RIVERSIDE DRIVE AND MORNINGSIDE PARK UNDER THE STARS ^ ^ T SAY, 'Pie" -Calverly loved to call the X proud American by the name of the humiliating national dish — "I say, Pie, where are you taking me, anyway ? This is the deuce of a distance, isn't it rather?" "Thought we'd try the Waldorf-Astoria," said De Peyster. *'The Waldorf-Astoria, as the fellow said in the song, eh?" said Joyce, playfully punching De Peyster in the ribs. De Peyster, like the usual native of New York, abhorred a Chicagoan; but he loathed a rib- poker. So he gave Joyce a jolt with his own elbow that knocked all his breath out. But Joyce imagined that the cataclysm was simply due to an ordinary rush for the door, so he thought nothing of it; for just then the guard's voice came in faintly : "Toity-thordStriV." '' Whatever did the brute sav ?" asked Calverly. 4 50 Zbc IRcal mew ^ovh " Thirty-third Street," said De Peyster. '' We get out here." De Peyster was wondering how to take care of both the San Franciscan and the Londoner. But Miss CoHis said she had never seen the Waldorf-Astoria, and toddled along. Calverly stared up at the enormous double hotel, which resembles nothing so much as a huge iceberg of gingerbread — what Lewis Carroll would have called a "gingerberg" — mouse- nibbled here and there at the top. "Big enough to hold the whole population," said Calverly. "Probably not a room left," said De Peyster. They went under the iron canopy, which, at night, with its spatter of electric lights, is a little Milky Way. They slid into a rapidly revolving door, where everyone enters between the spokes and where Calverly, crowding in with De Peys- ter, walked all over his heels and got himself bumped from abaft with annoying familiarity. As the trio gathered themselves together on the safe side of the propeller screws, a human being was projected into their midst (as the New York Sun would not say), and they heard the siren voice of the Chicagoan. "Whenever I go into one of those machines," he said, "I expect to come out a sausage." "Naturally," observed De Peyster, in an extra dry tone, as he led his flock away. "I wonder if he meant anything by that," Z\K ffieau fll^on^c ^i said the Chicagoau to his friend, "Ananias," who answered: " What a New Yorker says never means any- thing; or, if it does, forget it. Let's have a drink." He steered the Chicagoan into the big cafe where there were tall-hatted men enough to give the scene an English look. Blake consented to repeated experiments in the irrigation problem, but, when he perceived the waiter menacing with the check, he saw, or said he saw, an important interviewer and rushed away, returning when he observed that the Chicagoan had paid the bill. "Say," said Joyce, "when he gave me the bill I thought it was a mortgage on the hotel. I feel as if I'd had one of my wisdom teeth pulled. I tell you there's a large, vacant chair in my pocketbook." But Blake insinuatingly led his victim to the cigar-stand, where Joyce slid up and down try- ing to discover something at about six for a quar- ter — just to show that he was not yet bankrupt. He finally bought six for a quarter — apiece. He staggered out, saying to Blake, "I'd like to take a long breath of this air. D'you suppose I can afford it.^ Will a policeman hand me a bill for it r "You've got your pocketbook left, haven't vou ? You don't know when you're luckv," said Blake, leading him away to other conspiracies 52 ^be IRcal IRew l^ork for the divorce of the old partnership of Mr. Fool and Miss Money. Meanwhile, De Peyster and his twain had sauntered down the lobby of Russian and Italian marbles, with its decorations by C. Y. Turner. This corridor, called *' Peacock Alley," was mot- THE WALDORF-ASTORIA CAFE ley with people, of whom you could only say that they all seemed to have money and to handle it with a careful carelessness. Here were opu- lent Westerners with the ore still clinging to their gold; here were evident outsiders who had drifted in with a wild sense of extravagance, and who looked as if they were expected to put a gold dollar in a slot at every step. Pages were flitting about, murmuring the numbers of rooms or the names of guests who had been called for. "Is this New York society.?" asked Calverly, raonocling the crowd. "Not much of it," objected De Peyster. "It's Z\K Beau fiDonbc 53 like New York's bohemia. A lot of commer- cial men take their cloak mmlels to a cheap res- taurant, drink and eat cheap things from un- clean linen and glass and look at one another in wonderment, and everybody says of everybody else in mutual admiration, 'Those are the bo- hemians!' So it is in this place; a good many of the people are Western parvenus. They sit round and stare at one another, savinc:, ' Those are the Four Hundred.' x\s Oliver Herford said, this hotel was built for the purpose of * purvey- ing exclusiveness to the masses.' Of course, there are always some of the real people here; but they are few to begin with and they don't usually look the part. New York society people are like those of every other metropolis; they're quiet, simple, usually plain and stupid, rather tired of their money and rather cautious of it from force of habit and a fear of looking osten- tatious. "You'll see a lot of notables here, however. The Congressmen from Washington have made this their headquarters for their little jaunts, and the politicians follow the statesmen. The 'Amen Corner' of the former ' Easv Boss,' Senator Tom Piatt, is at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but it'i5 losing some of its power. The Waldorf is very gay when foreign dignitaries come to this country, for they usually stop here. Li Hung Chang's yellow silk dragon flag fluttered from the hotel when he was here in state, and he had a body- 54 ^be IRcal mew ^ov\\ guard from the town's crack cavalry, Squadron A. Prince Henry of Germany flung out his black eagle here, too. The hotel is, perhaps, all told, the greatest in the world, but its fame brings the mob, and almost anybody is as likely to be nobody as somebody." They went to the desk, a long parabola with a large corps of clerks, who, with indefatigable cheerfulness, answer the most idiotic questions and pass the inquirer down the line. There is a separate group of clerks for every need, and a separate desk where waiting cards are shot through snappy pneumatic tubes to all the six- teen floors, whence they are carried by the pages of each floor to any of the hotel's one thousand rooms. The hotel accommodates about one thousand four hundred people and employs about one thousand four hundred servants to keep them happy. Besides its guest rooms it has forty public rooms. The royal suites rent for $500 a day, and the payment of $100 to $150 a day for a suite is not uncommon. As De Peyster feared, there was not a room to be had. He started to leave, but, noting that Miss Collis, while trying to act as if she had known the place from infancy, was really de- vouring the scene, suggested they should look round a bit before leaving. He obtained per- mission to visit the grand ball-room from a clerk who called him by name and possessed a mirac- ulous, directory-like memory that would have Z\K Beau flI>on&c ^5 made a President of any hand-shaking poli- tician. The grand ball-room is more imposing for its size and splendor than for any artistic influence. It has its own series of anterooms and stairways to the double tier of boxes. The ceiling, by Edwin H. Blashfield, has a soft radiance of its own; but the score of ovals by Will H. Low do not reveal him at his best; the figures repre- sentino; the nations are all of them academic in pose and color, save, perhaps, Ireland. "Here they've had some gorgeous balls; and this room and the grand ball-room at Sherry's divide the glory of the town. It was at Sherry's that one horsey man gave a dinner not long ago to his hunt club, with every guest seated on a horse, while he ate. Talk about your crazy pastimes of Roman emperors! They have big banquets in these ball-rooms, too, and the women sit in the boxes. They have to endure the sight of the men busily eating and drinking, and then they must keep awake while after-dinner speak- ers administer their conversational bromides. They have lectures here, too, and concerts and amateur theatricals, such as the Strollers' annual show, which lasted a week and had an English duke in the cast. And college fraternities have banquets here and make the hotel rock with the yells of rival chapters." From the grand ball-room the trio went to the Colonial dining-room and then to the Myrtle 56 iTbc IRcal mew l^orh Room used for weddings and wedding-break- fasts, though Delmonico gets most of these. The Astor gallery, however, is the jewel of the hotel; it is used for small dances, lectures and the like; it is a snowy replica of the Soubise ball-room in Paris, save for the twelve panels of Edward Sim- mons, who has furnished the town with many of its best mural triumphs, but was never happier than in the ecstatic spirit of these seasons and months — rapturously beautiful women who live in a heaven of color. These and Robert Blum's beatific masterpieces on the walls of Mendels- sohn Hall are an honor to the country. The three visitors leaned on the marble railing and gazed down into the palm room, where there was a pretty al fresco effect. Miss CoUis sighed : "Those people seem to be eating some aw- fully nice things. Yum-yum!" Calverlv said: t/ "I say. Pie, isn't it about tea time.?" "If the customs officers had seen that you brought the tea habit in with you, they'd have confiscated it. Do you really want tea.?" "Rathurr!" said Calverlv, with emphasis. "Come along, then. First we'll take a peep in the large dining-room. It's a little cold, or we could take tea on the roof." As they stood in the doorway of the long and lofty dining-room, a substantially built person of evident importance nodded to De Peyster and called him by name. Z\K Beau flDonbe ^7 "Who's that great man?" said Miss Collis. "That's Oscar, the major-domo," said De Peyster, in an awestrnck voice. "And to be rec- ognized by him is considered one of the highest honors a New Yorker can aspire to." Then they sought a table under a sheltering palm. Calverly ordered tea with minute and threatening directions. Miss Collis hesitated. De Peyster said: "I am going to have a Scotch highball. You can have one, too, in a tea-cup; though many of the women, as you see, are drinking theirs openly." "Shocking!" said Miss Collis. "Aristocratic women smoke in the hotel cor- ridors at English watering-places," said De Peyster. "Oh, come, now. Pie!" said Calverly. "I've seen it," said De Peyster, firmly; "and so have you. iVnd look here, Calverly, if you don't quit calling me Pie, I'll call you Calf. What shall we do to-night ? Shall we dine to- gether somewhere.^" Miss Collis shook her head sweetly. "Then we must all go to the theatre some- where." "I have no chaperon," she said. "Nonsense! you don't need one," sniffed De Peyster. "I have no chaperon," she repeated, and her quiet pride took on such an angelic look that 58 Zbc IRcal mew IPork De Peyster, after staring her through and through, cast off certain liopes he had cherished of a swift flirtation, and said: "I know a woman who will be glad to go along." " Who is she ?" asked she, keeping her eyes fastened on him. His look fell before hers, and he changed his plans once more. When he looked up again he faced her with admiring eyes and said: "My mother." She breathed very deeply, reached over and pressed his hand. lie saw that her long eyelashes were suddenly wet. "I am all alone, you know," she said. Calverly was too deep in his tea to notice anything; he broke in again w^ith his native charm: " Where am I going to stop, I wonder ?''' De Peyster was staring at Miss Collis so hard that Calverly had to repeat his question. Then De Peyster came back to earth and said: "I'd be glad to have you come to my house." "Oh, I hate visiting, and I'm a terrible nui- sance round a house." "No doubt," said De Peyster; "then I can put you up at one of the clubs for two weeks and at another for the next fortnight, and so on." A NEW YORKER (Ibc J6cau fIDonbc ^^ Tliis was acceptable, and they agreed that they woukl all go to the theatre together. De Pevster called a cab, and they went first to Miss Collis's hotel. De Peyster helped her out, and as they stood at the door she said : ''We'd better call the theatre idea off. I'm only in the way." "In the way of being the most charming — " De Peyster began. "None of that," she smiled. "But you see there'll be a terrible contretemps. You told Mr. Calverly I was your cousin. He'll surely blurt it out to your mother." "He's sure to," said De Peyster, puzzled. Then he brightened. "I have a sister who's a true sport. I'll tell her the whole story, and she'll like you immensely, and she'll talk Cal- verly to death, while I listen to you." So they shook hands and parted for the nonce. The two men drove up to the University Club. The granite castle, with its decoration of the carved shields of all the larger colleges, impressed the Englishman greatly. The central hall, with its superb columns, and the pomp of the vast reading-room overwhelmed him. The swift up- ward shoot of the elevator almost floored him, and the rich furnishings of his own room took his breath away. "I shall be no end comfy here," he said. While he dressed for dinner, De Peyster was away for home and his own toilet. The pros- 00 ^be IRcal IRcw l^ork pect of going to the theatre with the Englishman silenced any protests the yonnger Miss De Peyster might have made against the mysterious Miss Collis, and her brother hurried back to dine with Calverly. As they entered the lofty-ceiled dining-room of the club, with its almost musical harmony of sumptuous woodwork and soft tapestries, Cal- verly stared like a yokel. "By Jove, there's not a palace in Europe with as fine a dining-room as this. It's simply su- pebb, you know; simply supebb." After a dinner that even an English bulldog could not growl over, they found the De Peyster automobile aw^aiting them. They picked up Miss De Peyster and then scudded to the hotel for Miss Collis. When she appeared Miss De Peys- ter reached out of the dark of the carriage and called her ''My dear cousin" in a way that ended formality. And so to the New Lyceum Theatre. Here Miss Collis broke into open raptures as she looked up and saw along the cornice a row of great braziers, from which floated clouds of steam, lighted up by unseen incandescent globes till the vapor seemed like sacrificial flames burn- ing frankincense to the muses of the drama. Calverly complained that the audience looked only half-dressed with none of the women in decollete, until IVIiss De Peyster reminded him that England is the only European country where Z\K Beau flDon5c 61 women shiver in bare skin and sealskin at the theatre. The })lay was Barrie's snbtle weft of faneiful comedy and realistic tragedy, ''The Admiral)le Crichton," with William Gillette as the butler who was a king in a midocean island and a hopeless menial in democratic P^ngland. Calverly had seen the play in London with a native cast. lie could not help saying: "Crichton on the island re- minds me of — what's his name — Kino: Oscar of the Wal- dorf." After the theatre they drove to the Savoy and took supper under the low but gorgeous ceil- ing of its dining-room. The problem of w^hat to eat pro- voked Calverly to grumble: " Why don't they serve a table d'hote supper, as they do in London at the Carlton .^" "Because we come nearer being civilized here," said Miss De Peyster. "I'll never for- get the first time I saw an English mob of after-theatre gourmands tackle a regular supper served in courses! I can still see that scrawny old decollete dowager taking hot soup — at that hour!" "Another thing," said De Peyster; "we're not MATCHES MARY 62 z\K IReal new ^ov\\ treated like children here. They don't scold us and send us to bed at half-past twelve, as they do in England. Think of the way they begin turning the lights out on you in London before you've half-started to eat!" Calverly decided to get off the dangerous sub- ject of international argument. He said: ** What kind of a bird is terrapin, and who is this man Maryland it's named after .^" After they had over-eaten sufficiently, as they stepped out of the Savoy the night was so starry and so mild and the Plaza lay so fair before their eyes, with its three giant hotels, that sleep seemed a waste of life. To their right stretched the black forest of Central Park. De Peyster proposed a midnight excursion, and all agreed. The automobile dashed past the splendid and moving statue of General Sherman, a special life seeming to imbue the golden forward urge of rider and horse, and of the Victory, their scout. Through the velvet gloom of the tree-bordered drives they swept, every curve opening some new vista of dream. ''It's a little late to see the grand army of spooners," said De Peyster. " At an earlier hour every bench has its loving couple, hugging and whispering for dear life. It's a great place for love-making. This Park is a masterpiece of landscape gardening, too. It was the lifework of Frederick Law Olmstead, and Tammany paid ^bc Beau nl^on^c 63 for it. That's why New York forgives Tam- iiiaiiy so inueh. Central Park is as different from Hyde Park or Regent's Park or the Bois de 13oulogne as day from night. They are fiat and barren compared with tlie ups and downs and the countless graceful shapes of this place. Fortunately, it's too dark for you to see the statues. Some of them are the worst on earth." *'AYhat would you Americans do without superlatives ?'' said Calverly, wearily. "We'd have nothing to live for," said De Peyster. "We are always after the biggest things going, and when we haven't them, we claim them anyway." The automobile swept out of the Park at Sev- enty-second Street and crossed to Riverside Drive. Here the miglity Hudson burst upon their view, and the long avenue, now almost deserted, was filled with silence and epic poetry. The houses along one side were all of ambitious architecture, and, in the dark, they made a rich white wall three miles long. The other side was all trees and terraces down to the river banks. Across the wide floor of the Hudson, glistening with eddies and streaked currents, the Palisades reared their dim heights and led the eye into a distance of majestic beauty. The marble tower of the Soldiers and Sailors' Monument rose in ghostly white, and seemed a smaller prelude to Grant's Monument. This 64 Zhc IRcal IRcw J^orft big tomb lost much of its rigidity in the en- velopment of night, and its succession of square Doric base, circle of Ionic columns and pyramidal dome lifted the soul to an exal- tation. ''Just opposite this tomb," said Miss De Peys- ter, tenderly, "is the little grave of an ' amiable child,' a poor little boy five years old, who died in 1797. The grave has not been ^ disturbed, and it seems less lonely %^ now lying so close to General Grant and his wife." After a long and silent in- breathing of the loftiness of the scene. Miss CoUis murmured: "It is more beautiful even than the Golden Gate." This is a San Fran- ciscan's last tribute. Now De Peyster ordered the chauffeur to turn into Morning- side Heights. From the parapet they looked no longer on the calm of the Hudson, but on the checkerboard of city squares outlined in chains of light. Even the serpentine trestle of the Elevated road had a grace in this half-day, and the massive arch of the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine rose in a solemn, gray rainbow of stone. THE KANGAROO WALK i; ' Zlbe Beau fIDonbc 65 There was an awesome uplift in thus contem- plating the sleeping city from its acropolis under a black crystal globe of sky; it moved even Calverly to say: "I'll have to borrow some of your superla- tives. I've knocked about the globe a bit, but I've never seen in all the world so — so — well, so godlike a promenade for mortals as this ride through Central Park and Riverside Drive and Morningside Heights. The drive about the hills of Florence overlooking the Arno is very fine, but it is tame beside this." There was no protest from the others ; and the automobile went spinning down the steep incline of One Hundred and Tenth Street, whence it dived again into the deep luxuries of Central Park, and sped through its miles of woodland into that long aisle of palaces and temples, Fifth Avenue, where the Cathedral held up the high beauty of its twin frosty spires to the clear, dark sky, bejeweled with constellations and royal planet-gems. As he bade Miss Collis good-night De Peyster clung to her hand perhaps longer than was strictly necessary, and said: "May I ask what you — plan for to- morrow .^" "It's Sunday; I suppose I might go to church. Are there any churches in New York .?" " We have a few, concealed in odd points of the town. Mav I call for vou to-morrow ?" 66 ^be IReal IRew l^orh iVll right," she said, cheerily, and he laughed: Good-night — cousin." Chapter IV THE GAMBLERS THE " LID " CHICAGO'S STREETS AND NEW York's — when the town was "wide open" — LIFE UNDER THE LID THE BARROOMS A FREE "lunch" THE PRIZE-FIGHTERS AS HOSTS THE LATE STEVE BRODIE GAMBLING RUNNING THE GANTLET — MAGNITUDE OF THE SPORT EXCHANGES AND BUCKET-SHOPS WOMEN AS GAMBLERS CANFIELD'S PALACE PLAYING THE RACES A TYPICAL POOLROOM A RAID A RIDE IN THE PATROL WAGON AT THE SIGN OF THE GREEN LAMP-POSTS ANEW word has passed into the lexicon of New Yorkers. It is years since "the Tenderloin" was slang, and the police captain who, on being assigned to that vivacious district about Twenty-eighth Street, thought of it as juicy with graft and spoke of it as "the Tender- loin of the city," little knew that he was creat- ing a classic symbol. The newest mintage comes from a preacher, the Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, to whom New York has been indebted for so much relief from ennui. Speaking with despair of the city's intermittent fevers of political reformation and deformation, he said that when, on January 1st, 1904, Mayor Low should lead the Citizens' Union out and Mayor McClellan lead the Tammany Tiger in, "New York would be hell with the lid off." At 68 Zhc IReal mew l^orft these words the truly virtuous sat back and held tight, while the industriously vicious plucked up new hope. But both were disappointed, and month followed month w^ith no visible lifting of the cover. New York saw no hell-broth at all, but only the lid— everywhere the lid. So "the lid" it is and will remain. Now, the Chicagoan had heard of this lid, and he poked fun at 131ake for living in a town with such kindergarten virtues. ''Better put blue goggles on your old Statue of Liberty," said Joyce, contemptuously, ''and turn her torch into a candle; she is going up to bed at nine o'clock with her hair in curl-papers. Now, Chicago is no nursery; it may be wicked, but we all recite 'Curfew Shall Not Ring To- ^'night!' and citizens who stay out after dark don't get spanked." "No," said Blake; *'they get sandbagged. If I were from Chicago, I wouldn't insist on drag- ging the condition of her streets after dark into the conversation, any more than I'd speak of smoke if I came from Pittsbui'g, or mosquitos if I had escaped from Paterson, N. J. But when you talk of New York as being childishly virtu- ous, you are indulging in flattery. "Did you ever see an old, dead log lying all quiet in the grass without a sign of life, and then did you ever lift it up and see the squirming vermin and the riotous times that had been go- ing on all the while ? There may be a lid on ilbc (Batnblcre 69 New York; but under the lid — well, there's some- thing doing. The lid's a good idea, too; there's no reason why we sliould have vice parading with a brass band and red lights. We don't want the thugs to make the streets dangerous, as they do in Chicago, and we don't want the women to turn Broadway into a toll-road, as the London women have done with Piccadillv. We've been through all that. "A few years ago I saw things in this town that would turn the stomach of a later Roman emperor: dives opening right on the street, with little wicker doors that children could look under and see the dancing and sing- ino' and rowdv talk and be- havior of old harridans and young girls recruited to the trade by the 'cadets.' That's what the town runs to when the lid is off, or, as we used to say, when she is ' wide open.' "You'll find thousands of well-behaved men who say that the lid ought to stay off, because the smell of the stew brings people from all over the country — people who spend money right and left, people like you, who flock here just to see something worse than the tame, old, everyday vices of your home industries. New York is like Paris and Old Dog Tray in suffering from the ANANIAS BLAKE 70 Zhc IRcal mew J^oik quality of its friends. In the lowest resorts of Paris nearly all the visitors speak English or American ; then they go away and roast the city for the evil that is concocted almost wholly for foreign consumption. "But there is no danger of this town simmer- ing down to 'yarb tea,' lid or no lid; although it is just as well not to let the odor and the gleam out into the open air to excite the curiosity of children and well-meaning grown-ups. Under the lid there's still a hot time in the old town every night, and the visitor can find almost any- thing to suit his idiosyncrasy, provided he can get an introduction of some kind. And the in- troduction is easily managed, if you can only show that you are not a policeman or a detective. So long as your intentions are truly dishonest the entree is easily found to almost any part of the world, from demi down to four below zero." The two men were drifting about town. It was Saturday afternoon, and Blake had a little leisure. He was one of those who believe that a "barroom education" is a necessary post- graduate course to any schooling. The Chi- cagoan confessed a fondness for the same alma mater. The first place Joyce asked to be led up to was, of course, the Hoffman House bar, long famous throughout the country for its high prices and the high flavor of the paintings on its walls. Nudes like these would mean nothing at the Metropolitan Art Gallery, but here they are Zbc 6ainblcr6 7i sinister. A few vears back it was a rare comic paper tliat omitted some variant on the story of the farmer who was told that the cause of the costliness of the Hoffman House liquids was the costliness of the oil paintings on the side. He came in the next time wearing a horse's blinders. All the large hotels have their bars, some of them a mere chaos of frippery, others works of decorative art showing unity of design and often a historic or artistic value. The Hotel Im- perial has a finely painted old Knickerbocker bowling scene. At some of these places a free lunch is served of surprising quality. Judging by the prices for the same things in the restau- rant of the same hotel, the profit is hard to understand. You pay ten cents for a glass of beer and you tip the waiter ten cents. For his ten cents the waiter brings you a napkin, a fifty- cent slice of roast beef, twenty-five cents' worth of potatoes, ten cents' worth of beets, five cents' worth of bread and ten cents' worth of cheese. The proprietor and the waiter get the same re- turn, but out of his ten cents the proprietor pays the waiter's wages, the cost of the beer, the food, the breakages, the rent, the furniture, the linen, the laundry and the insurance. After zigzagging more or less faithfully down the line, the Chicagoan felt impelled to call on the eminent barkeepers who are reformed prize- fighters. John L. Sullivan once swung his shingle on Sixth Avenue, and it seemed to square 72 z\K IRcal IRcw IDorh off at that of Corbett a few blocks lower. But both bars are closed now, though "Kid " McCoy and Thomas Sharkey and Ernest Roeber, the wrestler, still receive guests at certain glittering palaces. Steve Brodie, too, is gone, though his famous place on the Bowery still flourishes. The New York Su7i claimed Mr. Brodie did not make the famous dive from the Brooklyn Bridge, as he claimed; but it seems that a man would be likely to remember whether or not he actually took such a step. In any case, a number of others have made the distance with more or less fatal results, and Brodie found thousands to believe his claim. From being a bootblack he marched, via the dime museum, to glory as a saloon-keeper, a lender of umbrellas to poor women on rainy days, an owner of real estate in New York, and finally a star in a play w^here. on every night of the week and twice on Satur- days, he dived off Brooklyn Bridge into the mat- tress — I mean the dark waters far below and rescued the kidnapped heiress who had been thrown over by the villain in evening dress. Brodie's saloon is covered, ceiling as well as walls, with old prints of old kings of the ring — a genuinely fine gallery of heroes. But Joyce grew tired of inspecting the bar- rooms. His soul, no 'onger parched, now panted for excitement. "Is there any place," he asked, "where a true Z\K <5ainblcr6 73 sport can put a little bet on a horse or take his chances with a wheel ? Does this town support any games of chance except trying to cross the street-car tracks? Or have the police got the whole fraternity scared ?" Blake grinned pityingly, and answered: "Why, it's the police that make gambling worth while in New York. Who enjoys the cir- cus most— the boy who asks his father for a quarter, gets it and walks in at the main en- trance, or the boy who crawls under the tent and runs the risk of being hit by a peg-driver's mallet on the outside or of finding himself under the elephant's feet on the nside ? "Out in Chicago, at Monte Carlo and other places, you walk into the spider's parlor like a nice little fly. In New York the actual betting is the least part of the fun. Getting inside is the whole game. It's like storming an old-time castle. There's a moat and a portcullis and a postern gate and iron bars and bolts on every gambling place in New York. Then the police may pay an informal call at any minute, and they use everything but a Gatling gun to get in- side. We Americans laughed at the Paris police some years ago when a few Jew-baiting editors fortified their printing shop and defied the authorities for a few days. But New York has places that are prepared with heavy iron doors, guarded windows and sentinels, and have held out for months. The police, knowing that Zhc IRcal IHcw l^ork gambling was being done, have been unable to collect that positive evidence which a court of justice requires. "Sometimes the police try to scare away the customers. They back a patrol wagon up in front of the place and ring the gong; or they station uniformed men there to warn visitors off. But it doesn't work. "The police exhaust every means to get into these places, so as to catch the gamblers actually at play. They have detectives go out of town, come back, live at a fashionable hotel, spend money freely till they attract the attention of some * runner' for a gambling house and are approached as victims. Once inside the detect- ive gambles and loses till he learns where the layout would be hidden in time of raid and everything else that is necessary. Then he re- turns another time with other detectives, whom he introduces as his friends, and they yell ' Hands up!' at the proper moment. One of the detect- ives recently lost $400 at gambling before he got enough evidence. Another managed to get hold of a pass-key. "Sentinels and patrols guard all the ap- proaches to these buildings. Others stay near THE PRETZEL PEDLER police lieadquarters, and a general alarm goes out every time the patrol wagon stirs. '* Sometimes the proprietor is desperate and meets force with force. One man, Tom O'Brien, on West Thirty-sixth Street, drew a chalk mark on his stoo]) and dared the plain-clothes men to cross the dead line. He threatened to have the police arrested as burglars. " ' Is there any gambling in New York ?' you ask. Why, there's almost nothing else. Every incoming steamer has its smoking-room filled with men who have seen scarcely a wave since they left the other side and neither know nor care how near they are to this side, except as they make up their pools on the day's run. Every train, speeding along some spoke toward the hub of New York, has its little game. The commuters cutting across the Jei'sey meadows play cards in the smoking-car, and little social clubs shuffle and deal through the tunnel to the Grand Central Station on their way to business. One train from Philadelphia carries a special club car. ''At lunch time all over town the office clerks skimp their midday meal to steal into a pool- room to bet on a horse race taking place in New Orleans, or they hang over a stock ticker and wonder whv the marerin is ahvavs on the other side of the sheet. "In the afternoon it is billiards or pool, for money or drinks. After dinner, to the club, 7<> Zhc IRcal IHcw ll)ork where a man loses his identity under a green e} eshade ; where conversation becomes a lost art ; daybreak is the finish; the ceiling the limit; and the man who says more than 'I have openers,' or 'A little sweetening for the Kitty,' or 'That's good !' is voted a gabbler. What money the wife has won playing bridge all day the husband loses playing poker all night. " The great Stock Exchange is only a big gam- bling hell, somewhat more sumptuously quar- tered than the smaller hells. Then there is the limbo of 'the Curb,' where the speculator's office is the space between his umbrella and his rub- bers. They tell of a pickpocket who collected nine watches on his way downtown, passed along the Curb and found he was shy six chro- nometers. x\ll New York is sprinkled with branch offices of the recognized brokers and the bucket-shops of the unelect. There is usually a special department for the 'business women.' They have no semblance to the willows that bend and murmur over the streams where Huy- ler's ice-cream soda flows. These women do not talk of clothes, nor of their neighbors. Their speech is of this sort: '"Hello, Kate! I heard you got squeezed in cotton.' '"No; the trouble with me was, I was long on Consolidated Gas.' " There are numberless other forms of gam- bling and numerous other, exchanges, hand- ^bc ^amblcre 77 somely li o ii s e d , such as the Prod- uce, the Mercan- tile,- the Coffee, Cotton, Maritime, Metals, Coal a n d 1 r o n , Real Est ate. Build- ing Ma- t e r i a 1 and Horse Exchanges. In all of them some actual business is done; it is the cake of soap from which the speculators' bubbles are blown. The chief V o lume of trade is the g a m - bling in f u t ures A GAMBLER IX FUTURES with margins for chips. This big game is verv easily un- derstood and played; a man simply sells what he hasn't got to a m a n who doe sn't want it, and when the time comes he pays or col- lects the mar- m\\ of differ- ence between the p ]' i c e which it never was and the price which it is not (^- now. ^-T h e o n 1 y real 78 ^be IRcal IHcw Wov\{ thing about it is the money that is lost; and, as a new lamb is born every minute, there is always plenty of mint sauce. But these methods are, by common consent, called business. The word gambling is reserved for more definite and material games, in which at least the trick wheel, the brace box, the loaded dice and the marked cards are real, while the technic of the artists is beyond dispute. These games range from craps to Canfield's. If you come properly introduced you can play in the dingy, smelly room of a rear tenement, where the Ethiopian runs his policy shop and the col- ored sportsmen "ply the gigs," losing their money, but never their faith in dreams, in rabbits' rear feet or in chance combinations of numbers. Or you can, if properly intro- duced, revel in roulette or anything else while you loll in the sumptuous fauteuils of Mr. Phil Daly. The dean of the gambling faculty is Richard Canfield, Esquire, who receives select guests in a fortified castle on East Forty-fourth Street. You can tell it by the beautiful marble pillars. You may be able to get a card of introduction from some gentleman at your club, and if you once pass the strong door you will find a home where ino^enious sleio-ht of hand is not the onlv art w^ell cultivated, for the furnishings are im- peccable and the pictures and objects of vertu show masterlv connaissance* ^bc ^ainblcre 79 Mr. Canfield was a friend, an uiiderstander and a patron of the late Mr. Whistlei*. Among the gems he has collected of that master's art is a portrait of a gambler-king — himself. It was often publicly exhibited and admired as the '* Por- trait of a Gentleman," but the proposition to show it over its own name at the Whistler Me- morial Exhibit last winter excited Boston even more than did the two fig-leafless boys whom Saint-Gaudens plastered on their Library, or Macmonnies's tipsy and ungarmented Bacchante whom they banished. In fact, these three inci- dents have furnished Boston its only true ex- citement since the Tea Party. Mr. Canfield is a figure of national impor- tance, and has reached tlie dignity of being chal- lenged to a legal duel by the District Attorney, William Travers Jerome, another personage of New York importance. Mr. Jerome accused Mr. Canfield of winning no less than $450,000 from the *' half-drunken cub" of a multi-million- aire. This masterpiece of haute fjiance, he said, was put through in a few evenings. The Dis- trict Attorney called on the whole State Legis- lature at Albany to pass a law for Mr. Can- field's special benefit; but Mr. Canfield, they say, appealed to a still higher power, the lobby. And at least one Senator made an almost tear- ful speech against any infringement of consti- tutional rights, as if the Constitution had been drawn up especially for Mr. Canfield's sake. 80 Zhc IRcal IRcvo ^ov\\ There is something magnificently feudal and ba- ronial in a war like this, and Mr. Canfield may soon be found running for Congress. Now, "Ananias" Blake had the entree at Can- field's, for everyone knows that a newspaper re- porter can be relied on to keep a secret if he promises. So Blake took Joyce throitgh the marble pillars. He pointed out clubmen and social figures who have a national fame as Among-Those-Pres- ent, till Joyce felt as if he were actually getting into society. The splendor of the furnishings smote him with awe, and the dishes served by the chef were evidently appropriate to the bou- quet of the wines. Joyce had a wild desire to gamble, till he noticed some of the stakes. He admired, like Cyrano de Bergerac, the ''ges- ture" with which an old plutocrat tossed a bill of unheard-of denomination on a red or a black square; but it loosened his knees to see the croupier rake it in for the good of "the house." In a few minutes he felt very cold at the ex- tremities, and weakly asked Blake to lead him away and wake him up. Once outside he had just breath enough to use the words of the prize- fighter who has received a dent in his solar plexus : "I am hopelessly outclassed." Blake grinned, and said: "Can I show you something a little less fancy .f^" Joyce took courage to assent, and Blake led him to a restaurant on Sixth Avenue, where he ON THE RIALTO Z\)c iBamblere si told the proprietor tliat he had a friend who felt foolish. The proprietor went to the telephone and soon returned, saying: "A man will be right over to steer you up against it." Joyce felt an ominous Ides-of-March sound in the last three words, but he dared not withdraw. While they waited, Blake sermonized: "There are all kinds of pool games in town. The police pay so many calls that the handbook men have been kept busy. They carry their offices in a hat, and their exchange is any corner saloon that keeps a stock ticker. The hand- book men have gangs of 'runners,' who go to the offices of their regular clients, and take their bets and their cash. This saves the bettor time and trouble ; he can lose his money without other in- convenience. They give no higher odds than 15 to 1, however, and the true gambler hates such small money. It is strange how reliable these handbook men are. Gamblers will cheat right and left, but they almost always pay their acknowledged debts sooner or later. This is both their religion and their stock in trade. "The regular poolrooms are of many kinds, and they are too many for the police, even for Tammany itself, and its Commissioner McAdoo, who is honestly trying to sit on the lid. The politi- cians can do better if they want to, and the pool men take their hats off to the district leaders. When Croker was in power, he once closed every 6 82 ^be IRcal mew lJ)oift poolroom in this town by simply sending word around. But even he could not have kept the lid down many days, for many of the politicians are interested in the poolrooms, and they say that the gamblers can poll at least 30,000 votes. The prof- its are sometimes thousands of dollars a day, and there are too many people in town who want to gamble ever to make it possible to root it out. "There are the poor and the rich, the women of the streets and the women of fashion. The other day a smart dressmaking establishment was raided, and while the women were having hysterics of indignation and denying with tears that they were interested in horseflesh, the tele- phone bell rang. A policeman answered and a far-away voice began to tell racing returns. There are at least twenty poolrooms for women all over town, and many of the men's places have women's rooms. ''There is big money in the telephone pool- room exchange, and one man has a dozen oper- ators at work. Regular clients simply register their bets by 'phone, and get their returns, if any, by cheque. These places have no players, and the ofl^ce door calls it a 'news exchange.' They say that one of the men in Broad Street often handles over $10,000 on one race. "These people get their news by telegraph. The stakes are big, and the income from the poolrooms alone is often $7,000 a day. They used to charge $17 a day for one- wire service. ^be (Bamblcre ss Recently they declared a raise to $25, and a commercial war followed. There are men in town who run from twenty-five to a hundred poolrooms each, and the profits sometimes run to $100,000 in a single day. Brooklyn and all the other towns about are sprinkled the same way. These big men have big lawyers, and fight the police with technicalities. Peter De Lacv is one of the chief of these, and owns sev- eral places; one of them, in Park Row, was open for ten years, and sometimes you'll see three hundred men in it at once. The man known as 'The Allen' was raided one hundred and thirteen times, but the police courts have never convicted him. In the first place, our police force could never keep all the people from gambling, and if they tried, they'd have no time for anything else." This was before McAdoo's assault on the root of the evil, the telegraph and telephone com- panies, when by invoking the law and arous- ing public opinion, he brought these big corpor- ations into the blaze of odium. In one day all the poolrooms were paralyzed as at Croker's nod: and then the wires were silent. And then they were cut and rooted out by wholesale, and the pool business went into the doldrums. But who can believe that corporations can remain virtuous forever, or that men will ever cease to cherish the folly of gambling ? But it was Joyce's luck to visit New York just 84 Zhe IReal IRcw ^ov\\ NEW YORK GAMBLER before the ukase silencing the wires. After a short wait the "runner" appeared. He was as handsome as a Bret Harte gambler, and, fortunately, his clothes were more correct than his grammar. After a cautious cross-examination, he took Blake and Joyce in tow. He started to turn down a side street, but seeing a policeman, went round the block. He \ - ^B^a^ ^w ^^^ them to a handsome resi- \ X^HBIiR dence, like any other save for the presence of a well-dressed sentinel on the sidewalk. The guide tipped him the wink, and the three mounted the stoop. The runner gave one long and two short rings, and there was some delay in gaining ad- mittance through the unusually handsome bronze doors. They were backed with steel. Once inside, there was a sudden change from the deserted outer appearance. Within, all was hubbub, and the confusion of many voices. The various rooms were dense with men and cigar smoke; at least a hundred people were there. The click of chips, the jingle of coin, the clatter of the ball dancing round the whirring roulette wheel, and the nasal sing-song of the masters of the revel were all shuttling through the buzz of voices. A brisk young man in shirt sleeves was chalking up on a large blackboard Zhc (Baniblcre s^ the results of horse races in various parts of the country, and the names of the horses, their jockeys and the odds were given in each race. The floor was httered with bits of paper like a stao-e after a snowstorm. An announcer was calling out the course of a race being run in the far South, and his auditors were as excited as if thev were in the very grandstand. Here was a man whose forehead was large-veined and red; he was acting like a jumping- jack and whisper- ing: " Come on, ' Caterpillar ' ! Come on ! I need the money. That's right. Bates, draw the whip on him. Fraud! He's pulling the race. He's chokin' him. Come on, damn you, come on!" He was trying earnestly to assist to the front a horse several thousand miles away in a race that was already run. While this individual was in- viting apoplexy, his elbow neighbor, who had nothing on this event, was calmly eating a cold cigar as he read a large racing sheet, covered with a maze of entries throughout the country, with the age and ** previous performances" of a surprisingly large population of names of famous jockeys and owners, the w^eights carried, the weather probabilities, the condition of the track, and the hour of the race in local and New York time. A negro was serving drinks and sandwiches. The ''arguer" was trying to convince a cry- baby sport that he had not been robbed. The 86 Zbc IReal mew ^ovh ''cashier" was recording bets and taking money from his concealment in a booth. This pool- room had no telegraph operator. The news came from upstairs by a tube. The runner put in the hands of Joyce and Blake a book. Joyce read : Moody and Sankey's Gospel Hymns.' What's this.?" The escort answered, solemnly: "If any cops butts in, dis place is a religious joint, see ? If youse hear anybody breakin' down a door, hide your chips, find page 711, and sing like hell. See .?" Joyce saw. After some dilly-dallying he got in at various games, but though he won a little at first, he always lost more and more. He began to take on a look of fatigue. Blake nodded for him to follow upstairs. On the step Joyce stopped him to complain: "There isn't a straight game in the place." Blake looked at him pityingly. "You want a lot for your money, don't you.? Well, my boy, when they learn to square the cir- cle, they'll be able to make a really truly honest gambler. Even Diogenes didn't waste oil in a place like this. A straight game of faro pays only five per cent. A gambler won't look at that much." Upstairs there were women— of the type to be expected in such a font. They were not all ^bc (Bamblcre 87 :ii^!^(t^ tilde of race horses en the to d for new white. They were spending ill what was ill got. In one room was a telephone, and an attendant was repeating the cnrious names of horses, and then calling them down the tnbe. The last race at Bennings, near Washington, was just over. It L^^?S7ij,;:!rL:iKTrri was evident that the m n 1 1 i - had driv- owners p e ration titles. T h e youth called down tube : "* Diapha- nous' wins by a nostril." *'Megawd!'e nerd-to- 'Ting-a- a close 'W i d - and Shine' an' neck monev DI-U^HANOUS ' WINS BY A NOSTRIL" (Aside : was a hun- one shot !) Ling' come second . ow's Mite' 'Rain or was neck for thoyd 'Gold Cure,' the favoryte, was no- where. 'Many Thanks' was left at the post. 'Useful I.ady'^ started runnin' de wrong way round. 'Diamonds and Foils' trun his jockey 88 Sbe 1Rcal mew )^ov\\ an' fell on him. 'Clear the Arena' went to sleep. *Egg Nogg' and 'Buttons' " But they never knew what "Egg Nogg" and "Buttons" did, for there v/as a dull sound, as of a far-away Russian ship obligingly committing suicide on one of its own mines. The thuds were repeated. Their effect w^as sickening, but not dull. Upstairs and down the family was doing the quickest bit of house-cleaning ever seen. Rou- lette wheels, faro boxes, race bulletins vanished instantly. Blake ran downstairs to get the news. Joyce was petrified. Then there rose from below the sound of male voices trying to sing in chorus. The few who got the right song got the wrong key, and ''Shall We Gather at the River .?" warred in rough counterpoint with "The Ninety and Nine," while a third choir insisted on "Bringing in the Sheaves." Joyce got his book upside down and began to shriek with infinite feel- ing, "Oh, Where Is My Wandering Boy To- night.^" The women were disappearing up the fire es- cape, into closets, and behind chiffoniers, while one fat man tried to climb up an imitation fire- place pre-empted by a pile of sickly asbestos gas-logs. Joyce found himself deserted and slid under a divan, whence a prior tenant cordially but vainly tried to kick him out. As they writhed in combat the noise of the storming party drowned the wavering service of gospel praise. The police gave up the steel door as hopeless and began on the windows with all the joy of firemen. The crash of glass ended the music and the hubbub of voices was now devoted to ex- pressing righteous indignation at so rude an in- terruption of a religious gathering. The police did not seem to be impressed. Then someone turned out the lights suddenly, and the policemen began to play about them with clubs. When the lights were turned on again several of the policemen were found bus- ily pounding one another to a jelly, while the true criminals were crawling along the floor to escape. This made the officers a whit less gentle in their dealings. Then Joyce heard the heavy tread of policemen's brogans on the stairs. Sev- eral of the women were unearthed. They all protested that they were perfect ladies, and em- phasized the protest with a surprising command of masculine language. Joyce was so frightened that when he w^as yanked out from his hiding-place he hung on to his deadly rival, and they continued to fight in the very presence of the law. When they had been reduced to submission and bruises they wxre not set free, as were the other guests. They were taken to jail in the patrol wagon, along with the managers of the place and a motley array of gambling implements, including thousands of ivory chips. Joyce had not felt that there were so many 90 ^be IReal IRcw J^ork people on earth as he saw gathered in the street to see the raid. But his modesty was not re- garded. Down the stoop and into the "hurry- wagon" he was hustled, and he went to his seat in shame. Arrived at tlie station the sergeant took down the "pedigree" of the others. He had a word of recognition and welcome for all. When he reached Joyce he looked surprised and asked his name. The Chicagoan stam- mered the first one that came to his blue lips : "G. W-w-washington." "Oh," smiled the sergeant: " direct descendant of the first President, eh.^" 1-y-yes, sir. "What's the charge, officer.^" "Resisting the authorities." "Same offense as your namesake, eh.?" Blake hurried in now like an angel of rescue. He had not felt called upon to accompany Joyce in the patrol wagon, but he could not desert him. Blake, it happened, had always treated the ser- geant well, and a few words explaining that his friend was a st rancher from a small Western town sufficed to save Jovce from beino; held over for the Sunday morning court. Joyce felt so much relieved at his escape that his spirits rose materially. Blake had to go to his office to write up the story of the raid. He promised to meet Joyce at midnight. The Chi- cagoan ate a heavy dinner and sallied forth to peruse the streets and the people. Chapter V THE TENDERLOIN AT NIGHT BROADWAY AGLOW THE WOMEN WHO LOITER THE THEATRE CROWDS — MUSIC- HALLS AUTOMATIC VAUDEVILLE — HERALD SQUARE AT NIGHT THE " JOURNAL'S " FREE COFFEE EMPTYING OF THE THEATRES AFTER-THEATRE SUP- PERS — LATE EXTRAS THE RATHSKELLERS MORE TROUBLE BROADWAY was one long canon of light. Even the shops that were closed dis- played brilliantly illuminated windows. In some of them all the trickeries of electricity were em- ployed and rhapsodies of color glittered in every device or revolved in kaleidoscopes of fire. From most of the buildings hung great living letters. Some of these winked out and flashed up again at regular intervals. Others of them spelled bulletins in sentences that flared auto- matically. From the green and white dragon of Rector's to the rippling electric flag of the JournaVs uptown office the hunt was always for something new, sometliing different, something that caught the eye by its super-ingenuity, its hyper-phosphorescence among all the other radi- ances. Broadway, the most brilliant street in all the world, was aglow, agleam, ablaze! 92 ^be 1Rcal IRew ^ov\\ The sidewalks, especially on the western side, were heavy with crowds flowing as thickly and richly as the milk-and-honey streams of Canaan. The lowly and the well-to-do were all in festival garb and humor. Here and there women of various stages of prosperity wandered erratically, ogling every detached man, yet rarely showing more than a passive solicitude for attention. It is only in the minor streets that a ''Good even- ing, dear," is ventured, for the police in uniform or in plain clothes insist on that outward respect- ability which is so pleasant in Paris and so odi- ously absent in London. Some of the willing sisters were somewhat tawdry, but the poorer members of the ancient sorory prefer the dark- er streets. To Broadway flock those chiefly of the finer ware, and the wayfarer need not walk far or wait long to see a dozen beauties, who would grace any company and who go gowned like duchesses adrift. At this hour the theatres throw open their hos- pitable doors and increasing crowds pour to- ward every threshold. The poorer classes go in, as a rule, through doors in side streets, and the throngs that enter via Broadway are of an opulent attire. Tong lines of carriages roll up and unload diamond-crowned women in royal ermines and white-gloved men of princely hau- teur, while the street cars disgorge a hardly less brilliant throng — for carriages are such a lux- ury to hire and such a bankruptcy to own in ITbe ircn&crloin at IRigbt 93 ASTRONOMY FOR FIVE CENTS New York, that people who would be reputed wealthy in other cities grow used to public conveyances here. The street cars at the theatre hour are consequently full of bareheaded beauty in splendid raiment. There is variety enough, heaven knows, in the theatres. New York is the capital of American dramatic art, such as it is, and the American dollar draws the greatest stars of England, France, Germany and Italy to play such of their native masterpieces as have not already been done here by iVmerican troupes. New York has over half a hundred theatres. The prices are high — fifty cents to two dollars at most of them. The women take off their hats and most of the men downstairs wear evening dress. The stock company idea prevails at few places, and the long run is preferred by most of the managers to Ibscene solitude. So important is a New York verdict to the rest of the country that many plays are kept on at a loss in order that, by this forced run, they may be accepted as successes on the road. First nights are social events, and there is a certain coterie usually to be found at these occasions. It is called "the death watch" because of its supposed coldness; 94 trbe 1Real mew l^orft yet it often receives with rapture a play which the second-nighters will not stand. Among the best known theatres are Daly's, of eminent reputation as a home of the English classics; the Empire, wliich has a stock com- pany; the Knickerbocker (originally Abbey's); Wallack's, the Manhattan, Belasco's Republic, the New iimsterdam and the Hudson. The Garrick was originally the fountain of the Har- rigan pieces, which were not so much plays as delightful galleries of New York types. To light opera are devoted the Casino, which has become a proverb of musical comedy; tlie Broadway, the new Majestic and the Lyric. But Joyce felt in no mood for a serious even- ing. He was not even up to a musical comedy. Vaudeville seemed about his level. But even here he found discontent, for, of recent years, the high salaries of vaudeville theatres have drawn so many prominent actors from the ''le- gitimate," and they have been producing such increasingly ambitious and artistic little dramas, that one cannot leave his brain at home any longer when he goes to what our fathers called a variety show. At some of these places long four-act plays are produced by stock companies, and the vaude- ville is confined to the entr'actes. Besides, they have become family resorts, and their perform- ances are, as they say, "such as any young girl can take her mother to in safety." The hours ^be ^cnbcrloin at IRiobt 9^ are liberal, too, and the continuous performance lasts from two in the afternoon to ten-thirty at night. iV|)pealing, as they do, to a variety of tastes, ranging from the weary shoppers to the younger children, only the most inoffensive hu- mor is permissible. Even at the venerable Four- teenth Street laughter-resort of Mr. Antonio Pas- tor (on whose stage Lillian Russell, May Irwin and many another star first effulged as casual nebulae) — even at "Tony's" one must come pre- pared to laugh at antisepticized jokes. But Joyce wanted to be offended. He roved aimlesslv from the ten-cent Comedv Theatre on Broadway and Sixty-sixth Street and the Circle on Sixtieth Street, to Ilammerstein's marble Vic- toria at Forty-second Street, and thence by slow stages to Proctor's at Twenty-eighth Street, and finally to Keith's on Fourteenth Street. But, tliough large audiences were hilarious in each of them, Joyce dolefully preferred to forfeit his admission fee, and would not stay. At the Dewey Theatre he found something nearer his needs. A troupe of so-called " Cracker- jack Burlesquers" were disporting as near the dead-line of propriety as the police allowed. The women were dressed to the minimum, and their piece de resistance celebrated a prominent na- tional figure in its title, "Dr. Munyon Outdone." Ikit it was all very tame to a man from the city which had the honor of being the headquarters of tliat late dealer in spices, Mr. Sam T. Jack. 96 ^be IReal IRew l?ork Joyce grew lonelier and lonelier, and felt tempted to fly to the nethermost ends of the Bowery concert saloons or to the uttermost reaches of the many music-halls in One Hun- dred and Twenty-fifth Street. But the hour for meeting Blake approached. He squan- dered a dime on Huber's Museum, with the freaks on the platform and its still more curious actors on the little stage. There used to be a remarkable ** barker" at Hu- ber's. He looked like a bank- rupt count of the grand old school of pomade and wax. All day he wore evening dress of the same epoch, and he barked in verse in a fearful and wonderful manner something like this (if I do him injustice, may his shade forgive !) : "I^adies and gents, for only ten cents you can see all the sights. And there on your right is the great fat lady; she's a healthy baby weighing three hundred pounds; she's six foot around. Her husband is the living skeleton — see him shivering. The dog-faced boy will give you all joy, and the tattooed man does the best he can. The human horse is w^onderful, of course, and I'll show to you the boxing kangaroo. The lady lion tamer will please every stranger, "etc., etc. THE * BARKER 7^\e, /'\uii^or- was av L, a - - -^-a - A BOWERY SOUBRETTE ( Zhc Scnbcrloin at IRigbt 97 But he passed away, like all things dear and delightful. He killed himself when his muse ceased to be appreciated. Joyce was lured next into the fiery palace of "Automatic Vaudeville" on Fourteenth Street, where one cent is tlie highest price for any of the myriad kinetoscopic, phonographic or stereo- scopic displays. But he tired of moving pictures and the twang of cylindered song worried him. He was disappointed to find that his lung power, his striking power, his grip, his height and weight were all far below the normal — if the cards the slot machines dealt him were correct. He took a car up Broadway. He could not resist the temptation to get down at Herald Square, that ganglion of the town's nervous night life. The Herald building, looking small for all its size, resembled an artis- tic jewel casket. The brood of bronze owls on its cornices were staring from their electric eyes, and the large clock, with dials like two huge eyes, seemed to make an owl of the building's own fa9ade. Above loomed the superb bronze figure of Minerva, who, at twelve and four, lifts an im- perious hand, at whose behest a cloud of steam comes hissing and the two bronze blacksmiths swing their sledges against the resounding bell. As if to force its popular note upon the aristo- cratic realm of the Herald, the Journal chooses this as one of the spots for issuing its free lunch of hot coffee and sandwiches. These are served 7 98 z\)c IReal mew ^ov\{ from a dark covered wagon to a long line of unfortunates; Joyce counted 192 more or less wretched examples of ill luck. The long queue coiled all the way round the statue of the im- known philanthropist, William Earl Dodge, who stares with just scorn at the hideous statue of Horace Greeley. The great editor sits there to keep the Trihime from being forgotten in the uptown rush of newspapers, which brought the Herald from far-away Ann up to Thirty-fifth Street, the Times from City Hall Square to its towering flatiron on Forty-second and will soon take the Journal to its future home on Fifty-ninth Street. Joyce paused in the colonnade of the Herald to watch through the glass sides the stereotypers at work making ready the columns of the next morning's paper and the great presses at work running off pink extras of the Evening Telegram and the last sheets of the colored Sunday supple- ment. The huge rolls of paper were spun through a labyrinth of cutters, folders and count- ers, and came forth newspapers ready for con- sumption. At the back of the building a dozen wagons were waiting to dash to the various rail- road stations with the Jersey, the Brooklyn and the up-State editions, which special trains would carry at extra speed. There was something intellectual about this wizardry that bored the restless Joyce, so he sauntered on up Broadway. At this hour "the ZTbe ^cnbcrloin at migbt 99 Rialto,"the promenade of actors, was deserted. The theatres were emptying their crowds now. The old hullaballoo of carriage calls that once robbed the respectable dwellers in this region of their beauty-sleep has given way, as everything does nowadays, to a silent electric device that flashes numbers from a high place. About the Metropolitan Opera House there was a seemingly hopeless tangle and many carriage- folk were hurrying along the streets to find their carriages. The walks wxre noisy with a buzz of critical comment on actors, singers, plays, opera, cos- tumes. Here and there were people trying to hum and whistle a nearly catchy tune. The restaurants of all prices were filling, and the young man offered his maid whatever he could afford — from a simple glass of beer to silver- bucketed champagne; from the cheap but last- ing rabbit that grows in Wales to a lobster car- dinal selected in the pool at Rector's and taken thence to be broiled alive. Unavailingly the screaming newsboys flaunted at him their midnight extras. At about this hour the clock catches up w ith 5^ the evening papers, which issue their " afternoon edition" at 10 A.M., their "4 o'clock edition" at noon, their "6 o'clock" at two, their "10 kellnbr! ?" 100 Zhc IReal IRcw l^orh o'clock special" at six, and their "midnight edition" at eight. There they usually stop, un- less there is a prize-fight in San Francisco, when they send forth their loud-mouthed hucksters at 2 A.M. with a "postscript." But the Sunday edition of the Morning Tele- graph comes out at about half-past eleven Satur- day night, and Joyce felt a certain devilishness in buying it at that hour. Blake met him at the appointed hour, and they adjourned to a rathskeller. Some astute New York caterer found that, while few peo- ple will go to a basement restaurant, great crowds will throng to the same place if it is called a rathskeller, and furnished in a pseudo- German style. The rathskeller, which, as you know, means "council-cellar," is well named, being the favorite resort for those who are most in need of good advice. In the spume of the beer, the froth of society finds its counterpart. Here the chorus girl and the woman-about-town meet the sporting salesman and the roue who is a shoe clerk by day. Gradually the more discreet code of foot-flirtation leads to the open holding of hands, and finally to em- braces and bibulous love-making. Also the choicest song rises high in collusion with the band. It had been Joyce's intention to visit the nightly ball at the Hay market, where the orofligate of both sexes meet and carouse. Z\K Zcn^cvloin at IWiobt 101 But he had imbibed so many and so various liquids that by tliis time his lee scuppers were awash. Alcohol made him more self-assertive than ever, and he began to explain to Blake that a certain extremely pretty girl was very ill-matched with the very homely youth who was trying vainly to quench her thirst for grape juice with malt extracts. " Itsh a shame to offer slio shweesh a lady plain beer," he growled. "And itsh very irrigat- ino; to me to have to wash him hold her lily- white hand like zhash. I feel it my sholemn duty to relieve her of his odioush shoshiesy. A true gennelman ought to always reschue beauty fromabeash!" Blake managed to keep the knight errant in his chair, but he could not keep the knight errant from winking. This seemed to please the lady as much as it offended her escort. When he observed, in an audible tone, that Joyce behaved like a drunken Chicagoan, nothing could prevent Joyce from resenting this "shlander on his shobriety" and the slight- ing allusion to his beloved city. In a few moments chairs and tables were IN THE HAYMARKET 102 ^be IReal IHcw ^ov\\ flying, glass was crashing, blood and beer were spilling, women were screaming, waiters were wringing their hands and trying to conceal their joy. Blake was too fond of a fight to interfere, and the finish was a bit of living statuary w^ith a policeman supporting the two limp gladiators. There was no patrol wagon this time, and Joyce was forced to walk to the station followed by a blissful throng. He regretted his return to the same station, but he was prepared to prove his perfect self-possession when Blake whispered in his ear: "Pretend you're even drunker than you are. The police are always merciful to a sot." So Joyce collapsed completely before the desk. He was pleased to see another ser- geant at the blotter, and when he was asked his name, he murmured, thickly: ''John Adamsh." " Is that so .^" said the sergeant. "This makes the second President arrested to-day." For this sergeant also Blake had done a good turn once upon a time. When he explained that his friend Mr. Adams was simply intoxicated, and when the other man said he had no wish to press his complaint of assault and battery, the two men were set free with a warning. Blake put Joyce in a hansom and told the driver his address. "And so," in the words of Mr. Pepys, "and so to bed." Chapter VI SUNDAY IN TOWN HIGH AND LOW CHURCH THE NUM- BERLESS CREEDS, RITUALS AND LANGUAGES IN TOWN FAMOUS PREACHERS CHURCH ARCHITECTURE FASH- IONABLE CHURCHES WALL STREET ON SUNDAY THE EASTER PARADE FIFTH AVENUE UPPER BROAD- WAY CENTRAL PARK ON SUNDAY; THE CARRIAGES RIVERSIDE DRIVE BY DAYLIGHT THE HUDSON A SUN- SET THE "diner DE luxe" AT SHERRY'S A CON- CERT AT CARNEGIE HALL GREAT CONDUCTORS WHO VISIT NEW YORK NEW YORK AS A CAPITAL OF MUSIC SUPPER AT THE BEAUX-ARTS SLEEP and the Sunday paper are the great- est enemies of church-going. Many of the preachers have provided faciUties for the former. But, in their search for attractions, they have neglected the latter. Some day, however, an enterprising parson will hang a file of Sun- day magazines in each of the pews; the only objection being that the rattUng of the paper might keep the unliterary members awake. De Peyster was one of those lucky dogs that may lie abed late week-days. So, by rights, he should have been up betimes Sundays. But Should and Would have long had a family quar- rel. Yet on this Sunday morning De Peyster was out of his bed, into his tub, inside his togs, around his breakfast and in front of Miss Col- lis's hotel at 10.45. 104 ^be IReal IRew l^orh She had been up since 7.30 trying on and re- twisting an amazingly handsome new hat, and she came forth from the elevator like a spring dawn issuing from the caves of winter. "It's only about sunrise in San Francisco," said De Peyster, batting his eyes over the vision. "And I feel as if it were about daybreak here. Where shall we go .^" "What sort of church is the best.^" "W^ell, churches are supposed to be like the Kentucky idea of whisky — all good, but some better than others. You pays your contri- bution, and you takes your choice. Do you prefer high or low.^" "Church or society.?" "Same thing," he said, as they walked up Fifth Avenue. "We have all kinds — high, low, jack and the game. East Side, West Side, down- town and Harlem. The oldest in this town are the reformed. I like that idea of even churches being reformed. If this is a naughty old town, it isn't for lack of gospel. From Trinity to St. Somebody-or-Other's of the Bronx, there are over eleven hundred churches, and vou can hear sermons in almost every language since Babel. "You can see the ritual of the Joss House, the Christian Science, the Theosophical, thr Swedenborgian, the gorgeous Roman Catholic with sometimes a visiting Mexican cardinal. Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Lutheran, Univer- Sun^a? in Zornx 105 salist and Hebrew. There are two Quaker meeting-houses and a Moravian society. There's a Church of Strangers and a Mariners' Church near Chatham Square. Even the agnostics hold services under FeHx Adler, Ph.D. Nobody can complain of intolerance, eh ? "Then there are the Sal- vation Army, and the Vol- unteers in their barracks, and any number of street- C^ corner preachers, including one good man who spends all he collects providing beds for the homeless. So it's hard to tell vou what t/ church you want to visit." " Well, what preacher has the most fame .^" "Dr. Parkhurst, I pre- sume. He got it first by attacking the police. Poor, innocent things! they said there was no vice in New York, or at least they couldn't find it. To the police all things are pure. So Dr. Parkhurst went round and found it and told about it with lively details. In the course of time he became the most power- ful figure in New York except Richard Croker, now Squire Croker, of Wantage, England. Parkhurst gave corruption a terrible scare; he set on foot large investigations, and it was mainly A NEW YORKER ^06 z\)c IReal IRcw l^orfe due to him that many a brass-buttoned partner of crime lost his place. "New York looks on reform as a good thing for an occasional bracer, but bad for a steady beverage. So the Tammany Tiger does a sort of 'Off again, on again, gone again, Finnegan, Flanagan'; and so the town finally got tired of Boss Parkhurst, as it tires of everybody else in a short time. It's the ficklest town in the world. Since then Dr. Parkhurst has been a critic instead of a captain. But you'd enjoy hearing him preach. He has a dry, cutting wit that keeps his audience — I mean congregation — laughing half the time. "His sense of humor failed him, though, re- cently, when he said that the Chicago Iroquois Theatre horror was ' God's own fire.' It sounded medieval, as well as in bad taste. But a few blocks above him, at the Collegiate Reformed Church, Dr. Burrell went him several better, for he said that the Mont Pelee disaster was a direct visitation of God — a second Gomorrah. Shows how we've changed, doesn't it.^ A few years ago a preacher would have been thought a heretic who said anything else. Now, even the other preachers think it heathenish to say such things." "But let's not go into theology; let's go to church, where we won't hear any," said Miss CoUis. "What other famous preachers are there .?" Suttbav^ in Zovow 107 "There's the athletic Britisher, Dr. Rainsford, of St. George's, in Stuyvesant Square. He has Pierpont Morgan for a parishioner, but he also runs a workingmen's club in a big building ad- joining his church and has a boys' manual train- ing school and a company of boy infantry. Then there's Bishop Potter, of course, and Dr. Greer, now his coadjutor; the Unitarian, Rev. Robert Collyer, and his associate, Minot J. Savage, at the Church of the Messiah in East Thirty-fourth Street; and Dr. Richard S. Storrs, in Brooklyn; and there are several other preachers who get into the papers now and then, including Dr. Hillis in Brooklyn — the City of Churches. But Beech- er and Talmage and Dr. Houghton and John Hall are dead, and Cardinal Gibbons and Thomas Dixon and Henry van Dyke have moved away. There are no giants here now except Dr. Parkhurst, and he's tired." *'Tlien what churches are the most beautiful for architecture .^" said the art student. " The glorious Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine is only begun. It will take forty or fifty years to finish and will cost six million dol- lars. They hold services in the crypt, where Bishop Potter officiates. But the Catholic Ca- thedral is a wonderfully beautiful thing. It cost two millions. Its cornerstone was laid in 1879, but it is as snowy as if it were built yesterday. That's our clean New York air. I can't tell you about the architecture technically, except that 108 Zbc IReal mew l^orl^ while it is not very large for a cathedral, it is considered one of the most perfect and pure and beautiful in the world, and its two spires are an everlasting inspiration. *'Tlie architect was eJames Renwick, who also designed the fascinating little masterpiece, Grace Church, which stands up like a beautiful iceberg as you look up Broadway. On hot days, it fairly cools your soul to see it, with its little grass plot and its cheerful gables. '* One of the most gorgeous churches in the country is the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, but it's more like a theatre, with its light woods, its slop- ing floor and its dazzling col- ors. You ought also to see the Church of the Ascension, down on Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street, with its famous painting of the Ascension by John La Farge, who has also contributed some work to St. Thomas's Church. Nearby is the Old First Church, one of the best bits of the city's archi- tecture. "We'll take a horseback ride some morning through the shady bridle-paths of Central Park, and then you'll rave over the dome of the tem- ple of Beth-El with its gold ribs. It is too big for the body of the synagogue, but across A NEW YORKER Sun&a\> In Zovon 109 the green trees of the Park it is an Ara- bian Nights' dream. The big Jewish Temple Emanu-El, on Forty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, is counted tlie finest piece of Moorish in the country. "But one of the pleasantest sights in New York is tlie famous Little Church Around the Corner, in West Twenty-ninth Street. You know the story of the actor, George Holland. When he died his friends wanted to hold the funeral at a fashionable church on Madison Avenue. But the preacher implied to Joseph Jefferson, who made the request, that actors wxre undesirable church visitors, dead or alive, and told him that his late friend could doubt- less find accommodations at 'the little church around the corner.' The actors have loved it ever since, and so have the runaway couples who flock there. It's a beautiful vine-covered nook, hardly as big as its real name — The Church of the Transfiguration. It has a fa- mous stained-glass window memorial of Harry Montague, the actor. "It would take a week to describe all the architectural beauties and mistakes in New York churches. But I think that some of the finest are the Christian Science churches. They look less like churches than like the savings banks, which are so well built nowadays; but they are very impressive as architecture." "I'll see them some other day. Suppose you iio ^be IReal IRew ^ovU take me to the most fashionable church," Miss ColHs ventured, ingenuously. "Ah, now you're laying off the mask. There spoke the true woman and the true believer. I was just going to take you to St. Bartholo- mew's, one of the swaggerest in town, though not very impressive, architecturally — espe- cially since the steeple was blown down a few months ago in a moderate gale. But it has a superb entrance. Mrs. Vanderbilt wanted to give it some bronze doors to rival the Astor doors in Trinity. She was told that they would be out of place with the plain entrance, so she said she would give a new entrance. The re- sult is one of the finest successes, I think, in the world. It is very surprising to see so much nudity in church decoration, but it is carved with splendid vigor, and the bronze work is not so terribly far behind Ghiberti's master- piece in Florence. " Miss Collis was again ready with a charge of sacrilege, but they arrived that moment before the church itself, and she was too deeply engrossed in the ensemble of arches, with their sheltered sculptures, the crowded line of human figures, the gracious columns, the elaborately carved doors and the outer portals with their rich green patina. While she paused to rhap- sodize, a great crowd was pouring into the church as a smaller crowd poured out. "As I feared," said De Pevster, "It's the Sunba^ in Zox^n m usual case of 'standing room only,' and there's no chance of a pew. I ought to have remem- bered that this is Easter morning. It opens with a pretty custom, borrowed from Magdalen College, at Oxford. Down in Chelsea Square the Easter daybreak is saluted by divinity students who sound trumpets north, south, east and west from a high tower, and then, sing the prelude to Palestrina's 'Victory,' and then the chimes rino^ in the Easter mornins:." He hailed a cab and they were wdiisked up to Fifty-third Street. "This is St. Thomas's Church, doubtless the most fashionable in New York. The most appallingly elaborate weddings are held here, and it sometimes takes a cordon of police to keep the uninvited women from treating the bride like a bargain counter." But here, also, the crowd was too great for hope. So he proposed a jaunt to Old Trinity. Thev walked to the Elevated station. The downtown train was sparsely populated, and the business streets it crossed wore a Sabbath calm. Great warehouses were locked in sleep, and streets that boiled with traffic all week were now a deserted village. They got out at Rector Street, and passed through the almost empty arcade, where, on week-days, a Gulf Stream flows through the covered wav, lined like an Oriental street with little bazaars offer- inoj a multitude of wares. o 112 Zbc IRcal IWcw IDoi'k Facing them was the sliort canon of Wall Street, on this day as sparsely traveled as in the Knickerbocker days 200 years ago, when it ran alons^side the wooden wall that old Gov- ernor Stuyvesant built to keep out the English. Lookino: straio'ht down Wall Street, in calm resio:nation stands Trinitv Church, the richest in the country. It occupies part of what was once the big farm of the Dutch West India Company. Then it became the English king's farm, and was granted to his Colonial Church. The land that is still retained pays the church an annuity of half a million dollars, and enables it to maintain the big St. Paul's Church as a chapel, and Grace Church as another, to- gether with six other chapels, several schools, a hospital, a dispensary, twenty-four missions and a cemetery of its own. Trinity is like the Irishman's knife. It is the same Old Trinity, though it was built in 1697, rebuilt in 1737, burned down in the great fire of 1776, rebuilt in 1778, and again in 1864. The churchyard inspires the American with a sense of the antiquity of our young country, for it has the grave of a five-year- old child who died in 1681. Here also are the graves of William Bradford, who printed the first New York newspaper; of iVlexander Hamilton, the founder of our finance; of the steamboat man, Robert Fulton; of Albert Gal- latin, General Phil Kearnv, and of " Don't- A BOX AT THE OPERA Sunba^ in Zovon 113 give-up-the-ship ' ' Law- rence. Certain vandals once planned to run a street through the church- yard, but a few reverent souls hastened to erect there the "Martyrs' Monument" in memory of the thousands of our forefathers who perished of starvation and dis- ease in the horrible prisons kept by the British troops during the Revo- lution. Once that monument was lifted, the desecration of the street project was given up. A curious proof of the reality of characters of fiction is in the grave- stone marked "Charlotte Temple." She was an English schoolgirl who ran away to America with a Brit- ish officer, who betrayed her, and then left her to die of a broken heart — a pitiful fate, relieved only by the fact that it all occurred solely in a popular novel of 1790, by a Mrs. Rowson. The fictitious tomb over the imaginary grave of a creature of fancy has never been dis- turbed since the first dreamer placed it there. If Verona has her Juliet's tomb, we have at least the grave of Charlotte Temple. Once, the spire of Trinity was the first visible bit of New York to incoming ships. Now, our wise men of Babel try to reach heaven by office 8 OF THE BROADWAY SQUAD 114 Zbc IRcal IHcw ^ov\\ buildings, and many an elevator boy soars daily in his airship far above the lofty cross that tops this steeple. But it still holds its place high in the town's affection, and when its chimes ring in the New Year, thousands of merrymakers gather to hear; and the symphony of the horns and kazoos that gives the old year its wake is hushed until the brazen tongues of Trinity bells have given the good word that the new leaf has actually been turned. To the peacefulness of Trinity's heavy foli- aged lawns, the sweet Nirvana of its blissful dead, and the cool silence of its hospitable naves, many a distracted financier, broken of heart and hope, hurries for escape from the wolf-packs of Wall Street. Under the groined roof, the light itself takes on religion as it sweeps through the deep-tinged windows, and dreams over the white marble altar with the red shafts, its mosaic cross set with cameos and the reredos of ala- baster. So now a deep solemnity filled the heart of the fair stranger from San Francisco, and she knelt for a moment of adoration. De Peyster gazed at her with a new tenderness. "What is more beautiful than a girl who kneels in prayer ?'' he mused. He felt a sudden impulse to throw his arm about her and kneel by her side. But he shook off seriousness as something strange to his shoulders. When she rose again, he nervously told her that they could not linger. Sunba^ in Zovon us She paused once more to study the three elaborately modeled bronze doors, the central door by Carl Bitter, and the north door by J. Massey Rhind, showing Biblical scenes; the south door by Charles Niehaus, picturing in' hio^h relief scenes from American history. De Peyster explained that William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor had given these doors at a cost of $40,000, and the altar and reredos at a cost of $100,000, as a public memorial to their father, who left them so many substantial re- membrances. Then they moved on to Trinity's near neigh- bor and pensioner, St. Paul's Chapel, built in 1764 and still standing, the oldest church in this city. It faces the west, and once its lawn went to the water's edge. But the water has receded, and hideous commercial blocks have crowded between. Major Andre, Lord Howe and George IV, when he was a middy, wor- shiped here, and His Excellency George W^ash- ington came here attended by both Houses of the very new Congress after his inauguration, and regularly afterward. His pew is still un- altered. In one wall is a tablet to General Montgomery, who perished at Quebec in that ill-timed assault on New Year's Eve, 1775. Montgomery's body, buried in Canada, was brought back in 1818, and his widow, who had bade him good-bye when he left her forty-three years before, sat on her piazza at historic Tarry- / 116 ^be IReal IRcw l^orh town, and, in her old age, saw his remains car- ried down the river in state, with mournful music and a plume-covered coffin. In this yard are also buried two Irish rebels and fugitives of "'98"— Thomas Addis Emmet and William J. McNevin, among the earliest to find a refuge in the country that has become al- most a new Erin. Here also is buried a famous actor, George Frederick Cooke, whose monu- ment has been three times restored, by Charles Kean, E. A. Sothern and Edwin Booth, since it was first built by Edmund Kean in 1821. There is an honorable old elm here, sole survivor of eight planted in 1766. De Peyster cut short Miss Collis's desire to tarry in precincts so full of storied memory to the people of the new West. He said that they must hasten back uptown to see the famous "Easter Parade." "The procession isn't what it once was," he said. "A few years ago both sides of Fifth Avenue were so packed with the best people in their best clothes that one could not move faster than a very slow walk. But the churches have been playing leapfrog over one another to get uptown, and now West End Avenue and upper Broadway divide the honors. And the weather is so uncertain that people are beginning to be more afraid of pneumonia than of appearing in last week's hat." None the less, the scene was an impressive one Sunba? in Zom\ ii7 to the girl from out of town, to whom the very name of Fifth Avenue was a symbol of wealth and o:lorv. In all the windows alonej the street were lilies and azaleas, and it was a rare woman w^iose bunch of violets was less than spend- thriftily huge. All day Saturday the florists had been crowding the streets with wagon-loads of spring, and even stages and coaches had been brought into service for delivery. After a stroll up the crowded avenue De Peyster took Miss Collis to her hotel for lunch and a rest. But he would not relinquish her for long, and at four he was back, with his sister and Calverly, in the crested family carriage, with its pedigreed horses and its liveried coachman and footman of lofty dignity, if a trifle super- cilious. They drove to Central Park, and here was a second Easter review — only a cavalcade in place of infantry. Calverly was reminded of the Hyde Park splendor. " But your horses aren't up to our average," he said, "" and you have no coachmen with powdered hair and gor- geous garters. And I'm afraid some of your people have no right to their cockades and their crests." "Oh, what's the m the park 118 ^be IReal IHcw lJ)orft difference?" growled De Peyster. "Anyway, this Park is an enormous improyenient on the flat and tame old roadways of yours. And you must admit that the stunning women we are passing are yastly finer to watch than your blue- blooded, big-boned, old aristocrats." ** There's something in that," said Calyerly, "but I don't see why you limit it to the women we are passing. Seems to me we are taking the best of the lot with us." He looked deep into Miss De Peyster's eyes, quite ignoring Miss Collis. But she had her compensation in watching the blushing, stam- mering guiltiness with which he debarrassed him- self of the unusual compliment. Miss Collis tried to study the people who passed, but the roadways turned so often, the carriages flew past so swiftly and the crowd was so dense that she grew dizzy. De Peyster was forever lifting his hat and telling his sister whom he had recognized, but she declined to be moved or to watch for their friends. The parade was a prodigious affair, but mixed. For, along with the superber equipages and the splendor of the automobiles went the dull coaches of one-horse gentility, the hansoms of the busi- nesslike chorus girls and their indulgent admir- ers, the shabby hacks of those who were proud to have the three dollars to pay for the round, and the crowded public automobile stages, with their gaping and twisting plebeians trying to see Sunbav^ in Zown n^ everything at once for twenty-five cents. Here and there sputtered a few racing automobiles, with their fiends in workaday caps and gowns. The swarms of bicyclists that once filled the roads like a plague of locusts were reduced to a few old fogies or an occasional club glorying in its gaudy uniform. Down the soft bridle-paths pattered a few horsemen and horsewomen, but their hour is the early morning. Everywhere were the mounted police with their beautiful steeds, very gentle and affectionate till a run- away dashes by to endanger the lives of children and women. Then these horses are frenzied w^ith their responsibility and will run down the maddest equine maniac. There were miles of benches, not one empty. New York and his family were taking the airing. On a few meadows crowds of children were play- ing, though the Sabbath laws prevented the mul- titudinous games of baseball, football, croquet and lawn tennis that reign in the summer week- days. Nor was there a band concert, such as resounds through leafy aisles on summer after- noons. The Zoo and the Carousel w^ere packed with old and young, desperate after amusement and swinging high in air or whirling on the wheezy merry-go-round. The donkey-people and the goat-carriage-folk were driving a furious trade in children's pennies, and the refreshment stands were dispensing soda water, peanuts and indigestion recklessly. \ certain toll was col- 120 ^be IReal IRew l^orft lected from every peanut bag by the flickering squirrels, the only New Yorkers who do not snub strangers. In the broad light of day Miss Collis could now see the ghastly population of ill-made statu- ary that disgraces this otherwise ideal pleasure paradise — Sir Walter Scott looking as if he had eaten too little haggis, and Robbie Burns as if he had eaten too much. With three or four ex- ceptions these works are worse than bad, and the exceptions are nothing wonderful, save the statue of Sherman at the Fifth Avenue entrance and the rostral column at the Eighth Avenue entrance presented by the Italians in memory of Columbus. In their drive they passed the beautiful vista of the Mall leading to the Bethesda fountain, the lakes with their bicycle swan boats, and the Reservoir, as well as ''Cleopatra's Needle," so-called because it is not a needle and was not Cleopatra's. It is a single, sixty-nine foot block of red syenite, weighing 443,000 pounds. It was quarried at Assouan in Nubia, and began its life with a seven-hundred mile jaunt down the Nile to Heliopolis, where Tehutimes (or Thoth- mes) III. set it up with its twin before a temple about a hundred and sixty centuries before Christ. About 13 B.C., in the time of Augustus, the Romans carried the two obel- isks to Alexandria. In 1877 one of them was sent to London. The Khedive then presented Sunba? in Zowm 121 the other to the United States, whose navy brought it across in a specially modeled ship at the expense of W. H. Vanderbilt. The crabs that support the corners are casts made in the Brooklyn Navy Yard from the remaining two Roman originals, now in the Metropolitan Museum. From the Park De Peyster directed the car- riage into Seventy-second Street, its broad space SUNDAY NIGHT AMUSEMENTS filled with glittering vehicles and its sides lined with handsome residences; thence into River- side Drive, which, losing the poetry of its mid- night mystery, reveled in unexpected daytime splendor, with its great walls, its terraces, all its magnificence, and, on the eastern side, its miles of proud fa9ades. For the fa9ade is about all the architect can show in this New York, where lawns are almost unknown and onlv the rich- 122 Zbc IReal IRcw l^ork est of the rich can afford a side window and a blade of grass. In the day-glow the Hudson still sweeps ma- jestic, the Palisades loom in primeval rugged- ness, till they shut in the view far into the north, and Riverside Park remains, as at niglit, the noblest driveway in all the world. The pellucid air and the royal sky gave the last word of benediction and kept De Peyster and his guests abroad till the early evening sur- prised them. Calverly, who had known little of city sunsets save the baleful yellow or the splashy red of liondon, was made almost a poet as he be- held the ribbons of scarlet and cerise, the clouds of rose-madder and the furnaces of molten rubies glowing in a perfect blend on an apple-green sky, wdiile the twilight shadows softened the Pali- sades into ghost-mountains veiled in heliotrope. Then home again to dress for dinner. This was the Sunday night event — the diner de luxe at Sherry's — where the fashionables, leaving their homes, flock to jostle elbows round little candle-lit tables and feast on the ultimate lux- uries of table d'hotage. After dinner, to Carnegie Hall, founded by its namesake in 1890, costing over $2,000,000, and seating 3,000 people, as well as housing a theatre for amateurs in its basement, two smaller music-halls, many lodge-rooms, a restaurant and a great array of studios. This is the home of the New York Philhar- Simba^ in Zown 123 monic Orchestra and of tlie Oratorio, the Musi- cal Art, and many another society. Here all the great yisitors of the foreign music world haye reyeled in their triumphs and the amazino" sums gathered at the box-office. Paderewski, Rosenthal, Ysaye, Kubelik, Sembrich, Patti, I^ehmann, Schumann-Heink — what famed in- strumentalist or yocalist that has been lured hither has failed to recognize Carnegie Hall as the Parnassus of New York music ? On this night, Richard Strauss, the sachem of liying composers, was producing for the first time one of his most ambitious works. Where he swung his baton, an array of the field-mar- shals of music had brandished their stayes — - Thomas, Seidl, Tchaikowski, Nikisch, the Dam- rosches, Paur and Gericke. In this yery sea- son the Philharmonic Society had imported a new conductor for each of its concerts, and the subscribers to the series had heard Europe's greatest leaders — Colonne, Weingartner, Safan- off , Kogel, Wood — besides the American, Victor Herbert. Combining with the smaller recitals heard in Mendelssohn Hall, and the world-ransacking galaxies that shine at the Metropolitan Opera House, it is undeniable that — whatsoeyer poy- erty it may show in creatiye music — in the per- formance of the best music by the best exec- utants, New York is the musical capital, as it is the commercial capital, of the world. 124 zhc IRcal IRew ll)orK After the concert De Peyster and his guests drove for supper to the glittering Cafe des Beaux -Arts, where Calverly, with a French menu before him, felt more at home. But he broke out with a sudden and embar- rassing query : '*I say, now, don't cousins in America call each other by their Christian names?" De Peyster and Miss Collis looked at each other in terror. Both knew what he was driv- ing at, but neither knew the other's first name. After an awkward pause, De Peyster's sister saved the day with a gentle inspiration. " Not before strangers," she explained. "Well, I'm not strangers," protested Cal- verly, growing very friendly in the fumes of wine. De Peyster calmed him with a word, and excited Miss Collis with a look. *' After this, if you insist, we'll use the first name." Later, as he bade her good-night at the door of her hotel, De Peyster said, quietly : '*By the way. Miss Collis, what is your first name .^" '' Myrtle." "Mine's Gerald," said he, and he squeezed her hand more than cousinly long. As he turned away, he sang out for Calverly 's benefit: "Good-night, Cousin Myrtle." She smiled, rather than called after him: "Good-night, Cousin Gerald." Chapter VII ASSORTED SABBATHS — THE GOOD SIDE OF NEW YORK THE CROWDED CHURCHES THE FREE HOSPITALS ORGANIZED CHARITIES THE BOARD OF HEALTH BREAKFAST IN BED THE SUNDAY PAPERS THE PER- SONAL COLUMN AS A SECRET POST-OFFICE THE TAME- NESS OF A NEW YORK SUNDAY THE RAINES LAW THE "family entrance" HYPOCRISY AND LAZI- NESS QUENCHING THE THIRST SUNDAY NIGHT IN TOWN THE SACRED CONCERTS A SURREPTITIOUS PRIZE-FIGHT POLICE INTERFERENCE IN PRISON PROFESSIONAL BONDSMEN VICE IS EXPENSIVE MISS COI^LIS was too tired to be sur- prised at the famous way she and De Peyster were getting along. As she crawled wearily into bed she wondered how, if New York Sundays were so busy, the people managed to live through the week-days. And that was her Sunday in town, but the Rev. Mr. Granger's Sabbath was different. The poetical Simes felt that he was earning at least canonization by acting as an escort to a preacher — on Sunday of all days; but, by care- fully choosing the most fashionable churches, where crowds were thickest, he convinced the good man from Terre Haute that New York must be pious indeed, since it was impossible for all its thousand churches to house its ardent 126 ^be IReal IRew ^ov\\ believers, and lie himself could find no place to worship. In the afternoon Simes took him to some of the missions which rich churches support in the poorer districts, and also showed him or de- scribed to him some of the magnificent hospi- tals, such as the Bellevue (a new Bellevue is planned, to cost fifteen million dollars), the New York, St. Luke's, the Presbyterian, St. Vincent's, the Roosevelt and many others, where the poor receive, free of charge, the benefit of the most J3erfectly equipped and scientifically governed institutions in the world, and whither the hurt or the sick are rushed in ambulances at any hour of day or night. The great Hebrew Mount Sinai is the latest to be completed. It has been called the Waldorf of hospitals. It fills an en- tire block at One Hundredth Street and Fifth Avenue, and includes ten connected buildings holding four hundred and eighty patients. The heating and ventilating apparatus alone cost $250,000; the air is taken from high above the street for purity's sake, warmed by radiators, filtered through cheesecloth and later expelled into the street as far as possible from its orig- inal source. Even the rooms are built with round corners to make cleaning easier. Each of the buildings has its sun parlor on the roof, and it is difficult to conceive any device that has been overlooked for the comfort and protection of everything but the poor microbes. H66ortct) Sabbatbe 127 A NEW YORKER In the evening, poet and parson strolled about listening to street-corner preachers and looking at the superb buildings of the Charity Organi- zation Society, with its humane pawnshop and its penny provi- dent fund; the newsboys' homes; the Mills Hotels, where decent lodgings may be had for almost nothing; the Uni- versity Settlements in the slums, where good men and women try to plant happiness among the unhappy; the palatial homes of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- dren and to Animals, each with its own police, saving the little people from vicious parents and rescuing horses and dogs from brutes who starve or beat them. Simes told the minister of the ac- tivity of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, which, under Anthony Comstock, makes many mistakes, but justifies itself in keeping unspeak- able knaves from peddling obscenity to school children; of the various societies for protecting ignorant immigrants or trustful visitors from con- fidence sharks; the various homes for providing fallen women with an escape from the streets, or rescuing sailors from the clutches of the harpies of the wharves; the comfortable clubs and gymna- siums of the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations; the Legal Aid Society, 128 Zhc IRcal mew ^ov\{ which gives free counsel to the oppressed poor; the iVctors' Fund, with its nearby home for aged and forgotten favorites; the numerous protective associations organized by foreigners for their own kith and kin, such as the Fraterna Italiana, the Cercle Francais TAmitie, the Irish Emigrant Society, the Jewish Immigrants' Protective So- ciety, the United Hebrew Charities, the Swiss Home; the numberless circulating libraries, the manual training schools and the public baths. To refresh his client's fatigue, Simes took him to one of the owl- wagons kept by the Church Temperance Society, where all night the best possible pie and sterilized milk, surpassing cof- fee and well-cooked foods are sold as an offset to saloons. He described Nathan Straus's booths for dispensing sterilized milk to the poor; the Herald's Free Ice Fund, that carries a cooling touch to the Lazaruses parching in the hell of summer slums; the World's Sick Babies' Fund; Life's Farm, where tiny wretches get back from Stepmother Street to Mother Nature; the crowded steamboats that drift down the Bay with bands playing to mobs of poverty's own children; the recreation piers, with their music and their restful outlook on starlit waters; the parks that stud the tenement swamps with green bowers; even the societies that place boxes in all the stations for discarded newspapers and mag- azines that will entertain the poor and the sick; the little charity boxes in every store for the sake THE OLD CONEY ISLAND Heeortct) Sabbatbe 129 of unprotected cliildren; the annual Thanksgiv- ing and Christmas feasts for thousands of the poor, for whose sake Salvation Army soldiers and Volunteers dressed as Santa Claus stand on frigid corners gathering coin into big kettles. Simes waxed eloquent on the great merciful institutions for the reform of the ill-begun youth, the care of the insane, the sick and the orphans ; the welcome and inspection of the steerage- loads of human cattle, refugees from foreign hardship; the scientific penology of those whose disease is crime — noble works to which six whole islands — Ellis, Ward's, Randall's, Blackwell's, Hart's and North Brother — are devoted. Enormous sums are spent every year by the city on its Board of Health, which coerces rent- racking landlords into obeying sanitary laws, keeps the poor vaccinated, the chimneys smoke- less, the streets immaculate, the incoming ships quarantined; keeps the children schooled and free from factory slavery; cleans the streets at enormous expense; has the Croton water supply analyzed every few hours and kept pure even at the cost of buying and burning down trouble- some villao-es— all for the better health and com- fort of the public. When Simes led the Rev. Mr. Granger back to his boarding-house, he was too much ex- hausted to regret that his explorations thus far had brouglit him no new material for his sermon on "The Modern Babylon Where Mam- 9 130 ^be IReal mew ^ov\\ mon Alone Is God." His head was aching with the attempt to comprehend the milhons on mil- lions poured out year after year by New York's high and lowly in the battle with misery, the crusade of sweetness and light. His heart ached, too, with the expansion of brother-love at seeing a giant's strength so consecrated to the labors of mercy. But there are as many sabbaths in every Sun- day as there are people alive. Mr. A. J. Joyce's Sunday was all his own. Easter parades, church services and charities were not the line of goods he was carrying. He slept late, and, just for an experiment, had his breakfast served in his bed. He had often heard of that Parisian custom, and now that he could reach the an- nunciator without crawling out, it pleased him to press the indicator at the dishes named on the dial. Soon a waiter came in with a tray loaded to the gunwales and carrying enough provender to keep a poor family a week. He set the tray on Joyce's knees and vanished. "They manage this eating business better in France," said Joyce, with a new and cosmo- politan joy. He decided to take his breakfast so every morning in spite of all Chicago. In a short time he had filled his bed with surprisingly sharp bread crumbs, his calves got a cramp and, as Bill Nye said, ''his feet had gone to sleep one by one." Then he managed to empty half a cup of scalding coffee into the breast pocket of Heeortct) Sabbatbe 131 his pyjamas. He drew up his knees quickly and the tray — well, they only charged him twenty- five dollars for damages. "After this," said Joyce, "when I try a French breakfast, I'll put on my raincoat and sit in the bathtub." When he was finally bathed and dressed, he called for all the Sunday papers. There were various important events to read up — especially the latest score in the Russo-Japanese game, and the latest battle between the Chi- cagos and the New York "Giants." Joyce felt lonely this morning. He knew almost no one in town except the re- porter. He decided that there ought to be some means for arranging meetings between lonely out-of-towners and con- genial outsiders. With a sigh of regret he turned to his papers. His eye fell on the front page of the Herald. He never got past that. The first column of the first page was marked the Personal Column. Joyce apologized to New York. Here was just what he was looking for, a clearing house for flirtations, a letter-box for those who had reasons for wanting the secrecy of publicity. "gar(^on!" 132 ZY)C IReal IRew IPork Here were the advertisements with special rea- sons for not appearing in the crowded ordinary cokimns of "Furnished Rooms To liCt." And along with them were tempting baits for the gulls, offers of $20,000 profit for a $200 invest- ment, offers of loan without security, promises of immediate obesity cure, guarantees of beauty in six weeks, hair fertilizers proffered by bald- headed business men; brilliant displays and dazzling promises of astrologers, clairvoyants, palmists and other gamesters who, if they could do for themselves one-tenth of what they prom- ise to strangers, would oust Pierpont Morgan from his pre-eminence, make doctors useless, law courts unnecessary. Congress a waste of wit and the police force an idle ornament. Joyce sat in gaping admiration of the fearlessness of men who dared to publish, and of the beatific trustfulness of those who believe, such promises as he read here. "If these things are true," he mused, "they give the biggest dollar's worth ever known." But he was not interested in unveiling his future. The present was troublesome enough. He called up Blake and begged the reporter to take him off his own hands. Blake's consent came back in a still small voice; that was the only way Joyce ever heard a still small voice — over the telephone. Blake proposed a luncheon at Joyce's ex- pense. But what to do afterward was the aeciortcb Sabbatbe 133 problem. They walked along the quiet streets where all the shops were closed except the cigar booths and apothecary shops with their foreign names, "Deutsche Apotheke" and "Pharmacie Fran9aise"; and where the prescription clerk stands ready to confound prescriptions in three languages. But to-day everything was a drug on the market, except soda water, postage stamps and the directory. Joyce grew bluer and bluer, till he matched the beautiful sky above. "I'd kind o' like to see a baseball game," he sio;hed. "Not in New York," said Blake; "we're too good. You can find amateurs playing in vacant lots, but the baseball grounds are empty. They are trying to break over the old blue laws, but it's a hard fight. You can play golf, though, on the public grounds at Van Cortlandt Park. The crowds are so big that every time you drive you kill a caddy, and every time you try to hole out you get a knockout with a golf ball back of the ear. There are so many fat women trying to reduce flesh that they constitute extra bunkers all over the place. And it is one of the rules that if you lay out the man who is ahead of you, you must either play from his uncon- scious form, or, if he is lying on top of the ball, you can roll him over and lose one shot. Accident policies do not apply to Van Cortlandt Park." 134 Zhc IReal IHcw ^ov\\ *' Sounds a little strenuous for Sunday," said Joyce. "Well, then, there are the private golf clubs within a half hour's ride or more — beautiful Ardsley up the Hudson, Richmond Hill on Long Island, two or three on Staten Island and several in Jersey. Or you can go to one of the Hunt Clubs in Westchester or on Long Island, though they usually run Saturdays. You can practise polo. You can take your private yacht from Larchmont or New Rochelle or from some of the clubhouses along Riverside Drive. You can run down to the tall pines and taller prices of Lake wood. "In the summer everybody gets out of town to some of the hundred beaches nearby and sweats in a train or gets caught in an undertow and carried to Newfoundland. But in the win- ter, Sunday in New York is pretty tame for the stranger. Most people go calling or to the Metropolitan Sunday night concert." "Pretty dead old town. New York, on Sun- day," wailed Joyce, in that final ennui which weighs on the stranger in a city more than on the man lost in Mojave. "Were you ever in London on Sunday.^" asked Blake. When Jovce shook his head dolefully, Blake went on: "Well, if New York is dead on Sunday, London is cremated." At this moment the French twins ap- peared. Before Blake and Joyce could dodge a66ortct) Sabbatbe 135 each was in the embrace of a twin. With some difficulty tlieir half -Nelsons were broken, and Blake, looking about, saw with relief that no policeman was in sight. "Dieu mercir exclaimed Gaston, *'you have sev our life." "I apologize," said Blake. "I could kiss you for joy," cried Alphonse. "Not for a million!" said Joyce, squaring off. '' Sacre nom de nom d'un chienr wailed Gas- ton, *'but is it that zeesa is a city or ze desairt de Sahara.^" "I have thirst like a chameau wiz six estom- acs. Pourquoi is it zat il ny a pas one little cafe on ze pave — not a — as you say — not a one damn!" "That 1 had leave not my dear Paree!" wailed Gaston, and Alphonse, putting his handkerchief to his eyes, tried to lean on Blake; but the lat- ter was no longer there. "I go into a pharmacien," explained Gaston, with dramatic pantomime that began to draw a crowd, "I say, 'Give me of to drink, I beg of it, I go to die.' He ask me if I scream, so I scream. He take a tall verve like the Tour d'Eif- fel, he turn a littla wheel and a syrup come. He put in of the glace " "He put in glass!" exclaimed Joyce. "Why, that's used to kill rats." "We are a rat, then," Alphonse broke in. "Then he turn anawther littla wheel like a auto- 136 Zhc IReal IRcw ^ov\\ mobile. Out come a fine water wiz hissing — s-s-s-s-s! Comme ^a! Zen anawther wheel and bubbles like the soap in a pipe." And Alphonse and Gaston both bubbled. *' There is a young ladies who also have ze same. We make imitation. We eat water wiz a spoon and drink of ze glace. Comme cest drole. But when we feenish we have more thirst as never." It made Joyce thirsty, too, to hear this account of a national beverage. He dashed for a saloon door. "Locked!" he exclaimed, like an entrapped heroine of melodrama. ''I've read of your New York 'dry Sundays.' Is it possible.^" "New York is the victim of the Raines law, as of various other laws drawn up at Albany by rural members who try to save us from perdition by making our laws for us. But where there's a law there's a loophole. Look!" He led Joyce to the window. The little doors in the woodwork were open. The usual line of thirsty mankind was conspicuously absent. Not a drinker was there. "But see," cried Joyce; "I see a man in shirt sleeves behind the bar. And he is mixins: some- thing in a tall glass. Ow! he's putting in a dash of bitters. Help! help! he's stirring the cracked ice with a long spoon. He's pouring it out. There comes a waiter. He takes the aesortcb Sabbatbe 137 glasses on a tray. He disappears into tlie back room. Quick, lead me to it!" Round the corner lie darted, followed by the representatives of the free Press and the French Republic. A double storm door marked "Fam- ily Entrance" It was locked. But Blake and the rear away yielded, yield to the led his squad room filled with was He there. He tried it. almost fainted, went around, door two feet How doors Press! H e a large tables sur- A SUNDAY OUTING rounded by men of all types and a few women of one type. They gave their orders. A waiter slammed a sandwich before them. "What's that.^" said Joyce. "That is a meal," said Blake. "Drinks can be served on Sundays only with a meal." "Must we eat it .^" "Oh, no, RoUo. The waiter would expire if 138 Zhc 1Rcal mew l^orh you did. The law simply says that a meal must accompany the drink. It did not say that the drinkist must eat the meal. Nor did it say what a meal consisted of. Merciful judges have de- cided that one sandwich satisfies the law. If you ate it you would find it more than filling, because it is probably of rubber or celluloid. Thus are the morals of New York preserved by the kind Senators from Watertown and Her- kimer." *'But how it is of hypocrisy!" said Gaston. "In Paree we sit out of doors in ze sunlight, at ze littla tables wiz leddies and gentlaman who do not forget zey are leddies and gentlaman, for zey are where tout le monde observe. But in Amerique you go in a dark chambre and look sad and ashamed and go on ze street only when you are — how you say.^ — dronk!" " Oh, but you forget," said Blake, " that Amer- ica is virtuous and Paris is wicked. And our preachers would rather have purgatory than that horrible, incoherent thing known as the 'Conti- nental Sunday.' " The Frenchmen had ordered little glasses of claret and they were taking it very slowly — a sip every five minutes. The waiter glared at them. Blake explained that in America one must drink some strong drinks and drink them quickly. "It is only on Sundays that New Yorkers sit at a table for liquid refreshments," he said. a60ortc& Sabbatb6 139 "Za vie est breve en Amerique,'' sighed Gas- ton. "Yes, we Yankees die fast and furious — like a chicken with a twisted neck. But a good deal of it is bluff," Blake explained, with that cyni- cism which no reporter escapes. " When we are not rushed we pretend to be. An American wouldn't dare be seen loafing at a sidewalk cafe; it would ruin his reputation as a business man. A Frenchman will sit down at a simlit table and spend half an hour over a demi-litre of Munich beer, and then go cheerfully about his business. An American will hang over a wet bar in a dark, close room for two hours, drink six or eight high- balls and go back to his office with a woolly brain. But that's because we are an industri- ous and virtuous nation and you people are lazy and vicious." Joyce was almost as angry as the waiter at seeing the evil foreigners dawdle over their vice. So he insisted on introducing them to a series of strangely named compounds, beginning with a highball — which Gaston called an *' eyeball" be- cause it superinduced strabismus. This was followed bv a drv Martini with a stuffed olive, a gin rickey, a sherry flip and a Tom Collins. Gaston was the earlier of the two to succumb, and the room began to remind him of the Ferris wheel which he had seen at the Paris Exposi- tion. Alphonse, wishing to learn the mechan- ism of this strange chemistry, was aided to the 140 ^be IReal IRcw ^ov\\ door of the barroom by Joyce. Embracing the casement he watched the deft figure in snowy vestments at his alchemy. The left hand held a tall glass into which the swift right, darting here and there to bottles and flagons of divers shapes, poured, tossed or decanted in long, straight streams numberless disguises of alcohol. Then a scoop of shaved ice, the tinkle of dex- terous stirring, the toss of a maraschino cherry or a twist of golden lemon peel, and the liqueur gurgled into small shell glasses for the titillation of the glossal papillse and the consternation of the duodenum. Joyous deglutition and painful endosmosis did the rest. "Ze gentlaman is at zhe shem time a grand artishte and a mushicien d'un talent de-hic- licieux. He desherve le decoration du cordon- hic-bleu. Vive le barkeepair!" Having now satisfied that curious American passion for compelling other people to drink more than they desire, Blake called a cab, for w^hich Joyce paid, and the twins went gloriously home, Alphonse chanting "La Marseillaise," Gaston, with a finer courtesy, roaring the *'Stair- Bengel Spannaire." Sunday afternoon dragged its slow length along like a wounded snake, and the evening confronted Joyce. His face brightened. "Thank heaven, we can go to a theatre some- where." "On Sundav?" exclaimed Blake. "In Chi- Hesortcb Sabbatba i^i Cairo or Tsintsinatti or New Orleans or St. Louis, ves; but not in New York. How often must I 1/ tell you that New York is virtuous ? There are a few so-called sacred concerts of vaudeville, but they are sadder than a village prayer-meeting.'* ''Damn your virtues! What, oh, what shall I do .^" wailed Joyce. "We might go to a prize-fight." "A prize-fight!" Joyce exclaimed, brightening again. "I thought it was forbidden altogether in New York, even on weekdays." "Lots of things are forbidden," said Blake. "But there are several little arguments on to- night. One of them is at Columbia Hall, on upper First Avenue; another is at a private gym- nasium, where two professionals, one from Aus- tralia, are to meet; the referee is to be an ex- champion of England. You'll see some of the best known brokers, lawyers, society leaders, saloon-keepers and gamblers there, and if the police don't get round too early, it will be good sport. But there is another fight near the East River and Seventh Street, in the old Dry Dock district. It will be more picturesque." In good season, Joyce and Blake were winding their way through streets of such darkness that Joyce felt a bit uneasy at meeting their few but ugly denizens. Over a low-browed saloon was a "Young Men's Reform Club," and up the stairs several men were hastening. At the stairway stood a policeman. As Joyce and 142 ^be IRcal mew l^orft Blake approached they heard him stop a rough- looking youth, and say: " What's all this crowd up to ? " " It's de annual election of de club, you mut. It's a free country, I guess yes; ain't it?" growled the youth. "I guess it is," said the policeman, idly flick- ing his locust by the cord. The annual election was about to begin when Joyce and Blake entered. There was a poll- tax of ten dollars a head, which Blake ex- plained and Joyce paid. The two candidates were stripped to the waist and wore young pil- lows on their hands. The polling place was surrounded with a rope. A campaign manager came forward and introduced the nominees. "Kine friends, we are goin' to try to pull off a neat little bit of de manly art to-night. It's got to be kep' confidential. I needn't tell youse dat de cops is on de dead lookout, an' hones' sport ain't gotter chanst in a hayseed place like New York. Dere can't be no noise, nor nuttin' — not even a gong. Anybody dat cheers gets trun out. It's up to youse to behave like gents, or de whole push will be pulled. Trus'in' dese few woids will be took to heart, I have de honor to interduce to youse two of de gamest bantams ever. Dey is truckdrivers in de daytime, but in deir veins is de blood of Jawn L. One of dem tinks de odder done him doit in a matter of in- fringin' on his rowt. So dey comes here to argy Heeortcb Sabbatb6 143 it out fine and fancy. Foist, I'll present Bobby Hannin, known as Kid Corbett, Junior, who looks like a comin' champeen — stan' up, Bobby. In de odder corner you see Harold Fitzroy, de T'oroughbred T'underbolt. Shake ban's, boys, an' git to yer corners. An' now in conclusion, aujence, remember dat mum's de woid." The audience drew a deep breath and leaned forward. The two human game-cocks clasped mit- tens and broke away, circling about each other with arms churning the air like propeller screws. There was a deal of feinting for an opening and much ingenious foot- work; but not a blow was struck. It was magnificent, but it was not war. One of the spectators growled : "Git to it, you white-livered babies, git to it!" The rest said ''Hush!" in a loud tone. Then there was a sudden deafening crash. Each of the fighters felt that he had been knocked out and one of them fell to the ground and listened for the count. But it was only a policeman who forced open a door and said : "Sorry to distoib you, gents, but the captain is downstairs with his friend. Black Maria." Someone turned out the lights. There was a dash in all directions. Joyce was trampled, kicked and finally bunted through a window left unguarded by the police. A short fall brought him to the roof of a shed. In the dim, sweet starlight he saw various ghosts disappearing 144 Zhc IRcal mew l!)orft over the edge. He followed, and eventually reached the ground. Then he ran. He saw a lumber yard nearby. He started to climb a large pile. It came down with a roar like a hastily built apartment house. He barely es- caped, and darted for another refuge. He felt a hand on his shoulder. *'ls that you, Blake .^" he asked. "Me name's Rafferty," was the answer. Joyce turned and thought he saw stars. They were only brass buttons. A convoy of patrol wagons numerous as a Vladivostok fleet was re- quired to carry the sixty prisoners to jail. Later Joyce made one of a long line in front of the sergeant. The names given by the men in front of him sounded like the roster in the Hall of Fame at New York University. Among others present at the club election had evidently been various descendants of the Presidents. Joyce felt that his copyright was being in- fringed. The Presidents had been used up as far as Andrew Jackson when Joyce was reached. So he gave in the name of Old Hickory. The sergeant asked him if he had any friends to go on his bail. Joyce thought of various acquaint- ances — Blake, the French twins, De Peyster, the preacher, the poet. "Have I friends.^" he exclaimed. "IVe got 'em to burn." "Is that so .^" said the sergeant. "Well^ have they got any real estate to boin ?'' A KNOCKOUT BY THE POLICE a66ortcb Sabbatb6 145 Joyce's jaw dropped. Only De Peyster might own real estate in New York, and something told him that it was beyond even him to appeal to De Peyster. There were certain customers to whom he w^as trying to sell church vestments, but he felt that it might not help trade to ask them to relieve him from a scrape of this sort. There was nothing for it but to go to his cell in one of the galleries of the great beehive of iron and stone. Some of his fellow-voters took the affair with the ease of old habit; they were inclined to break forth into song, much to the distress of the other guests and the sleepy watchman. But the heart of Joyce was empty of song. He wondered who had preceded him in his cell. He felt that he would rather sit up all night than lie down on that bed. Jn half an hour a policeman came and led him forth — to the guillotine.? he won- dered. It was to Blake. Blake had fallen into the hands of one of the quiet heroes who glorify the solid ranks of ''the finest." This officer had once found five thugs trying to do up a man who had "peached" on them. They turned on the policeman with two knives, a pair of "knuckles," a sandbag and a gun. He fought them all to a standstill, and only dropped when help had responded to the loud whir of his club on the pavement. This policeman was a wreck, his clothes in tatters, his helmet with a bullet hole in it, his shield 10 146 Zhc IRcal mew l^orft dented where another bullet had glanced, and his hands and face torn and bleeding. But you should have seen the five thugs! Now, it had fallen to Blake's lot to write up the courage of this typical policeman. He had made him a nine days' wonder and collected a purse for his family. And so the policeman who had arrested the five thugs somehow could not hold his friend "Ananias." Blake mysteriously got away. He entered the station now as a re- spectable citizen, and sent for Joyce. When he learned that Joyce had no one to bail him out, he said: "The first thing a stranger ought to do when he comes to New York is to make a friend of somebody with real estate and a telephone. One never knows when he may need bail." Blake knew a professional bondsman who un- derstood the ways of dodging the law, and, claim- ing Joyce as a dear friend, gave bond for his ap- pearance in court. The next morning the judge decided that as there had been no fight, there had been no misdemeanor. The police felt cha- grined at having prevented instead of punished a misdeed. Joyce was delighted, till he learned the charge of his bailsman. Then he groaned: "This is where I telegraph home for more money. I brought what I thought I could af- ford for two weeks. I've been here two days. Sports come high in this town." Chapter VIII CHINATOWN THE NUMBER OF CHINESE AND THEIR IN- DUSTRIES THEIR CLUBS, NEWSPAPER AND RELIGION THE JOSS HOUSE THE CHINESE NEW YEAR THE FUNERAL FEAST CHINESE AND WHITE WOMEN OPIUM THE HALF-BREED CHILDREN A RESTAURANT AND CHINESE BILL OF FARE A CHINESE SHOP THE CHINESE THEATRE A TYPICAL PLOT THE CHINESE ACTRESS THE AUDIENCE, THE ORCHESTRA AND THE PLAYERS SPEAKING of Seven-League Boots — we have changed all that. You can cross the Pacific Ocean in one step. Just turn to your right from Chatham Square, and — there you are! Chinatown is a different world; the very silence of it has a foreign sound to one coming out of the boiler factory of Chatham Square. In Chinatown the citizens move tacitly on felt-soled shoes. And they have a foreign way of walking in the streets, which are almost as narrow as the narrow sidewalks, and go with such crooks and turns that one of them — Pell Street — describes a semicircle, and, with true Oriental politeness, eventually leads you right back to the street you just left. In Chinatown you feel something sinister in the stealthy tread and prowling manner of these Celestial immigrants. Harmless soever 148 Zbc IRcal IRew IPorft as they may be, they suggest melodramas of opium dens and highbinders. You happen on them in dark hallways, or find them looking at you from strange crannies of ramshackle struc- tures like night-blooming felines. Chinatown is truly a separate town, for though it has a population of hardly more than a thousand, there are seven times as many Chinese engaged in laundry and other tasks in other parts of New York, and there are colonies of pigtailed farmers out on Long Island, to whom Chinatown is a Mecca. The town's private affairs are governed by a committee of twelve prominent Chinese merchants and an annually elected "Mayor." The business of the municipality is partly drawn from curious sight seers, but largely from native patrons; the shops are devoted to celestial foodstuffs, pot- tery, jewelry, fabrics and laundry supplies. The tourists who cannot read the multicolored banners that hang out for signs can read only too well the shop-window allurements of porce- lains, ivories, silks, fans, screens and idols. Our imported chinaware is growing jealous of the praise heaped on japanned ware, and is show- ing progress of its own. At No. 5 Mott Street a new and modern building has been seized on as a centre of progress. On the top floor a printing plant has been installed — the Japanese having formerly done all Chinatown's press- work. A Chinese font of type contains some Cbinatovvn 149 two thousand characters, but the new shop has imported a supply sufficient to publish a news- paper — and a newspaper with a mission at that, for it is to be devoted to reforming China and securing the deposition of the Empress. The editor wisely begins at a safe distance. He is Mr. Tong Chee, a reformed professor, and, with true Chinese reserve, his daily paper is to be published twice a month. The Reform News has a sworn circulation of 10,000 to begin with, and it appeals to a Reform Association at home of over three million mem- bers, so that the affidavit editor will not reach the end of his rope so soon as did the New York newspaper circulation men in a recent bragging war, when the population began to give out before their enthusiastic perjuries. The building at No. 5 Mott Street also con- tains a new Joss House and the Oriental Club, which is a dozen years old and devotes itself to Americanizing its members and aiding the illu- mination of China. In this building, also, is the Reform Association; it has a "Ladies' Branch" composed of the sixty-five Chinese wo- men in this country. The president of this Ce- lestial Sorosis is Mrs. Fong Mow, a college grad- uate and wife of the author of a thrilling Chinese- English lexicon. A prominent member of this women's club is a lecturer. Miss Kang Tung Bac, and partly through her influence Chinese women have been not only brought to attend 150 ^be IRcal IRcw ^ov\\ meetings, but even to adopt the odious Occi- dental custom of paying and receiving calls. The first thing an American thinks of in con- nection with a Chinaman is opium, as the first thing a Frenchman associates with an English- man is gin, which he rhymes with "God-sev-ze- quin." But those who claim to know say that among the four hundred million Chinese sub- jects in China there are several who do not indulge in this intoxicant smoke. Certain it is, that if you want to see an opium den in opera- tion you must manage to steal into the apart- ment of a private citizen taking his opium cum dignitate in solitude. You are more likely to find him and a few of his friends engaged in gambling away their American lucre on fan-tan or the more recent craze for "Peh Bin," which has swept over the Chinese world just as "bridge," that new pons asinorum, has spanned the rest of the world. "Peh Bin" means "eight faces" and refers to a sort of combination of the ordinary dice with the tops of our boyhood. An octagonal ivory or wooden lozenge on a peg carries a different char- acter on each face, and is set spinning in a sort of chafing-dish with a cover. A long paper marked with eight squares carrying the corre- sponding characters is laid on a table. It is in red and black, as are the characters, and the gamblers place their money on one of the squares or color-circles, much as in roulette, while the Cbinatown 151 A NEW YORKER top spins under the cover of the chafing-dish till it falls. The Chinese have thus solved the great sporting problem of New York — how to gamble while the "lid" is on. But, though "Peh Bin" rages, the opium den is very taciturn. Even Mr. *' Ananias" Blake, when the Rev. Mr. Granger, of Terre Haute, appealed to him for a chance to see an illusion- distillery in operation, was forced to confess his ignorance of such a place and refer the truth-seeker to the Detective Bureau. And the very detective had to answer: "I'd like to take your money, but, honesto- gawd! the only way I know to see an opium joint is to get one up special. If you want to entertain a party of ladies, I'll rent a room and a lay-out and get a couple of chinks to go through the motions, but it'll cost you about eighty dol- lars." Now, eighty dollars is a large price for truth when imagination is quoted so low, and the min- ister, regretfully rejoicing in New York's disap- pointing virtue, decided not to invest in a one- night opium-stand. But he drifted through the crooked streets with Mr. Simes, and felt at last that he had found something different, in kind as well as in degree, from Terre Haute. He 152 ^bc IRcal mew l^ork chatted with Httle mongrel Mongols, whose faces showed strange combinations of almond eyes with noses and upper lips of Erin's own design. He asked one twelve-year-old his name and was told: "Me namee Patlick King Low." When he inquired further, his curiosity was rebuked by a string of Saxon gutter-eloquence in which he was invited to go to that very place against which he had always warned his parish- ioners. He noted that certain of the Chinese were accompanied by women more or less well dressed and of undoubted Caucasian breed. "Those ladies are mission workers, I sup- pose.^" he inquired of Simes, who answered, uneasily: "Well, they — yes — they are interesting them- selves in the welfare of the Chinese. They try to divert them from homesickness, and they per- suade the Chinamen to invest their money here instead of sending it back to China." " Most commendable work, too, I should say, and very courageous they must be; they seem not at all afraid." " They know their way about." "That lady with the pail— what is it she car- ries.^ Seems rather frothy — like root beer." "Well, it's something like root beer." Then he changed the subject. "Too bad you didn't get to town earlier, suh. February 15th was the beginning of the Cbinatown 153 Chinese New Yeali's Day; it lasts a week. New York has three New Yeah's Days every yeah — the Christian, tlie Chinese and the Jewish. The Chinese celebrated in 1904 the 4,079th year of the empiah; they still maintain the cus- tom of paying calls; these serve as an excuse for drinking; they smoke from long tin pipes, and drink rice wine, and also a good deal of ongaway, which by any otheh name would smell as whisky, suh. In every ho'se there is an altah with its little god, taking a light lunch of incense smoke from large joss sticks, while the less spiritual man is tempted by celestial viands, fruits and nuts, *' There is a remarkable Chinese custom that sounds most cu'ious, and shows how basely we flatteh ourselves, suh, when we call the Chinese a dishonest race; for one of their habits is the clearance of all debts by the fust of every yeah. It is actually a public disgrace to be found carry- ing a debt oveh from one yeah to the next. Even the relatives play a violent paht in trying to fo'ce payment from the shameless debtoh. When we contrast this feeling with its practical absence from ouah social considerations, suh, we realize the Chinese stability. "At noon on New Yeah's Day every China- man, and woman, and child climbs to the Joss Ho'se, kneels, touches his forehead to the flo', and exclaims, ' Ga ne fo toy, ' which is to wish the god a Happy New Yeah. If they'd only wish him a new face! 154 Zbc IRcal mcw) l^ork "The streets are gay and odd enough at any time, with their hanging shields and bannehs in place of the rigid signs of the Caucasian, but New Yeah's week they are most beautifully bedecked with yellow silk pendants, lanterns and tasseled cloths. And now let us invade their temple, or Joss Ho'se." Up long flights of crooked stairs the parson puffed. He made a strange picture confronted by the long-robed priest of a rival god, Gwang Gwing Shing Te, who claims an age beside which the eternal years of Jehovah seem like youth and Buddha a parvenu. The original founder of the Chinese worship is here painted between his effeminate secretary, Lee Poo, and his ferocious sergeant-at-arms, Tu Chong. The footlight row of candles gives a fitting theatrical touch to the scene, and the great carved wood altar is covered with vases of bronze and with cups full of luck-guaranteeing joss sticks. Chi- nese worship is a sort of feat in mechanical engi- neering, and all manner of labor-saving devices have been invented to put our vauntedly scien- tific age to shame. As the priest from Terre Haute stared at the polite parson from Kwantung — where almost all our Chinamen grow — various Celestials were paying devoirs to the god who makes so little demand on their time. The Chinamen piously lighted their incense sticks, burned their quota of shaving paper, poured their drops of rice wine, Chinatown 155 IN A CHINATOWN AUDIENCE muttered their formula, ti})pe(l the ohli^^ing deity, and bowed themselves out till the next holiday or funeral feast. The great annual event, the funeral feast, falls in the third moon of the Chinese year; it was April 24 in 1904. On this day the mourners go to Cypress Hills, in Brooklyn, where most of their dead are buried until money is raised to send their bodies home in state to join their ancestors. At the grave, squares of gilded rice paper are burned as grave money ' ' — ferry fare for the departed. Food is left on the tomb that the dead may not starve to death, and in- cense and six candles are burned at each grave. The outward suits of woe among the Chinese are blue and white ribbons on the queue and on the shoes, worn for three days, and a strip of blue worn for three years. Mr. Granger found the scene in the Joss House so peaceful and the priest so genial that he caught himself salaaming his way out in Chinese fashion, though oblivious of the fact that, as in all other churches, the contribution box is never closed. And he went to his lodgings, blissful in the conviction that China- 156 Zhc IRcal IRcw lJ)orh town is a quiet, virtuous city of peace and good will. Meanwhile, A. J. Joyce was also hunting ex- perience. He was bitterly disappointed at be- ing unable to find any opium hells, though he came near being thrown neck and crop out of a number of private apartments where his in- trusion was received with the same indignation it would have met had he tried to go slumming on Madison Avenue. There is no lack of places where, in low bunks, hollow-cheeked Chinamen are stretched in gaunt stupidity smoking the mystic pellet that gives them visions of strange Edens of delight, strange aphrodisiac raptures, strange sensations of infinite wealth and power, followed by reactions into unutterable torments of fear and racking pain. In some of these crannies women sprawl shameless in the same imbecile drunkenness — old crones whose life is but a mad appetite, who pay for their dream-revels with withered health and wasted mind. They foreshadow the destiny of all who offer tribute to hasheesh, but the horror of their fate does not deter many a pretty girl from be- ginning the same path, from laying aside de- cency and fear, to give herself to the embraces and the contagion of a loathsome Chinese slave of the lamp. These dens exist, but as far as possible from the discovery of the police, and by so much the more remote from the finding of the casual tourist. Cbinatown 157 Failing to discover an opium joint, Joyce found the restaurants more hospitable. In fact, they fairly commanded his appetite, with their bal- conies gaily bannered and radiant with glowing lanterns of rich color. His zest for statistics had given him a knowledge of certain Chinese dishes, and he led Blake up the stairs of the handsomest restaurant he could find. The place was called the Chinese Delmonico's and the room pleased the Chicagoan mightily, with its strange ceilings, its walls decorated with Chinese art, arches with their dragons coiling slimily amid ornate figurations of gilded wood, and graceful, bare tables surrounded by quaint stools. The room was clean, as are all things Chinese, and the kitchen lay in full view with a reassuring neatness. The guests of the hostelry were a mixed ar- ray of wide-eyed and loud-voiced sightseers, of solemn Chinese deftly stoking themselves by means of chopsticks from bowls held close to their mouths, and of Bowery youth earnestly filling themselves with chop suey— that substan- tial hash made of duck and chicken giblets, bean shoots and celery stewed to a mucilage. Joyce found a table, and, proud of his knowl- edge, beckoned the grinning Chinese waiter, and, without consulting the bill of fare, com- manded : "Bring the best you got for two. We'll have some bird's nest soup and some shark's fins, two 158 ^be IReal IRew IPorft steamed pigeons, a stack of pineapple chips and some lychee nuts. That'll do for a starter, eh ?" Mr. Blake bowed. " And some extly fine tea .^" queried the waiter, grinning still wider. "Yep." The order was speedily filled and Joyce con- fessed to Blake that China could teach even Chi- cago a few things. The tea was delicious, served in the little decorated bowls and poured round the edge of the saucer, set on top, into the trans- lucent cups, with their strange little shallop spoons. The Chicagoan felt his soul expand, and de- cided to buy an individual tea set for " Ananias " and one to take home to the family. When these were wrapped up he called for the bill. He watched the cashier sliding the beads of his counting machine and said to Blake: "The Chinese live well, even if they do live cheap. I'll bet that bill will surprise a man used to American prices." It did. " Exactly ten dollies fifty cen'," said the waiter, through his grin. Joyce had just breath enough to demand an itemized account and to long for a little fluency in Celestial profanity. The waiter showed him the menu, and, with an impressively long finger nail, pointed out the prices: Bird's nest soup, one dollar and a half per plate; shark fins, two dollars a fin; steamed pigeons, two for Cbinatown 159 fifty cents apiece; pineapples, twenty-five cents a stack; the best Ling Gee Sum tea, twenty-five cents a cup; lychee nuts, twenty-five cents a por- tion; the tea sets, fifty cents each. The Chicagoan ran it up on the original count- ing board of the human fingers and growled : "Stung again! You can keep your tea things." He forgot to tip the waiter and stumbled down the stairs. "Talk about the Waldorf!" he said. "It's a free lunch compared with the slums." "You must see the Chinese theatre before you go," said Blake. "Is it any more expensive than a box at the Metropolitan Opera .^" "You can get a seat for twenty-five cents, or a box seat for fifty cents." On these terms Joyce consented. They passed a shop window which lured Joyce within. "I've got to take something home to the fam- ily," he said, "and, seeing I didn't keep the tea set, I'll get something here. Things must be cheap, being made by coolie labor." Before he had priced many articles he came to the conclusion that the coolies must have re- cently organized a union. He made a trifling purchase and stole out. They made their way around to No. 5 Doyers Street. A large automobile carryall was waiting before the bare little hovel. Blake explained : 160 . z\K IRcal mew ^ov\{ " It's a gang of society folks slumming. People on the East Side are so used to it that they look at you in surprise if you come down after six in anything but evening clothes." A heathenish racket came muffled through the board front of the little theatre and deafened them as they stepped into the completely curi- ous, low and crooked auditorium. Here, on tall benches as innocent of backs as a Puritan pew, roosted a dark flock of a few hun- dred pigtailed penguins. The Chinamen all wore broad felt hats, and were all smoking. The stage had no curtain and no scenery; two doors stood for wings, and in one of them the prompter and director stood in full view. With that de- termination to be different in which China rivals certain poets, the orchestra was arranged along the side and back of the stage. Four or five fiends of the musical trade were squatted on tables and making night hideous with all the forms of ear torment imaginable. Every few seconds the gong was smitten with a clangor that went in at one ear and out at the other, leaving a headache behind it. There was a pair of huge and beautifully ornamented bronze cym- bals, and there were other instruments less head- splitting, but even less musical than a banjo. " Reminds me of one of the shivarees we used to serenade bridal couples with in Illinois," said Joyce. "Only instrument lacking seems to be a tomato can on a tarred string." Cbinatown lei The orchestral score of these Chinese Philhar- monics could be written without notes, if there were any form of italics and exclamation points that would do justice to the neuralgia of noise. A favorite leit-motif went something like this: "Bang! whang! click — cluckety — bang! "Cluck! bang! "Cluck! bang! " Cluck! bang! " Cluck ! rattlety — bing ! beng ! bong ! bung ! ! ! " The voices of the actors were in keeping with this dulcet symphony. The very gestures were deafening, and the faces they made in expressing their emotions rivaled the Gordian knot in in- tricacy. The men spoke, or rather squealed, in a falsetto violence that resembled an argument on "Soul Migration" at a Theosophical meet- ing. But there was a woman who put them all in the shade; for, in this free country, the Chi- nese have revolutionized their theatre enough to permit a woman to act, while at home the stage is in the same period, with regard to female im- personation, as ours in Shakespeare's day. This Chinese Ellen Terry is said to be the only one in the world, and she rejoices in the catarrhal name of Ng Ah. She is not beautiful, even ac- cording to Chinese standards, and her impres- sionistic system of make-up is disconcerting; but her robes and headdresses are of ravishino: beauty. It is needless to say that, being a member of a 11 162 ^be IRcal mew l^orft despised caste, she chiefly loves to impersonate the sacred Empress, In a Chinese play the big "moments" last an hour, and her favorite "bit" is about as long as two acts of a play of ours. In this she plays the part of the Emperor's favor- ite wife. Her great scene has been described as follows: "It seems that the Emperor's son by another wife has been sentenced to death. The mother of the boy comes to beg his father to spare him. She is but a plain-looking woman, and a man acts the part, at that; but whenever she tries to approach the Emperor, the favorite, splendidly arrayed and with all the witchery a jealous woman can bring to bear, bars the way. Now she fans the Emperor, wheedling and cajol- ing him the while, or holds her loose sleeve before his face so that he cannot so much as see the modestly clad and humble figure at his feet. When at last the mother, driven to desperation, allows herself to be drawn into a war of fans, the favorite cleverly contrives to make the sup- pliant's fan strike the royal person. Such a crime as this is past all forgiveness; the offend- ing mother is hurried from tlie august presence and the triumph of her heartless rival is com- plete." They say that in China a word alters its en- tire meaning with its pitch, and that a syllable spoken in a soprano voice will be a delicate com- pliment, while the same syllable spoken in the ehest amounts to a challenge to a., dueb One Cbinatown 163 cannot blame the Chinaman, then, for being careful of his twenty-five voices; but to the Amer- ican it is most distressing, especially in the ex- aggerated form of stage expression. At Doyers Street you will hear a healthy-looking man vio- lently emitting the squeals of a pig going to exe- cution and alternating these with guttural rasps that would tear even an American football root- er's throat to rags. Mr. Joyce tried to take down the actual words of one of the scenes to read to the family at home, but he soon gave it up. So far as it went, his record was as follows: "Kung! meow! squawawak! gung dummilung yung! wow! brek-ek-ek-ex ! coax! hullabaloo! skookum! meow! fstt! yung dummilung yung! wow ! I hope I haven't quoted anything improper, and 1 hope that no philologist will carp at the 164 ^be IRcal IHcw WovW spelling. But words like these have a bewilder- ing effect when delivered at the full speed and volume of a pair of leather-bound lungs and ac- companied by gesticulations and facial manipulations frightful to behold. It is only fair to say that to the Chinese our theatres are just as outlandishly unhuman and ridic- ulous as theirs to us. Chinese plays are notoriously long. The New Year's play lasts a week, and so do many others. As everybody knows, the stage mechanism resembles that in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Chairs represent walls, bridges, cities, citadels — anything. The convenience and economy of this system is delightful, especially when one of the actors steps forward and braces the chair for another. Then there is a door which may represent death. The cleanly Chinaman hates to have corpses cluttering up the stage; accordingly, when it is necessary to take a human life, the executioner makes a few passes round the doomed man's head with a sword, and the unfortunate wretch simply scoots out at the death door. So much for Bolingbroke! Every man his own undertaker. The Chicagoan watched this special play in in- creasing bef uddlement. He wrote home about it : Cblnatowii i65 "The noise of that orchestra gave me the toothache. When I went in, two men were fighting. Both were stripped to the waist, and one of them carried a sword and the other a pitchfork — a trident, Blake called it. They fought, two up and two down, like we did when we gave amatoor shows in the barn and charged ten pins admission. Well, after fighting a while and caterwauling at each other like two old toms on a back-yard fence, one of them slid out at death's door. *'Then the woman actress came in with a big wicker shield and a sword. I thought she was a kind of Joan of Arc, but the audience all laughed, so I suppose it was funny. But she put up a poor fight, and the man disarmed her. Then she let down her back hair and I looked for a tropical scene, like in Hall Caine's 'Chris- tian,' but my hopes were doomed, for she went out at death's door. Then back comes the other man, so I guess it wasn't death's door after all. He had a shield and sword now, so the two men went at it again, hammer and tongs. Then one of them fell down and turned a series of somersaults all over the place. It was fine acrobatics, but was it art.^ Then he hid under the shield. Then he wrestled with the other man. "Then the dead woman came back to life, and helped her husband — or father, or brother, son-in-law, or whatever he was— to tie the 166 z\K IReal mew l^orft acrobat. Then she and her husband, or what- ever he was, wrestled all round the place in most amazing style. Then they all went away and some fellows came on and put up a sort of a booth, very beautiful colors and all that. Then came in a strange old boy, with long white whiskers — a judge, I guess. Then some people dragged in the man that had been tied up, and he cut up scandalous. He actually put his foot up on the judge's desk— or was it a pulpit.^ Then the judge walloped him well with a long- pole until the old judge fell down exhausted. The woman with the black hair helped the judge up to his feet, and he went back to the bench and began a speech that would have got on the nerves of a plaster cast. And as he showed no signs of letting up, I came home." On the way out, Joyce met Miss Collis, and in spite of De Peyster's evident annoyance, he reminded her of their train-wreck meeting. ''What do you think of Chinatown .^" he said. *'Oh, it's all very tame to what we have in San Francisco," she answered. "Have you bought any souvenirs.^" "Not much," he replied, sheepishly; "nothing very ornamental, but a little something useful." He produced a little celluloid hand on a long stick. " It's a back-scratcher," he explained. " Well, good-night. So long, Ananias. Me to my downy." Chapter IX NEW YORK S GARDEN OF EDEN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN — ITS BEAUTY — DIANA, THE PATRON GODDESS THE SIZE OF THE BUILDING AND WHAT IT CONTAINS THE VARIOUS SHOWS THE HORSE SHOW — VENICE — THE ARION AND OTHER MASKED BALLS TYPICAL SCENES AN EARLY MORNING DRIVE SUNRISE IN NEW YORK THEY were taking a short cut through Madison Square. Over the tops of the trees there soared a graceful, creamy shaft. It was vague and ghostly. Twilight was filling the town with its savory smoke. Suddenly, the shaft bloomed into radiance like a constellation. Electric letters flamed white against the dusky sky. Blake and Joyce ex- claimed in one voice: "To-night the Arion Ball is on at Madison Square Garden!" Madison Square Garden! How much that means to the New Yorker. It is the most New Yorkish thing in the town. It is a compendium of the city life in one volume ; and well it may be, for there is no other building in the world, to be sure, that houses one-half the gaiety and energy, or half the variety. The pious Manhattanist opens his windows 168 Z]K IReal mew ^ov\{ toward that tower. He says all the prayers he ever says to the goddess Diana poised aloft, clad only in her coat of skin-tight gold and in a thin flying scarf that twirls and cnrls from her aerial shoulders. She is well fitted to be the goddess of New York, save for her excessive reputation as a prude, and, as to that, the new^s- papers of her day had much to say of a certain — but that would be gossiping. Diana was the bachelor girl of her time. She is New York's proper deity, for she exults in life; she is always a-tiptoe with restlessness; she is gilded and graceful; and she twirls with every breeze, pointing her arrow down any wind where there's a chance of game. Diana, hunt- ress of pleasure, long may you pirouette above this pleasure-hunting town ! Never goddess had fairer haunt, for her tower is a thing of glory by day, and at night, shadowily hinted by its altitudinous electric globes, it is a vision of poetry. This giralda is an improvement on its original in Seville, which it surpasses in splendor and in the grace of its graduated flights of architecture. The building from which this swift high shaft leaps up is the dearest thing in New York's heart — dearest in a double sense, for its rental is a thousand dollars a night. And yet, it has never paid expenses. Still, whenever a hint of tearing it down has been whispered, a million voices have gone up against the sacrilege. IHcw ^ovWb (Barbcn of £^c\\ i69 Turn it into a temple, a post-office, anything; but keep it erect so long as the town holds beauty in esteem. '*What London would be without St. Paul's, or Paris without the Arc de Triomphe," said Blake, "that is what New York would be without Madi- son Square Garden." He had run into A. J. Joyce, who was feeling lonely, and declined to be shaken off. He saw a chance for a statistical display now, and broke out: "The Garden, they say, is the largest amusement temple in the country, and one of the largest in the world. The Diana is 365 feet above the ground. The amphitheatre is 300 feet long, 200 feet broad and 80 feet high; it seats 6,000 people, and is lighted by 7,000 incandescents. I was up in the tower to-day and I could see beyond Grant's Tomb, far over into New Jersey, and well across Long Island. The building, I find, cost $3,000,000, and it held 14,000 people once when Grover Cleveland spoke. Besides the huge amphitheatre, it con- tains that large theatre where companies play all season, and then there's a small hall, where concerts are given." "I saw a contest for the billiard cham- A NEW YORKER 170 Zbc IRcal IRew ^oxk pionship of the world there once," said Blake. "And there's a restaurant where a thousand people can be served," the Chicagoan persisted. "The basement will hold troops of cavalry, or Barnum's menagerie, or any old thing. On the roof I hear that concerts and comic operas or vaudeville are given in summer, and for the last two summers they say you could spend an evening there in Japan, with a Japanese toy landscape, a Japanese opera and Japanese dishes served by geishas." If there is any more beautiful temple of pleasure in the world than Madison Square Garden, it must be in some of the undiscovered regions, for it has not yet been seen by civilized men trying to forget civilization. What form of amusement has the New Yorker not seen in this microcosm ? Here he is brought as a child to see the Greatest Show on Earth on a greater scale than in any tent — though not so easy to crawl under. Here the menagerie has overwhelmed him with its animals almost as fearful and wonderful as the menagerie of adjectives Tody Hamilton has gathered out of the backwoods of the dictionary. That com- plicated, noisy menagerie smell has dislocated his nose, as later the three-ring circus has dislocated his eyes. Playing so important a part in the New York child's education, it is small wonder he loves it IRcw ^ovWb 6arbcn of lE^cn in when he is grown. And it grows with him; for when the circus is over, he goes to the Dog Show, and gets deliciously frightened out of his wits by the barking of a thousand canines, leaping and tugging at their chains, and thrust- ing their heads out to bite — or, what is worse, to lather him with their impartial tongues. His little sister is taken to the Cat Show, where the priceless Angoras doze and purr, and where the town's practical joker, Bryan G. Hughes, once took first prize with a common tom cat picked up in the gutter. Once a year the Garden calls in all the coun- try cousins and the farmers, real or amateur, to see the Poultry Show, where lovers of the Plymouth Rock can quarrel with the devotees of the Brahma and the Cochin China, and where the game-cocks and the featherweight bantams challenge one another to mortal combat all day long in safety. When the New Yorker grows older he prob- ably joins a regiment — Squadron A, or the Sev- enth, if he has the price — one of the others other- wise. The Military Tournament draws him to the Garden next, and his heart jounces as he sees the cavalryman running alongside his bare- back horses, four abreast, and, as they take a hurdle, vaulting across three loping steeds and plouncing squarely on the fourth horse, but fac- ing toward the tail. There he will see the artil- lery teams come dashing round the oval, swirling 172 Zhc IRcal mew l^ork the tanbark in clouds as they slidder on a sharp turn and nicely drive between the narrow posts. There the New Yorker's ears crackle from the musketry and cannonade of the sham battles. Each of the regiments is represented in the open- ing review, and then the Canadians stalk in khaki and the gorgeous Highlanders, with their squealing bagpipes, flaunt their tartans. In this big space the New Yorker has seen the charge up San Juan Hill done in miniature, and the tears came to his eyes as the boys swung past chanting, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night." It was at "The Wild West Show" he saw this, for the show has other things to tempt the spectator weary of Indians. But who can ever weary of the tame savages in their outrageous make-up, or the old Dead- wood stage-coach that goes round and round, pursued by Indians shooting it full of paper wads and falling off to the ground as they them- selves die twice a day from an overdose of blank cartridges ? The famous six-day bicycle race takes place here annually, and all night long the benches are crowded with enthusiasts watching the jaded riders pumping away on their eternal treadles. The yellow journals picture them as going mad with fatigue, but in reality they bear the grind with amazing indifference, except when a spec- tator offers a cash prize for a short race; then they brighten up and flash round like demons. 1Rew ^ovWb (5art)cn of iB^cn 173 They seem always to keep one more spurt up their sleeves. Then there's the Sportsmen's Show, and the building becomes a great landscape, with all manner of wild places condensed into one med- ley. This year one end was a range of moun- tains, with real trees and real streams of real water. The water turned two old-fashioned wheels and then cascaded into a big lake in the centre. One end of the lake was thick with all manner of waterfowl, and in another part was a fish hatchery, where trout went to school from the day of their birth to their day of readiness for a frying-pan diploma. There was a hundred-and-fifty-foot tank built over the arena boxes, and here were contests in fly-casting. In the lake there were canoe races, water push-ball, log-rolling contests (poli- ticians and literary men barred) and water polo. In the basement there were contests in rifle and revolver shooting, and you could see a man shoot the ashes off another man's cigar at a distance of twenty-eight feet, and he complained that he was aiming with the wrong eye, as the right one had caught cold and was swollen shut. Here were shacks or tents for Nimrods, with beds of green boughs. Here the campfires of old guides from the Maine woods crackled along- side the booths of men offering for sale the new- est models of guns and powders and bullets — guns guaranteed to be so intelligent that they 174 z\)c IReal IRew ^ov\\ will almost go out alone and bring in a rabbit for breakfast while the owner lies abed and watches it simmer on the self-lighting and self- regulating stove. There were exhibitions of utensils which fold up so completely that you can carry an entire outfit, including a tent and a small sailboat, in your waistcoat pocket. In your other waistcoat pocket you can tuck con- densed foods enough for a regiment; one pill warranted to make a Sandow out of you and keep you from wanting another for a week. In other parts of the Garden you will find elk and moose, very philosophical over their cap- tivity, in contrast with restless raccoons, wolves, foxes and wildcats. Some of the animals are stuffed; the rest are self-stuffing. In the centre lake there is sometimes an island where an almost pretty squaw tries to live up to the stories of poets who never saw an In- dienne. To this carnival gather all those who know one end of a gun from the other, and every huntsman or fisherman with a lie to swap. In the Garden in the summer there is Ven- ice. The centre of the arena is the Adriatic Sea or a circular Grand Canal. You can cross on a bridge or you can make the grand tour in a gondola with a human gondolier and some Italians who do barber's work by day and sing barber chords by night with much twittering of mandolins and a loud chanting of "Finiculi, Finicula." At one end of the Garden IHcvv ^ovWe 6art)cn of lE&cn 175 is a large orchestra conducted by Mr. Duss, formerly a religious man from Economy, Pa. Besides plenteous music there are drinks. Last winter New York tried to be Athenian. The Garden was given over to a Physical Cul- ture Show, where men and women vied in con- tests of beauty for prizes, and got as near to Phryne's or Apollo's costume as St. Anthony Comstock allowed. It was a strangely pagan sight to see a woman clad almost like the Diana above her writhing and twisting to prove her corset - innocence. There were also powerful men writhing and twisting, with muscles fairly crawling all over them ; but the crowd thronged to the women, and I fear took it all as a naughty joke. In this same variety show, the Reverend John Alexander Dowie housed his caravan for a season of prayer and vituperation. He said he was the renovated Elijah, and he ought to know. But he made his first grand mistake in bringing a distinctly homely lot of women with him. How could he expect a mob of frumps to convert a town which will hardly sit up when a manager hurls upon the stage a tornado of show girls, shapely, sophisticated, and dressed in gowns that cost $500 apiece.? The man who would convert New York must look to the quality of his "ladies' auxiliary." Since the Christian Endeavor Society flooded the town with thousands of good but rural 176 ^be IRcal IHcw ll?orh people, who went about staring and stared at, New York has never been so bored as it was by the Dowie inundation. Even the Cherry Sisters interested the town a longer while. It was in the Garden, during the Spanish War, that the Hon. John Lawrence Sullivan made one of his most Ciceronian orations. Neatly adapting a historic phrase addressed by Robert Fitzsimmons, Esq., to James Corbett, Gentleman, Mr. Sullivan advised Spain to "go git a repytation before she tackles a heavy- weight like U. S.," and signed himself ver- bally, "Yours truly, John L. Sullivan." It was in the Garden that Yousouf, "the Terrible Turk," met the American wrestler, Ernest Roeber, on a small platform, and, fail- ing to get his spidery claws on the wiry little Roeber, finally gave him a push that sent him headlong and head first off the boards to the ground. Roeber was carried out senseless, and the enormous crowd was furious. Then was seen one of the prettiest defiances ever handed to a mob by a single hero. Yousouf stood in the centre of the mat and executed a pas seul with all the bravado imaginable. The Metropolitan Opera House was chosen for their next bout. This ended in a free fight. And the Metropolitan stage, which had pre- viously seen nothing more deadly than grand opera duels between a tenor and a baritone, or fierce wrestling matches with the key, was dig- ^^Y^^^ THE ARION BALL COMMITTEE IHcvv ^oxWe 6ar^cn of £i^cn t / iiified by a genuine shindy in which a dozen couples joined battle, to the delight of the police, who reluctantly interfered. It was this Yous- ouf who, on starting home to Turkey, would not trust American drafts, but had all his money in gold. He sailed on the Bourgogne, and when she sank, he sank, too, rather than let go his bag of coin. A strange visitor of sinister memory. The Garden is versatile enough to include everything from a w restling match to a religious revival, and on to a Fashion Show, where the styles are shown some months in advance. But the true fashion bazaars are two in num- ber: the Horse Show and the dark horse show. This latter is the annual Cake Walk and Car- nival of the cream of colored society — the chocolate cream, as it were. But most of the champion cakeists are gone now. They are in Europe delighting the aris- tocracy, turning the crowned heads kinky with envy, and teaching the bluest blood to circulate in ragtime while lords and ladies study hard to master the sinuous arts of what the French call the " kak-vak. " The Cake Walk in the Garden, however, fills but one night. The Horse Show fills a golden, glorious week. It is a yearly parade of horse- flesh and society flesh. The humorists annually make game of the Horse Show because the peo- ple themselves are the show and the horses only an excuse. As if any excuse that brouo:ht the 12 ^ 178 Zhc IRcal IRew ^ov\{ best pedigreed women and the best groomed men on parade were not a good excuse ! As if a filly from marble halls were not a better sight than any cob from Tattersall's! The true New Yorker always tries to get to the Horse Show at least once a year. He jostles along with the crowd of pedestrians, never looking at the quadrupeds in the ring, but frankly staring at the occupants of the box stalls. He makes no bones of halting before a group of society people, to note the good points of the women and inquire who they are. " Isn't that Miss Van Ilia .^" he asks a stranger. "No; that's Mrs. Jack Van Vanvan." In reality it is *'Mrs. Brown," but they are none the losers. They move on, only to halt again and exclaim: "Oh, there's Miss de Butante and the little Duke her father has just bought her. She ought to have got more for her money." And so they go the rounds, while the biped beauties whinny and neigh to their companions and pretend not to see that they are the subject of inspection. A genuine part of the Horse Show is the Waldorf-Astoria, whose corridors are packed all week with aristocrats from out of town and with people in town who stop there for dinner or supper. Then there is the new rival of the horse, the automobile; he, too, must have his show. He is noisier, smellier and more unruly, but a great IRcvv ^ovKb 6ai&cn of lEbcn i79 toy for grown-ups that can afford to "see the wheels go round," can pay for breakages, and don't mind dust, grease and outre perfumes. Until a while ago New Year's Eve was always an occasion when one could "on with the dance, let joy be unrefined," for the costume riot of the French "Cercle de I'Harmonie" filled the Gar- den with revelry and emptied all the magnums and half the pocketbooks in town. It was very easy to be so happy that the puritanic police would carry you oft* to the station to convince you that "life is real, life is earnest, and the gaol may be its goal." The French ball is now replaced by a rather tawdry substitute called the "French Students," whose annual alumni reunion takes place at the so-called Grand Central Palace of Industry, which is neither grand nor central and has no suggestion of a palace nor of industry. But the Germans have survived their Gallic cousins, because there are more of them in New York. Their annual ball is the most gorgeous aft'air of its sort in town. The Arion Club fellows are so hospitable that once a year they rent Madison Square Garden at a cost of $1,900 for two days, one of which must be spent on the elaborate decorations. It is true that the affair nets a profit of from $6,000 to $12,000, but the venture merits the profit, for great sums are spent on dressing the scene and in hiring and costuming the pageant and 180 Zhc IRcal 1Hcw L^ork ballet. The Arioii is one of the events of the year, its chief rival being the ball of the Old Guard, i. e., the ex-members of the National Guard. These men wear a gorgeous uniform, with huge bearskin caps. The grand march is very impressive, as most of the guests don vari- ous military regalia and the women are in their brightest attire. For this event the whole orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House is boarded over. To the Arion Ball went Joyce and Blake, dressed in their purest evening robes. They dined at their leisure and arranged to arrive at 11.30. Under the colonnade, with its many pol- ished marble columns, a throng was edging into the doorway. At the box-offices mobs were struggling for admission at $10 per head, or for boxes at still higher prices. Inside the arena there was a newly erected barrier to cut off the dancing floor from the promenade. This bar- rier was composed of forty-four clusters of col- umns decorated with plants and flowers and connected by streamers of bunting. At inter- vals were large vases of flowers and tubs of palms. One hundred and twenty coats of ar- mor were held by caryatides and atlantes, and innumerable dolphins spouted bunting. Over the dance floor a canopy of gold was swung, and from it hung pendent electric globes smothered in flowers. In the centre a circular stairway of white and gold led up to a platform mew ^ovWb (Barbcit of i£i^cn isi over which was suspended an immense crown— Arion's own coronet. Electric lights by the thousand were fairly s})rinkled everywhere. Up near the roof was a press-room, where reporters and their friends could bathe in champagne and wallow in lobster salad. The journalist, Blake, smuggled Joyce in, and he did his best to get his gate-money's worth. All the rest of the building, except the space for the dancers or spectators, was one vast re- fectory of small tables, where liquid refresh- ments were devoured in appalling quantities. At a little before midnight the preliminary band concert ended, and trumpets heralded what the programme eloquently described as the GRAND SPECTACULAR PAGEANT Of artistically arranged groups, composed of historical characters of ancient and modern times, with over five hundred men and women in the costumes of the times and nations they represent, carrying out the general idea: The World Paying Homage to Arion. We see the various nations of ancient and modern times, their monarchs with suites of noblemen, pages, slaves, etc., in garments glittering with gold arid silver, diamonds and other precious stones, and of a splendor never before equaled in any spectacular production in this city. The costumes were especially designed for this occasion by Mr. Bolossy Kiralfy, and made under his instructions in Europe. For the different groups he selected the most beautiful women and the best adapted men obtainable for their respective characters. 182 (ibc 1Rcal IRcw l?ork In this parade the Empress Theodora, with her Byzantine court, was followed by Monte- zuma and his Aztec train; Hernando Cortez and his Spaniards came on their heels, and next a languid Oriental princess in a palanquin with companions enough to fit out a dozen harems. A troop of bullfighters and Andalusian dancers preceded Harry the Fifth of England, with his knights and ladies. Then an African court with Amazons, ''pretty women of rarely fine shape," according to the dubious compliment of the programme. Finally came Arion himself and Prince Carnival with Columbia and a chorus of loud-voiced celebrants. "To signify the golden jubilee of the Arion Society, gold is in abundance in this group," said the programme, alluding, perhaps, to the fact that later the ballet ladies mingled among the audience and made mascu- line acquaintances with a keen business eye. When the long pageant had wound round and round the arena, Arion mounted his throne, and was crowned, while trumpets blared and the chorus made a loud noise, called a "jubilee hymn." Then the procession filed out again, and the proud Spaniards aided the Aztec super- numeraries in carrying off the heavy sections of the central platform. When the floor was cleared, a flood of ballet dancers reveled awhile, and 150 women united in long, leggy lines of kicking and swirling femininity. These were shoo'd off by clowns mow ^ovKe (Bavbcn of lebcu i83 ten feet high. Then the floor was open to the pubHc. Here, and in the promenade, there flowed a curious mixture of all grades of society. Here the most famous beau in the country is elbowed by a little newspaper man made up as **Mr. Peewee. " There a prominent actor is begging the pardon of a staid German professor from one of the universities. The tenor who has been singing the blameless fool Parsifal to thousands of devout Wagnerians at the Metro- politan Opera, now stands on a chair and smokes a long black cigar, with much sophisti- cation. A gang of hilarious women proceed to play the flower-girl scene with him, and even Amfortas forgets his wound in the effort to save his friend — or to share his sport with a score of Kmidrys. Round about the promenade moves a Gulf Stream of men in evening dress, and of women (a few only in masks) ; some of these are in ball gowns, some in cowgirl suits or cowboy suits, in tights or Tyrolean skirts, or in anything rentable at a costumer's. Here a man in com- plete tramp disguise, with a *' Happy Hooligan" mask, is proud to win anonymous fame by cutting silly capers that bring a good-natured laugh. There, a girl tipsy before the proper hour, begins to cry and embrace the nearest man for sympathy. Some of the women are amazingly beautiful, while others, fat, forty and shapely as a ferry- 184 Z\)c IRcal IHcw ^ovU boat, are only amazing in their short skirts and their hippo- potamus efforts at coquettish- ness. A few German matrons lend a strange contrast till they grow sleepy and go virtuously home at half-past midnight. In the boxes and on the floor there is missing hardly one of the more successful women of the town. The richest of them fill the boxes, as if this were at a slave-mart, and with some of them at the back of the box sits a large negress, a servant, haughty in the pride of her establish- ment. On a table in each box is a rapidly growing pyramid of emptied champagne bottles. Here and there the members of the Arion Society who are on the floor committee are distinguished by caps made like great cock's combs, trimmed with gold spangles. It would be hard to say whether they make the tall or the short, the fat or the lean committeemen look the more ridiculous. The programme announces that " Masks must be removed after 1 o'clock a.m." Certain of the women interpret the order of removal very A BELLE OF THE ARION BALL IRcw ^ovWe iSnv^cn of JB^cn is5 generously. More and more appears that in- variable accompaniment and inspiration of all Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon merrymaking — liquor. More and more the fumes of all this river of champagne rise and rule. But the surly drunk- ards are in the minority. Everyone is here for fun, and fun reigns as decorum flies. The visitors from out of town may feel lone- some at first, knowing no one, but introductions grow less and less necessary, and almost no w^oman who is unattached resists an arm about her waist and a rush for the dance floor. The Chicagoan was late in making up his mind which to choose. He soon lost Blake, who, being a newspaper man with supposed capabili- ties of giving away free "space," was smiled on by all the ambitious chorus girls and other stage parasites who have given the word ''ac- tress" a large and dubious scope. The women Joyce wanted were guarded by men bigger than he. Those wdio were loose looked usually a little too much so. Round and round he walked. At last, a pretty young woman in one of the boxes looked at him with a gleam as of surprise and recognition. He had never seen her before, but— well, he was from Chicago; he was not bashful. He lifted his hat, went to the rail, put out his hand, and said : "Who'd have thought of finding you here? So glad to see you again! Why aren't you dancing.?" 186 Z\K IRcal 1Hcw l^ork "I can't dance alone." ''Come along at once!" He lent her a hand and she leaped over the rail to the floor. "How you have changed, Mr. Buxton!" she said. That wasn't his name, but he only smiled. "There is still room for improvement. But you look younger than ever." The dance was almost over when they began. So they were forced to take the next. She two- stepped so well that he said he knew she waltzed divinely. So they took a waltz. "The next will be IN THE PAGEANT another two-step," he said. So they two-stepped. Then came a quadrille. "I hate square dances," she cried. "And you must be thirsty," he ventured. A little later he said to a beaming and side- whiskery waiter, "A pint of champagne!" "Only quarts, monsieur." He was so flattered at being called " monsieur" that he made it quarts. "And some lobster salad." The salad lasted longer than the wine, so it must be another quart. Formality had vanished so completely that Joyce felt impelled to force a glass on the waiter, whom he called Wicw ^ovKe (5ar&cn of lE&cn is? "papa." The other couples in the dining-room seemed to be mostly engaged couples. The Chicagoan offered a little friendly em- brace to his companion. She repulsed it with magnificence. This made her far more inter- esting. He asked if he might call the next day to ''renew old acquaintance." She shyly an- swered ''Yes." He asked her to write her ad- dress in his book — he had a wretched memory. She wrote her name, of course — " Sarah Hunne- well." And so he learned it, the sly dog! Later, in response to a neatly worded hint, she told him that she was a newspaper woman. He told her he had read most of her articles. He loved literary women. Then he paid the bill and added a munificent tip. Then they danced some more. He kissed her once or twice in the thick of the crowd— but she evidently did not notice it. Then more thirst. "A pint of conversation water, papa," he said to their old waiter. "Only quarts, monsieur." "And some lobster salad." ''Bon, monsieur.'' The engaged couples. in the room grew more and more demonstrative. Some of them surely must be married. But the newspaper woman preserved her modest dignity even when he said, a little thicklv: "When you're in rum, do as the rum 'uns do." She laughed, even longer than he thought the 188 z\)c IRcal mew l^orh flash of wit deserved; but it was doubtless only nervousness. Finally she asked what time it was. ''Only half-past four," he said. "The night is yet young." When the waiter had brought more inspira- tion she suddenly proposed a scheme. ''Let's go out to Claremont for breakfast." She would listen to nothing but her own plan ; she was to go to her home and put on her day clothes; meanwhile he could go to his rooms and doff his evening splendors for a business suit. First a farewell dance. So he paid the waiter again; the large bill required a large tip. The floor was a scene of revel now, the most ingenu- ous love-making being interrupted by the foot- ball rushes of groups indulging in the can-can. The Chicagoan had his toes ground to a pulp, and his companion had the train of her gown torn off, but it was all matter only for laughter. At five o'clock the band, with brazen irony, played "Home, Sweet Home," and the lights began to go out. The scramble for coats and wraps was a good- humored riot, but at last they were in the re- freshing, if reproachful, morning air. He got a cab with some difficulty and drove to her ad- dress. She forbade him to come farther than the outer door. He thought he noticed the word "Manicuring" on a sign, but did not give IRcvv lJ)oiiV6 (5ar&cn of iB^cn iso it a second thought, lie drove to his hotel; the cabman's bill provoked him to a gasp of rage, but he preferred not to discuss the matter before the gaping porters and paid his duke's ransom. He flew to his room, threw off his clothes, looked sleepily at his unrufl^ed bed, threw on his busi- ness togs and sallied forth again. The newspaper woman was nearly ready and he hailed a hansom. The driver looked incred- ulous when he was ordered to go to "Clare- mont;" then he looked wise and said nothing. The streets were growing light and busy with traffic. The newspaper woman let him hold her hand; but, as he admitted to himself, that was rather tame deviltry. At length they reached Riverside Drive, and she was rapturous over the glories of sunrise reflected from the Palisades. But he w^as chiefly amazed by the heaviness of his eyelids and the uncomfortable tightness of his hat. Finally they arrived at the old colonial home- stead once occupied by Brother Joseph Bona- parte, temporary King of Spain. It was mod- eled and named after Lord Clive's place in Surrey, but now serves as a roadhouse of high- wayman expensiveness. The cabman drove up to the door. There was an ominous lifelessness about the place. Even the old-time ghosts had fled at cock-crow. The Chicagoan mounted the steps. The door was locked. A long pounding brought a resentful watchman. 190 ^be IRcal IRew li)ork "Whatch yer want?" "Breakfast, you fool!" "Come back at half-past eight. The cooks don't get here for two hours." The Chicagoan looked at the cabman. He was trying to swallow a smile of guilty joy- "You knew it all the time." "I allers obeys orders, sir," said cabby. "Well, where can we get breakfast.^" "Childs's or Dennett's is open all night," said the mirthful cabby. "I'll break your head!" said the Chicagoan. " Drive back, slowly." The Chicagoan would rather have slept than have talked to the Czarina of Russia. But he must keep awake. The beauties of dawn eventually failed as a topic of conversation. The newspaper woman vainly tried to turn her yawns into little sighs of ennui. At last they found a restaurant. The cab- man made a staggering demand, and when Joyce protested he rattled off a list of distances and tariffs that hurt the Chicagoan's head. Then he offered to drive the couple to the police station. This adroit suggestion ended the argument. The Chicagoan peeled off the bills demanded. He saw to his dismay that he had just two dollars left. They entered the restaurant. All the chairs were piled on the tables; a waiter flicked a mop around their feet with un- IHcw ll)oi1Ve <5ar&cn of lEbcu loi veiled scorn. He could tell that they had been up all night. The Chicagoan, realizing that he had only two dollars with him, could not afford to be haughty. The newspaper woman began to suggest breakfast. "First, an eye-opener, eh .^ Then grape- fruit ? a little breakfast food and cream ? an omelette ? a steak smothered in mushrooms, some potatoes hashed in cream, some brandied peaches and some dainty wheat cakes ? And, of course, a pot of special coffee. How does that strike you .^" It struck the Chicagoan amidships and made his mouth water, but he thought of his two dollars. He usually ate a breakfast of dinner proportions, but he said: " Since I was in Paris I've always pre- ferred just coffee and rolls." His voice was husky with embarrassment, and besides he had caught a cold ! But the newspaper woman had not seen the two-dollar remnant. She ordered what she wanted. Joyce simply took coffee — and stole one of her rolls. The bill was $1.95. The Chicagoan found in his pockets thirty-five cents in silver. He gave the waiter $2.25, leaving his assets ten cents, his liabilities — ? When they left the restaurant the newspaper woman said: "There's our old cabby. We can call him again." 192 Zhc mal mcvv l^orh "The street-cars are quicker," said the Chicagoan, in a desperate tone. So they fought their way on to a crowded car. She got a strap, and he clung desperately to the platform. When they reached her door she told him good-bye and bade him call again. He promised in a hoarse and raw-throated voice, and she flitted cheerily up the stairs. As he turned away he thought it over. **I got two kisses and a bad cold, and it cost me only $65. But what's the odds.^ It's a pleasure to meet a real literary person." He glanced cheerfully back over his shoulder — his left shoulder — and staggered as he read in the clear light of day this little sign: ; Miss Hunnew^ell, ! ; Manicuring. ! AFTER THE BALL Chapter X^ DOWNTOWN BOSTON VS. NEW YORK THE FARMER AND THE SCHOOLMARM COME TO TOWN THE BROADWAY CROWD — A TALL BUILDING — A CITY UNDER ONE ROOF THE RISKS OF MODERN CITY LIFE "NEWSPAPER ROW " THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE CITY HALL PARK A MON- UMENT TO BOSS TWEED THE TOMBS PRISON THE CRIMINAL COURT HOUSE THE POST-OFFICE CROOKED ALLEYS DOWNTOWN THE man from Boston had met De Peyster looking over the tape from a stock ticker. They walked along together. The man from Boston was theoretically democratic, so he was willing to risk being seen with a New Yorker, especially as it gave him an op- portunity to indulge in his local custom; for the typical Bostonian will never say anything mean about a man behind his back; he saves it to tell him to his face. He was informing De Peyster what a horrible hole New York is, after all — nothing but com- mercialism, no Copley Square architecture, no music, no "Pops," no Kneisel Quartet, no Back Bay, no Faneuil Hall, no decent beans, no culture. De Peyster retorted with gay condescen- sion: "Boston is a tame, old, blue-goggly vil- 194 ^be IReal IHcw l^oift lage, a sort of home for aged and indignant women of both sexes, with a proportion of one old fogy to two old maids, neither of them good- looking and both ill dressed. As for Boston culture, it is of the Bunthorne and Lady Jane type. Besides, Boston is now only the ' hub ' of a fifth wheel. It is no longer even a literary centre, for all the literary men have moved to New York, except two, and one of those is Bar- rett Wendell. Boston's noblest contribution to the world of art has been John L. Sullivan." The academic debate was broken off short by the Bostonian. " Good Lord ! there goes the farmer that saved our train from wreck." "What a memory you have!" said De Peyster. "I'm from Boston." "I forgot; Boston is nothing but a memory." They joined the increasing knot of people who were following the farmer. It takes an unusual make-up to attract notice in New York, but Silas had it. He looked as if he had stepped out of a musical comedy. At his side was a little, roly-poly apple dump- ling of a woman, who was pretty in spite of her old-fashioned togs. The little woman was try- ing to remember that her copy of "Don't!" had said, " Don't stare," but Silas was all agape; even his wide mouth stared like a huge Cyclops eye. "Shall we speak to him .^" asked De Peyster. But the Bostonian answered, severely: Downtown ^^'> "I don't see why 1 should speak to a man just because he saved my life. Besides, 1 gave him a tip for it." He dragged De Peyster into a convenient cafe — in New York there is usually a convenient cafe. Then Joyce came strolling along, killing a little time. He saw the farmer, and the crowd after him. He thought of retreating, but his sense of gratitude was not yet frittered away, and, advancing, he introduced himself. Silas was overwhelmed with joy at finding a friend in this blizzard of strange faces swirling round him. He said: "Mr. Joyce, shake hands with Miss Primrose; Miss Primrose, shake hands with Mr. Joyce. Miss Primrose is the school-teacher down our way. When I got that money fer savin' the train an' decided to take a trip to New York, I says to her, * You better pack yer duds, Sally, an' come along,' s'l. An' come she did. Folks down our way says we're engaged. I ain't sayin' ez we are an' I ain't sayin' ez we are." Miss Primrose was blushing like a snow-apple and Joyce's fingers twitched to tweak her most pinchable cheeks. But Silas broke in: " Oh, say, like's not you k'n tell a feller haow fur it is to git to Broadway street!" "Your foot is covering a large portion of it now," said Joyce. "You mean to tell me thet this here street is thet there Broadway street I've hearn tell of 196 ^be IRcal IRew ^ov\{ s'long? Lan' o' Goshin! if 't'd 'a' be'n a snake 't'd 'a' 'bit my fool foot off 'fore naow. Well, well, well! so we're on Broadway street at last! Jes' see the peepil!" "Looks like church was lettin' out of every buildin'," ventured Miss Primrose, with delicious timidity. "An' them streets — looky at 'em! Why, Paw- paw Center on Fourth o' July ain't a patch on it. What's the special occasion, mister, an' where's all these peepil goin' so goldurn fast.^" "Oh, it's just the ordinary crowd," said Joyce. "It's like this every day." "Go on! Ain't enough peepil in the world to keep up a gait like this long. They'd jest naturally give out. And would you looky at them teams — and street cars — where's the trol- ley ? — underground ? Go on, you can't fool me! Honest ? W'l, I'll be durned ! "But, speakin' about craowds, a feller on the train tol' me they was a feller once tried to cross Broadway, an' it was so golblame packed he stood on the sidewalk an' waited twenty-four haours, an' when finally he made a beeline, gol- durned if a street car an' a brewery truck didn't both git him! "Goshblame my punkin seeds, if it don't look like a million sardine boxes was spillin'! An' my feet are so sore walkin' on stone. Gee whiz! ain't they no board walks in this town ?" Downtown 197 "What do you think of the tall buildings ?" said Joyce. "Ta-all? Why, if you piled aour caounty court haouse on top o' the bank buildin' an' the Bap- tis' church atop o' that, an' then stuck Josh Bonstall's new red barn on the steeple fer good measure, 'twould- n't more'n make a foun- FROM THE TWENTIETH FLOOR datlou for ouc of thcsc hcrc skys weepers o' yourn. Fust one I see, I leaned so durned fur back tryin' to see plum to the top of it that I fell over back'ards." "Chicago is the town that put up the first skyscrapers," said Joyce, proudly; "but New York is a close second now. Would you like to go to the top of one of them ? ' ' Silas looked dubiously at Miss Primrose, hoping that she would be afraid; but she was game, and he did not dare to show his fear. Joyce led them to the American Tract Society Building in Nassau Street. Silas said, anx- iously : "Don't these things ever fall over.^ Kind o' like livin' in a chimbley flue." Joyce led them to the elevators and chose an express. The door slammed shut, and the elevator man made an extra fast start for the benefit of the visitors. As the car shot upward 198 ^be IRcal mew ^ov]\ at the rate of 700 feet a minute, both Silas and Sally sat down hard, or rather the car brought their feet up against their spines with a jolt. They looked, seared and rose with difficulty. They had experienced one of the new^est sensa- tions science has given to man. ''Feels like bein' blowed up by a bomb," said Si. " Hope I don't come daown in pieces." The car came to a short stop, and Joyce led his bewildered guests out to another elevator that went still higher. On the twenty-second story was a restaurant in which the prices are not so aerial as its nest. The visitors declined with deep earnestness Joyce's suggestion that they put any food into their dismayed interiors. The landscape was the most substantial thing they could stomach. In this place the meek-salaried clerk can take his lunch and gaze out on a view that Cheops might have envied for all his pyramid. The map of the region was as plain as from a balloon. To the west the Hudson, here called the North River, flowed into the bay, and across its crowded current the Jersey cities rose, and far back of them one could see to the Orange Mountains. In the bay a huge 13,000-ton ocean liner was pushing out and another edging in. Liberty rose in all her pride; round her were anchored the tramp steamers of the coast, the unloaded ones showing a wide margin of red hull, the others weighted deep with ©owntown i^^ merchandise for South America and the Indies. Governor's Island, with its garrison, lay like an emerald on the blue bay. To the west, Long Island Sound, here called the East River, swerved round, cutting off the crowded plains and hills of Brooklyn. From here the Brooklyn Bridge revealed the majesty of its grace, a rainbow of steel, its great cables draped like festal ornaments and giving no hint that all this multitude of crowded trains and almost continuous cars w^as hung from their strength. Far to the north rose the Williams- burg Bridge, an ugly mechanism in contrast with the noble towers and the epic sweep of the Brook- lyn Bridge, that most beautiful of the world's bridges, though the High and the Washington Bridires across the Harlem are almost as fair to see. At this moment a warship was issuing from the Navy Yard. It w^as one of the veterans of the White Squadron, so swanlike and snowy that one could not believe it had spouted de- struction off Santiago. To the north lay, mile on mile, the multi- tudinous roofs of Manhattan, clear-cut under the clear sky in the clear air. Mute at this dis- tance, its streets were ravines, its infinite towers peaks crowded together to the dim crag of the Flatiron, and on, on beyond. Not the least of the triumphs of the city's Board of Health has 200 Zhc IRcal mew l^orh been its crusade in favor of hard coal. Joyce alone, from his soft-coal smudge of Chicago, could rate at its true value the absence of black clouds of smoke. So far as the eye could reach the air was undefiled of soot. Only here and there little jets of steam wavered into nothing- ness — the beautiful white plumes of New York. When Silas and Sally had oh'd and ah'd their hearts out over the Pisgah-sight of the Promised Land, the practical, the statistical Joyce brought them back to facts. He pointed out other tall buildings — the American Surety Company's tower, of just the same height as theirs, 306 feet; the Commercial Cable, twenty-one stories high; the Potter Trust, 293 feet high; the St. Paul, of twenty-six stories or 308 feet; the twenty-two- story Pulitzer, or World Building, with its gold dome, once a landmark from afar, now lost in the giant forest ; and the twin-towered Park Row, of twenty-nine stories, the highest inhabited building in the world, the top of the flagstaff be- ing 447 feet from the ground, its foundations 75 feet below that. Its weight is 40,000,000 pounds. It contains 950 offices, 2,080 windows and 3,500 tenants. Its elevators carry 48,860 persons a week, yet one of the car starters knows the floor and room of every one of its tenants. Its annual rental is $318,010, its operating expenses $141,- 235 a year. The building and the land cost $4,000,000. The Broad Exchange, though only 286 feet high, has the largest floor space in the Bowntown 201 world— 27,000 square feet on each of its twenty stories, each of wliich measures 236x106 feet, witli a 100-foot wing. It cost $7,500,000. Joyce exphiined that some of these buildings are cities in themselves, with populations of thousands each, and almost all the industries of a city, including libraries, notaries, barber shops, restaurants, flower shops, news-stands, confec- tioners, doctors, bankers, tailors, special police, safe deposit vaults, telegraph oflSces, water works and light plants. The Manhattan Life has its own artesian well; the Metropolitan Life draws its water from a stream, now covered, that once ran from Madi- son Square to the East River. In many of them there have been even graver problems of engi- neering than the construction of those ''steel bridges stood on end " which America has con- tributed to the history of architecture, and for which Europe has revived the epithet Cyclo- pean. The foundations of many of them go down seventy-five feet or more, those of the Commercial Cable reaching one hundred and six feet below the surface, the engineer's room being forty feet under the sidewalk. Quicksands have furnished a puzzle for many and almost doubled the cost of certain structures. The American Surety rests on subterranean columns, these on piers and these on caissons reaching to the eternal bedrock. Here a cantilever has been employed to shift some of the weight of the 202 zbc IRcal t\c\v ^ov\\ outer walls toward the centre. The Standard Oil Building, at No. 26 Broadway, was originally nine stories high. When it was decided to add six more it was felt that the old walls would not stand the added weight, and it was found nec- essary to buy a lot to the north and erect there a steel building with a cantilever projecting over the old walls, and on this were hung the six new stories. When the Mutual Life wished to add an an- nex costing $2,500,000 it was necessary to un- derpin an eighteen-story neighbor so perfectly as not to disturb the vaults of a safe deposit company therein; its locks would have been set fast had the walls settled the sixteenth of an inch. The rapidity with which these steel mushrooms spring up is astounding; the stone or brick walls being used only as a sheath and not for support, they are hung on the steel frame; consequently one may see the stone masons at work on the third and tenth stories before the second and the ninth are touched. They may be lathing and plastering one story while the outer walls of the one below it are being added. In spite of the genius of the engineers, the problem of wind pressure is not yet solved, and, for all their strength, some of these buildings vibrate in a storm until water is shaken in a bowl and pendulum clocks are stopped. But they are believed to be none the less safe for downtown 203 this; and the highest offices are in no less de- mand than those nearer the ground. The imagination shivers at the tliought of fire at these heights; but, while many lives have been lost in three-story dwelhngs, no one has yet been burned to death above the fifteenth story, and the few fires that have assailed these structures have usually died in the floor of their origin. Courage, like everything else, is a matter of custom, and were Achilles revived to-day he would flee in hinnulean terror from conditions before which the most flebile stenographer of to-day does not blink. Indeed, the very cross- ing of a street where trolleys hustle, huge trucks rumble and automobiles snarl would doubtless set the fierce-hearted Greek to wishing again for the tame delights of his daily calisthenics be- fore the walls of Troy. The wonders of our sky scraping civilization are impressive enough to the most blase city mouse; to Silas, fresh from the farm, and Sally, just from the village school, they were stupefac- tion. They could think only of the Tower of Babel and wonder when the Lord would curse the city with the confusion of tongues. When later they visited the East Side they found the curse in full operation. At length Joyce consented to take them back to terra firma. They stepped timidly into the express elevator, remembering their former sen- 204 z\K 1Rcal mew l?orft sations; but the previous skyrocket leap was nothing to the sickening drop. Si and Sally clasped each other as in a dying embrace. When they reached the end of the drop they were amazed to find themselves still alive, but their souls were full of nausea. ''Feel 'zif I'd left my stummick up on the roof," said Silas. Joyce explained the system of automatic clutches meant to stop the cars in case of acci- dent and the air wells that offer a pneumatic cushion as a last resort. But Silas was still somewhat shaky about the knees. " S'posin' everything broke, what ought a fel- ler to do.^" he asked, anxiously. "Just before you strike bottom jump up in the air and click your heels together," said Joyce. ''Then you'll have only two feet or so to fall." "Good idee! if a feller could think of it — and do it," said Silas. Joyce pointed out to them the clusters of newspaper buildings round Printing House Square — the Sun (in the original Tammany Hall building); the Journal and the Tribune strangely consorting together; the World, the Press, the Globe, the Siaats-Zeitu7ig, the N ew Yorker Herold. The Evening Post and the Mail are not far away, though the Times and the Herald have fled north, as eventually all will do. All day these caldrons of "News- 2)OVV!ltO\Vn 205 paper Row" pour forth clouds of editions, and lawless mobs of newsboys, crying "Waxty! liuxty! hexty! wexty!" — anything but ''extra!" — fight over any stranger who carries his hand to his pocket. From this hub carts and automo- biles go racing northward to the upper centres and to the trains with every edition. Here are the bulletin boards where the re- turns from prize-fights, ball games, yacht races and other events are posted. In election times the whole square is one viscous mass of be- ribboned and campaign - buttoned humanity, cheering or booing the news from various re- mote districts, laughing at the caricatures or the moving pictures interlarded for entertain- ment between telegrams, and keeping up a pandemonium of tin horns and rattles and good nature, however the issue may waver. In this square are the statues of those two old journalists, Benjamin Franklin and Horace Greeley; the statue of the latter, by J. Q. A. Ward, being a work of real charm, though an- other statue of the same man in Greeley Square at Thirty-third Street is one of the worst atroci- ties in the city. Joyce took them for a little walk out on the promenade of Brooklyn Bridge, through the crowds that fought for places on the various cars, though at this hour they could not see the ferocious struggle for life that goes on at the evening rush hour. The countryfolk found it -^06 ^be IRcal IRcw ^ov\{ impossible to believe that this great causeway could be thus hung in midair by ropes strung across two piers. They grew dizzy looking down upon the boats 135 feet below, and sickened at that mighty forward movement one feels on a bridge, trembling at the little in- sistent temptation to jump. They held each other's hands for mutual security. Joyce told them all the statistics of the thirteen years (1870-1883), and the fifteen million dollars spent on the bridge, with subsequent charges costing six millions more. The centre span between the 278-foot towers is 1,595 feet long^ next to the longest span in the world. The total lengtli of the bridge is 6,537 feet, about a mile and a quarter. The cables are 13f inches thick, each made of 5,'296 steel wires, each wire capable of holding 3,400 pounds; in length they make a total of 3,515 miles wrapped with 243 miles. Each cable is 3,578^ feet long; and is anchored in a great mass of masonry weighing 1,000,000 pounds. Each of the four cables weighs 6,800,000 pounds, and will support 12,000 tons. Thousands of trolley cars cross every day, and the daily number of passen- gers is 200,000. The Williamsburg Bridge is a little longer and cost only $12,000,000, but it will never have the beauty of this bridge, which has long been considered one of the wonders of the world. New York should have twenty more Downtown 207 bridges — and will, in time — but sj)anning these wide, swift, deep channels is very different from throwing an arch across the many - bridged Seine or the narrow Thames. This is proved by the fact that the two bridges now built have the longest spans in the world. Proud in his importance as guide, Joyce piloted his dumfounded clients back into City Hall Park, where they found some restoration of balance in the sight of trees and grass — as rare to New Yorkers as the other wonders to the rurals. But they were too much upset by the titanic neighborhood to appreciate the rare beauty of the City Hall, once a building of civic glory — when the town was smaller — now an ob- ject of almost tiny charms, like a miniature temple in a Japanese toy garden. But small as it is, it is the delight of architects and con- noisseurs; though its cupola is an inferior restoration of the original, which was burnt during the fireworks festival over the laying of the Atlantic Cable in 1858. City Hall is all of white marble, except the rear wall, which is of freestone, as it was not thought worth while spend- ing marble on the poor trash that would live farther north. It was in 1812 that Architect John McComb's plans were IN THE ASTOR LIBRARY 208 z]x IRcal mew l^orft thus finished. To-day City Hall is far down- town and the city limits are sixteen miles north. The design of the building is supposedly based on Inigo Jones's plans for the Whitehall Palace, of which the Banqueting House alone was built. Classic ratios and proportions dis- tinguish this work, and its columns especially are perfect. Nearby stands the memorial statue of Nathan Hale, one of the earliest martyrs of independence, a young, twenty-one-year-old school-teacher forced to act as a spy, and be- trayed by his notes in Latin. Every American knows the story of his execution in the apple orchard that stood on the spot now known as First Avenue and Forty-fifth Street. Every American knows his death-words: "I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." There exists no portrait of Nathan Hale, and the sculptor, Frederick Macmonnies, has been free to represent his ideal of the American face. He has achieved a distinct type, not Greek, Roman, French or English, but American. Inside City Hall are Washington's desk and table and many other relics. Back of City Hall — across the politicians' haunt known as "Hand- Shaking Alley" — is the County Court House, for which " Boss " Tweed charged the city $12,000,- 000— $3,000,000 of it for plastering. The exposure of this deal cost him his throne. To the east stood till recently the dingy Hall of '^^^er^ AROUND THE TICKER Downtown 209 Records, built in 1762 and used by the English in the Revolutionary War as a place for starv- ing American prisoners — a rival of the horrible prison ship that floated in the waters nearby. A new Hall of Records is nearly finished and plans are on foot for building one great central municipal struc- ture of magnificent propor- tions, one that will vie with the stature of the business blocks. Another disappearance is the old Tombs prison, which was genuinely picturesque and gruesome in its thor- oughly Egyptian style. It is replaced by a modern structure a short distance north of City Hall and is connected by a "bridge of sighs" with the Criminal Courts Building, where the visions of misery are relieved by the superb mural decorations of Edward Sim- mons — well worth going to jail to see. This building covers ground once filled with the pond called the Collect, a famous fishing and skating resort, where George IV was almost drowned while skating as a middy, and where, in 1789, John Fitch made the first successful voyage with a model steamboat. Joyce led his footsore visitors next to the Post- Office, a building of unusual design and not half 14 NEW YORKER 210 ^be IRcal IRcw ^ov\\ so hideous as many of its critics pretend. Its real fault is its inadequacy to the needs of New York, whose miserable postal service is far be- hind that of most American towns and still farther behind the splendidly quick services of Paris and of London. Yet the New York Post- Office is one of the few in the United States that shows a profit in its annual twelve million dollars of income from its ten million pieces of mail matter handled every day. Opposite it is the tame old hostelry, the Astor House, once as famous throughout the country as the New York Weekly Tribune. Joyce led his little army down Nassau Street, narrow and twisting as are few of New York's streets and most of London's. In this shadowy gorge, with its alternative of skyish shafts and old rookeries filled with old bookeries, everyone walks in the roadway. This is one of the few districts where it is possible for even the most stupid stranger to lose his way. Chapier XI MONEY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE THE CLEARING HOUSE THE SUB-TREASURY THE STOCK EXCHANGE THE PRODUCE EXCHANGE THE WHEAT PIT FRAUNCES'S TAVERN AT Liberty Street Joyce turned aside to show them the Chamber of Commerce, the white marble palace of an association of mer- chants organized in 1768 and devoted to the expansion of commerce. Its famous annual banquets are held in a great hall ninety feet long and sixty feet wide and thirty feet high. On its walls is a gallery of the portraits of the great merchants who have heaped up the spoils of peace. But when he turned into Cedar Street and pointed out the gleamingly beautiful temple of finance, the Clearing House, Silas and Sally were less overwhelmed by the poetic glow of R. W. Gibson's noble design than by Joyce's statement that it had cost $1,120,000 to build, and that it serves as a sort of cheque exchange, where the money due from each bank is taken from the money due to it and the difference paid by cheque or cash, the average daily clearings amounting to $230,000,000— forty-five per cent. 212 ^be IReal IRcw IDorh more than those of London. In one day, May 10th, 1901, $598,537,409 changed hands under its soaring dome. Joyce led on to Wall Street, hardly so much a street as an institution, a name of world-wide omen. Here is the Sub-Treasury, a branch of the United States Mint. Sometimes $225,000,- 000 in actual coin are stored in this stone fortress, built for siege, and armed with three Gatlings and other weapons, including hand-grenades, to be dropped from various loopholes. All millions look alike to the average mind, and once the sixth cipher has been added a few units more or less make no impression on the benumbed intellect. The jaws and eyes of Silas and Sally had fallen as far as possible with- out ripping, at the first flight into the higher numerals. What more Joyce told them was hardly understood or felt. They were less interested in his statement that the Sub-Treasury had cashed cheques for sums as high as $30,000,000 than in learning why the calves of the heroic bronze Washington were all glistening, though the rest of him was dull. Joyce was forced to ask a passer-by, who told him that the newsboys playing tag about the pedestal had worn their country's father's stockings shiny. It was on this very spot, when New York was the capital of the United States, that Washing- ton took the oath of office, April 30, 1789, as the first President. Little he could have thought flDouc? 213 that in a hundred and twelve years the shaky Httle federation, with its bin full of trouble and empty of money, would become a world power and New York City the financial centre of the globe. How he would have relished at Valley Forge, or during the mutiny of unpaid officers, some of those millions of coin on which he turns his back to-day ! Next door is the still older building, the Assay Office, a sort of magic dairy where they make cheeses of solid silver and skim off the cream of molten gold. Joyce took the rurals within and reveled in the hyp- notism that came over them in gazing at heaped- up slabs of the precious yellow. Silas was per- mitted to handle one bar worth $7,000. He patted it fondly and sighed: "So this is one of them gold bricks I'm al- ways readin' about! Gosh! I'd like to own A NEW YORKER one. A little later he did. It was sold to him on a side street at a great bargain by an obliging gen- tleman who needed a little ready money. From this home of real money Joyce led Silas and Sally to the cyclone centre of auriferous winds, the Stock Exchange, where men grow fabulously rich or plunge into direst bank- ruptcy without seeing or touching so much as a 214 Zbc 1Rcal IRcw I^orh ten-dollar bill; often with no more sign of triumph or disaster than a nod of the head and a penciled memorandum in a pocket notebook. Joyce had secured a card of admission to the Visitors' Gallery from a broker who had bought what they call a "seat"; that is, he had paid $75,000 for the privilege of standing up in a frantic mob and joining in a continuous college yell and cane rush from 10 to 3 every day. The new building of the Stock Exchange is a palatial affair, with its Greek columns and colossal pediment group. It is in New Street now, but it still means Wall Street to the nation. As the three went up in the elevator to the Vis- itors' Gallery Silas said, with all the rapture of one born inland : "The ocean must be nearby. Listen, Sally; you can hear the roar of the breakers." "No; that's the roar of the brokers," said Joyce. They stepped into the gallery opening on the lofty and brilliant amphitheatre of multi-colored marbles. Everywhere little messengers were flashing like minnows in a disturbed pool. Numberless telephone bells were tingling like mad. On one of the walls little blackboards were falling silently and closing mysteriously again, showing for a moment various numbers — signals to individual members that they are wanted at the door. On the walls only was silence, and at the huge windows, where floods flDoncv^ 215 of light poured In on a scene of Bacchic orgy. On the floor, littered with papers and raucous humanity, were little posts carrying legends like cross-road signboards. Some of these were deserted. Round others there was a merry hullabaloo of screaming, shrieking, jumping, hysterical mankind shaking their fingers in one another's face. A hundred auctioneers were barking their wares madly in one another's teeth. "Gosh! there's goin' to be a terrible fight," said Silas. "Why don't they call in the police or the militia .^" Joyce explained that the men were all the best of friends, amiably trying to o^ii each other's financial throats. Practical jokes and bank- ruptcy alternated. An absent-minded member strolled on in a tall hat — he was due a little later at an afternoon tea. A gang of millionaires for- got their dazzling profits and proceeded to smash the hat over his ears, then wrenched it loose and played football with it. A quiet individual sauntered to one of the deserted signboards and suddenly went insane. He began to yell at the top of his voice. The mob forgot its football and rushed upon him, not to restrain his frenzy but to catch it and howl him down, like a pack of wolves. Joyce tried to ex- plain it, but his talk of bulls and bears and lambs only mystified them. "I've heard of live stock," said Silas, "but that's the liveliest stock I've saw outside 216 Zhc IReal IHcw l^orfe of the time three of our caows got the hydro- phoby." Joyce then turned to a discussion of margins, covering shortages, being long of the market and other terms more bewildering than Coptic, since the very simplicity of the terms made their tech- nical meanings more cryptic. He tried to show how this crowd of men, this money club, had the purse of the nation in its clutch — greediness or crime or conspiracy here affects the prosperity of every man in the country. Finally Miss Prim- rose said : "All I know is I've got a headache and I'd like to go somewhere and cry!" She was revived by the air in the slim street, crowded with men and with rarely a sign of horse or vehicle. A visit to the Produce Exchange might be more understandable, Joyce thought, and he took them to the monstrous barracks in Whitehall Street, wdiere the arena is larger than any other save Madison Square Garden. Here three thou- sand members handle an annual business of a billion dollars. On this wide floor, with its long sample-tables and other conveniences, a man may receive a cable ordering a shipload of wheat ; without leaving the floor he can buy the wheat, rent an elevator, hire a ship, insure the cargo, sell his exchange and cable back his prices and the date of arrival. Silas understood a little more of this, and the oval "wheat pit" meant much to him, for here fIDoncp 217 met the friends and enemies of his ideal of "dol- lar wheat" in deadly wrestle day by day. The struggles here over flour, lard, butter, cheese, seed, hay and other provisions were struggles for or against his own prosperity, but the total out- puts of his daily battle with soil and season were so petty in comparison with the masses tossed about in this place that he grew wroth. '*I bet nary one of them dudes knows which end of a hoe is the handle, and couldn't tell bar- ley from beans; but they kin make or break me with a few yelps. Listen to them pups tryin' to holler down the price of lard. How do they reckon I'm goin' to pay off my mortgage ?'' Silas was tempted to whip off his coat and descend in person. But Joyce and Sally per- suaded him out of the zone of excitement, and a visit to the tower with the sweep- ing view of the waters thick with hurrying ships and the streets black with human ants desperately intent on the problems of wealth, lifted him from the indi- vidual to the general, made him feel trivial as a single being, yet exultant as a unit in this mighty cosmic ma- chinery. the chart expert 'change ON 218 the IReal IWcw ^ov\\ From the Produce Exchange they strolled to the nearby Fraunces's Tavern, built in 1730 and opened as an inn by Samuel Fraunces in 1762. On the second floor they stood awestruck in the long room, where, on Evacuation Day in 1783, when the last British soldier had marched away forever, the Continental oflScers gathered to celebrate the victory of their seven years' warfare. They had been less happy over their triumph than sad over the end of their sacred comradeship in the cause of freedom. In this room Washington wept as he bade good-bye to his officers. And there was an impulse to tears in the Americans of to-day in the very atmosphere of the hallowed place. Our ancestors are not so far away from us as those of other nations, but their memory is dear and their benefits not yet forgot. Chapter XII CLUBLAND HOW TO GET INTO A NEW YORK CLUBHOUSE VARIOUS TYPES OF CLUB POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, COLLEGE, women's, GREEK LETTER FRATERNITIES, TRADES, CRAFTS, PROFESSIONS ATHLETIC CLUBS LITERARY, BOHEMIAN AND SOCIAL CLUBS CLUB- WINDOW LIFE SOME ODD CLUBS CLUBLAND'S NEW CENTRE FROM the cradle to the ckibs. Everybody in New York joins a club, man, woman, child. Indeed, if Wordsworth's "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality" is true, we have but come into this planet from an older and earlier club life, and are simply put up here for two weeks or so with privilege of visiting the bar and paying bills, until we return to the original clubhouse to be permanently assigned to the roof -garden or the grill-room. In New York there are little cliques of in- fantry in the Park — Perambulator Clubs; the boys of the slums have their gangs, with a club- house under a pier, or in a lumber pile; the schoolboys have their innumerable athletic societies, the college men their Greek letter fraternities, the college women their sororities. Both sexes graduate to their alumnar clubs, 220 Zhc IReal IRcw |)orh A NEW YORKER affiliate with political clubs and are buried by benefit clubs. There is a club for everything and everything in its club — age, color, sex, oc- cupation, previous condition of servitude, which may be a bar to one clan, is a credential to another. New York City is hardly more than a federated clubhouse. It is easy to join any of the New York clubs — if you have the influence and the money, and patience enough to linger at the end of a waiting list till there is gray in the gold and all the men you wanted to know are dead. It is easy for the stranger in town to get himself put up at any of the clubs — if he happens to know some in- fluential member. If you have a free evening and would care to see what millionaires do when they do nothing, all you have to do is to drop a line to "Dear J. Pierpont," and, if not previously engaged, he will gladly take you to the white Walhalla of the Metropolitan Club. You really ought not to leave town without visiting the remarkably original home of the New York Yacht Club; any of your friends who have defended the America s Cup will gladly put you up there — Mr. Iselin, for instance. The Lambs' gambols Clublan& 221 are a distinct event in New York gaiety; address "Nat" Goodwin, or John Drew, or any of the prominent stars whom you may have put under social obHgations. The okl treaty of back-scratching reciprocity is now re- worded to, ''You club me and I'll club you. The stranger in town ought to find some bunk besides a hotel. If you happen to be a China- man, try the Reform Club in Doyers Street. If you come from Nippon, the Hinade or Rising Sun Club, founded in 1896, will welcome you, especially if you subscribe to the little magazine it publishes; and at Columbia University there IS a Japanese students' club. If you are a Syrian, Hungarian, Bohemian — anything — just wander around the East Side in your native costume. If you are a Hindu, try a theosophical meeting-room. If you are a Democrat, ask a policeman. If you are an anarchist, don't. There are political clubs of all persuasions. The far-famed Tammany Hall in East Four- teenth Street is only a club of ambitious nature, organized after the manner of Indian tribes with sachems and sich. The Democrats have two other clubs, thanks to a split in the ranks. The Manhattan Club, formerly in A. T. Stewart's old mansion, has now gone to Twenty-sixth Street, where, in the summer, one may sit on the balcony and mingle his black coffee and brown cigar, the aromatic foliage of Madi- 222 ^be IRcal mew l^orft son Square and his Jeffersonian principles in one peaceful reverie. The other club, the Demo- cratic, at Fiftieth Street and Fifth Avenue, was founded by the ex-proprietor of New York, Mr. Croker. It is the home of the Tammany wing of the party. Brooklyn has also a finely housed Jefferson Club. Besides, every election district has its political clubs, named after district lead- ers, who pay for the compliment with an occa- sional chowder party on an excursion boat. The Republicans have a Union League Club in Brooklyn, and one better known in New York, The latter was founded in 1863 to aid the Union at a time when New York sentiment was not unanimous for the continuation of the war. Two years before Mayor Fernando Wood had threat- ened to secede from the Union, if necessary, all by himself. They are independents, these New Yorkers, and ar^ constantly talking of forming a State of their 8wn as a release from the truly rural rule of Albany. "Secede from Hayseed" would doubtless be the war cry. But, for the present, Father Knickerbocker must be content with J'y suis, fy reste. In 1863, however, the better thousands of New York manhood were at the front fighting for the Union. The men at home were largely those who were afraid to go or were unconvinced of the cause. Then came another demand for troops, to be enforced by draft. The malcon- tents now took courage; under the spur of Clublanb 223 anarchistic yellow jounuilisin they proposed to resist. They overpowered the police by num- bers, set buildings on fire, robbed, paraded, threatened, terrorized the whole city. The ne- groes were their special aversion, and eleven were killed; the mob even attacked a colored orphan asylum, which they burned down, the pickaninnies barely escaping. The New York Tri- bune was to be the next pillage, and Horace Greeley was to decorate a sour apple tree; but his men rigged up a long trough to roll bombshells out into the mob, and the pack kept its dis- tance. The police gradually re- gained control, but the anarcl^ had raged four days, eighteen men had been killed by the mob, including three policemen, fifty buildings had been burned and two or three million dollars of prop- erty destroyed. Of the rioters over twelve hun- dred were killed. It was to prevent the recur- rence of such dastardy that the Union League was organized. The Union League knows only peace nowa- days, but the comfort of its basking windows encourages and fills a clubhouse costing $400,- 000. It includes an art gallery, and its loan 224 zhc IRcal mew l^orft exhibitions are events. There is another Re- publican Club, on West Fortieth Street, of large membership. The Reform Club, at No. 233 Fifth Avenue, is devoted to amelioration in gen- eral and the City Club to the never-ending need of municipal antiseptics. The creeds as well as the factions have their clubs, most prominent being the sumptuous Catholic Club facing Central Park on Fifty- ninth Street, the Church Club of Episcopalian persuasion at No. 578 Fifth Avenue, the Hebrew Associations, the Harmonic at No. 45 East Twenty-third Street, the Progress at Sixty-third Street and the Freundschaft in Seventy-second Street. But, pious as are these monasteries, it takes something more than faith to get into them. Faith without works is like a watch in the same condition. Among the colleges, the finest clubhouses are those of Old Eli and Fair Harvard. Harvard's is the elder, and it is a charming example of Colonial grace and dignity and comfort, though it has recently suffered considerable enlarge- ment. Yale faces Harvard defiantly across Forty-fourth Street, as on many a gridiron. The Yale house is of the modern school, soaring to eleven stories ; but its grill-room is quaint and old-fashioned, with a big fireplace and all the comforts of an old tavern. Columbia Univer- sity has a house in Madison Square. Princeton flies her orange and black flag in Thirty-fourth THE NIGHT HAWK (tlublant) 225 Street, Cornell is in Forty-fifth Street, and Pennsylvania in Forty-fourth Street. At these clubs newly graduated men, still liv- ing on their fathers, are admitted at a very low rate. As they get older and incur families the dues increase with their other troubles. Chief of all college clubs is the super-palatial Univer- sity, which requires of its candidates that they should have at least rubbed up against the walls of one of the more important colleges. There is a club of college women also, as well as numberless other combinations of Zenobias and Jezebels, conspiring to substitute equality for their old superiority, to chain the masculine foot to the cradle and deprive man of the ancient and honorable monopoly of latchkey and nico- tine. The greatest of these is Sorosis, which has introduced the novel element of intellectuality into club life. A project is on foot to build a large Amazonian palace of athletics, gossip and exclusiveness, with billiard tables, French comic papers, a pipe-room and all the other joys of men's clubs. The Greek letter fraternities which furnish college life with even profounder mysteries than those in the books have, many of them, abiding- places for visitors in town. Show your pin to the doorman and give him the grip or the port- cullis falls. There are at least a dozen of these *'frat houses," and they serve a useful purpose in that they compel the graduate to remember 226 Zbc IReal IHew l^orfe at least three Greek letters as relics of the days when he was a freshman and knew something. Then there are the trades and crafts. The labor union locals are in reality clubs, and the employers have been forced to club together to defend the downtrodden capitalist from their zeal. The Hardware Club, the Merchants', the Lawyers', the Downtown Association and the Aldine (formerly composed of Barabbas pub- lishers, now of business men) are mainly luncheon resorts where one can combine the midday meal with business conference and in- digestion. The Bar Association and the Academy of Medicine, however, are most palatially housed, and the Engineers of various sorts have homes where one gossips daily of horse-powers, watts, ohms and tangential stress. The men whose trade is war on land or sea have their Army and Navy Club. The Authors' Club occupies rooms donated by Andrew Carnegie, who has recently offered to build a lairdly asylum for all the other mechanicians. Of athletic clubs, the principal are the Cres- cent, of Brooklyn, with its boathouse on the Bay, and the New York Athletic, chief of American athletic clubs. Its annual Ladies' Day receptions are thronged, the women guests being entertained not only by stunts in the gym- nasium, but by aquatic contests and water polo Cluinan& 227 in the swimming pool. The club also owns Travers Island, with a clubliouse and grounds where outdoor games are held. Other athletic associations are the Fencers', the Riders', a Coaching Club, a Japanese jiu-jitsu club and numerous German Turnvereinen. There are two professional clubs conducted on the lucus a non lucendo principle — the Press Club, to which almost no press man belongs, and Club, of which one of its literary lights ob- served, ''The good thing about the Play- ers' Club is that you never meet any of those actors there." While this is hyper- bole, the club is largely re- cruited from authors and artists, though it was founded and endowed by Edwin Booth as a home for his fellows of the stage, and though it is a rule that no dramatic critic may break in and corrupt. The Players' has one of the most com- fortable residences in the city, and its atmosphere is full of a cheerful dignity. It is the lair of one of the town's pet wits. Beau Herford, whose epi- grams radiate thence throughout the avenues. THE LOTOS CLUB ENTERTAINER 228 ^be IReal IRew l?orft Of much the same type as the Players', though a whit more formal and magnificent, is the Cen- tury, which was founded in 1847 and combines professional with social distinction. It enjoys one of the handsomest of the town's houses. Clubs which are more exclusively social and likely to be correspondingly more expensive are the venerable Union Club, founded in 1836, an ideal example of the English type; the Metro- politan (called the Millionaires' Club), the Knick- erbocker, the Strollers, the Calumet, the Rac- quet and the St. Nicholas (composed of descend- ants of men who dwelt in New York before 1785). The typical club is a co-operative effort to procure solitude. Isolation in the midst of a throng is the ideal, and, while conversation is permitted and reciprocity in drinks is encour- aged by the House Committee, both processes must be managed so discreetly as not to disturb those who are stealing a club nap. But there are a few clubs notable for their efforts to provide tonic instead of soothing syrup for their members. The chief of these are the Lambs, the Lotos, the Strollers, the Salmagundi, the Pleiades and the Twelfth Night. The Pleiades might be named the Oasis, for the refuge it gives from the desert of Sunday nights. The Twelfth Night is largely composed of ac- tresses who never entertain more than one lone lorn man at a time, except on Twelfth Night, when the gatherings are brilliant. Clublanb 220 The Salmagundi is composed of the most im- portant artists of the country; after the manner of their Parisian schooling, they amuse them- selves artistically and with elaborateness. They give costume dinners, Christmas parties and auc- tions where good fellowship is indulged in in decorative style. The Strollers had its origin in a Columbia College dramatic club; it has since broadened out into a group of young society men with a mixture of artists and illustrators. It occupies the house lately held by the New York Yacht Club. Here it has a small theatre, where " Rois- ters" or ''Strolls" are given frequently during the winter. It devotes also a week every year to the production of an operetta: original with the members and played by the members, save for an auxiliary of pretty girls. The list of pa- tronesses for these entertainments exhausts the Social Register. The Lotos Club is famous throughout the land for its distinguished guests and their treat- ment. An American or a foreign visitor cannot claim to have had the final accolade of fame till the Lotos has given him a banquet. But at this banquet he will be treated not with rever- ence, but as a shining mark for the target prac- tice of the best wits. The art exhibitions at the Lotos are also notable. The Lambs is composed almost altogether of the more successful actors and playwrights. 230 Zhc 1Rcal mew I^orh Here the most formidable tragedians and the most despotic comedians lay off the motley and make-up and become "just lambs." The club metaphor is carried to the last degree; the chief officer is the "Collie," the entertainments are *' gambols," presided over by ''the Boy"; once a year the club has a water party, called '' the Washing." The unequaled spirit of comrade- ship and co-operation and the great prosperity of the club are stout contradictions of prevail- ing superstitions concerning actors. There are in town also numberless clubs of occasion, single-banquet clubs. Of these is the Thirteen Club, which for many years has met without casualty on April 13th, the birthday of the guiding spirit of the thirteen colonies, Thom- as Jefferson. Last year one hundred and sixty- nine guests sat at thirteen tables; incidentally they insult all the other superstitions at once. They enjoy excellent health in spite of their sac- rilege, but it is doubtful if their work does any good, for surely those who at this late day still believe that any number has dynamic mean- ing either cannot read — or do not. There has been a noteworthy tendency among the clubs to drift toward one magnetic centre. Forty-third and Forty -fourth Streets seem to be the hub of to-day. Forty-fourth Street, indeed, has become a remarkable little bazaar for the display of original and contrasting chefs d'oeuvrc of architecture. Chapter XIII THE MANY PEOPLES OF NEW YORK NEW YORK'S COSMO- POLITANISM ITS POPULATION AND ENVIRONS RAPID GROWTH TRANSIENT POPULATION FOREIGN CITIES INSIDE NEW YORK FOREIGN LANGUAGES, CHURCHES, PAPERS, THEATRES, FESTIVALS THE VARIOUS COLO- NIES A FINNISH BATH A RUSSIAN EASTER BRAVERY OF THE IRISH Vv^HAT NEW YORK OFFERS THE INVADER BUT I say, you know, you Americans are so beastly provincial," growled Calverly. "You ah; you know you ah!" " Provincial !" gasped De Peyster. " Why, the word cosmopolitan was invented for us. Rome in her palmiest days never knew what wide- worldliness was compared with New York. Rome, in fact, never approached the size of New York. The numbers of native Italians and their children now in New York make a total nearly equal to Rome's present population. New York is growing at a fiendish rate. "The population of London was 4,500,000 in 1901. New York's, in 1900, was 3,500,000; in 1903 it was nearly 3,750,000, though, by rights, the Jersey suburbs are as much a part of New York as Harlem or Brooklyn; and they include Jersey City with 206,000, Newark with 246,000, Hoboken with 82,000, and places like Bayonne, 232 Zhc IRcal mew ^ovW Englewood, Hackensack and West Hoboken and the other places, with a total of 600,000. These were their figures for 1900, and they have in- creased materially in the last three years, for New York itself has increased by 280,000 in that time. Add 600,000 Jerseyites to our pres- ent 3,716,139 inhabitants and you have 4,316,- 139, which is pressing London hard. We shall pass London in a few years at a canter." "Well, of all the confounded impudence! You Yankees beat the world at that, at least," said Calverly. "As you say, I guess I'll go and smoke a pipe." "No, you don't," said De Peyster. "You'll sit and listen to my pipe," and he began to deluge him with statistics, of which the follow^ing is a digest, with some garnishments: The increase in New York and its Jersey sub- urbs in three years is more than the whole pres- ent population of Buffalo, the eighth city of the Union. There are more people in this city than in any American State except six. In New York there are more Germans and Irish born abroad, or of the first generation, than the whole popu- lation of any other American city except Chi- cago. There are more Hebrews here than the whole population of any other city except Chi- cago and Philadelphia. There are only six other cities that have more men and women and children of all races than New York has of Italians alone. Zbc flDan^ peoples of IRew ll)orU 233 Then our floatint]^ population ought to be con- sidered. Our tlieatres and nearby resorts de- pend hirgely on a constant transient element, which, like the big wave in the Niagara whirlpool, is always the same, though at no two moments has it the same constituents. Fifty thousand retail merchants come to the town every year from every State in the Union; they spend half a billion dollars every autumn, five millions of it for hotels and theatres and per- sonal expenses. A tenth of the buyers are women. There are certain wholesale stores where congresses of the States could be held, where individual salesmen sell three or four million dollars' worth of goods — and spend many hundreds of dollars at the company's expense showing the rural merchant what a wicked town this is. Even statistics grow picturesque in New York. Of native Englishmen and Scotchmen there are 87,000 residents; of English and Scotch parent- age 204,000 more; the total is a British city bigger than Nottingham or than Plymouth and Southampton put together. Of Frenchmen and their children we have only 43,000 — that is to say, we could build about two Dieppes here. We have a few Danes and a few Persians, A NEW YORKER 234 Zbc IReal 1Rcw l!)orh Armenians and Turks, and a number of Hindu Swamis teaching their occult cults. We have 2,000 native Dutch, 1,000 Japanese, 8,000 natives of China, 8,000 citizens born in Switzerland, 1,000 in Wales, 11,000 in Norway, 15,000 Fin- nish refugees, 28,000 born in Sweden and 44,000 born here of Swedish parents. Of Aus- trians we have 71,000 foreign born and 113,000 born here. Of Poles we had, in 1900, 30,000 born abroad and 53,000 born here; altogether nearly as many as in Posen. Of Hungarians we had 31,000 natives, and 52,000 of first genera- tion. Of Roumanians there are 35,000 natives. In 1903 the total Italian population, includ- ing the first generation, was 382,775 — that is to say. New York is the fourth greatest Italian city in the world, and contains more Italians than Florence and Venice put together. At the pres- ent rate of immigration New York will, in a few years, be the largest of all Italian cities. Of Russians, mainly Jews, there are 155,000 foreign born with 245,000 children— a total of 400,000, more than the entire population of Kiev and Kishinev put together. The Irish immigrants numbered 275,000 in 1900, with 725,000 of the first generation; just a round million sons of Erin. Thus New York is so distinctly the largest Irish city in the world that its Irish population is nearly three times as large as that of either Dublin or Belfast. Of native Germans, in 1900, Zbc flDan? peoples of H^ew ^ov\\ 235 we had 322,000, and 786,000 cliildren^l, 108,000 — nearly two-thirds the popuhition of Berlin, and nearly as much as Hamburg and Munich put together. New York is a microcosm — almost a macro- cosm — in itself. Of course, London is at pres- ent larger in numbers, though New York has wrested its financial supremacy from it. Lon- don is the capital of the great British Empire, and in its narrow streets with their low buildings one sees many a barbarian and occasional speci- mens from all her colonies; but for actual cos- mopolitance of population Paris is perhaps more noteworthy than London. And New York outruns either. There are whole districts of New York where hardly a sign is in English; the legends are in Italian, Hebrew, German, Russian or French. To ride up Broadway and read the names of the merchants on a single building is a startling revelation of what a multiplex civilization is ours. In London and Paris, while there are foreign bits, the general impression is of uniformity. The names on the signs have a national unity, with rare exceptions. In New York irregular- ity alone is regular. Though the foreigners make haste to learn English, they cannot acquire it immediately, and the New York ear listens perforce to a polyglot symphony. Walk through Central Park and almost all the nursemaids and their 236 Zhc IRcal IRcw IPork charges seem to be speaking French — often the Canadian patois; else it is a pleasant accent from Athlone exchanged with a policeman's pure Dublin. Take a ferry and you hear two swart Italian bootblacks tossing to one another their Neapolitan estimates of the feet in front of them and the humanity attached — ex pede Herculem. On almost any street car platform you will hear two Germans talking a curious corruption of broken English and Anglicized German; they come to speak their German words like Ameri- cans and their American words like Germans. On the Elevated road long-sleeved Chinese laundrymen vocalize, or long-bearded Polish Jews gesticulate Yiddish; it is generally believed that if a street car should cut off their hands they would be speechless. The news of the day is cosmopolitan. The Belasco medal for dramatic ability was awarded last to an Armenian, Hovsep Hovsepian. About the same time the Swedes gave their third fair for gathering funds to build themselves a hos- pital — what a massage-paradise it will be! The Swiss already have a home. The night the Ger- mans were giving their Arion Ball the Bohemian Gymnastic Association gave another at the Grand Central Palace. And a week later the Irish Athletic Club had a festival at the Madison Square Garden. At the same time the "Clubul Nacional Roman," i. e., the National Rouman- ian Club, gave a dance in national costume and Zhc flDan^ pcoplce of H^cvv ll?ork 237 invited five other Roumanian societies to join them in treading the stately hora and whirling in the kindia. At the new Cathedral on Morning- there are to be where services seven tongues side Heights seven chapels w ill be held in every Sunday, recently taken tary pub- school in T w e n- '^ Street shows men nine national- The cosmopol- population is re- papers. While Fliegende Blatter humor, Life , photograph an elemen- lic night East t i e t h twenty- ities. it an fabric of A NEW YORKER our ^ fleeted in our comic Punch, Le Rire and are full of native Puck and Judge are filled with foreign types. Our plays run the same way, and in the same cast of characters all dia- lects may meet. The American actor must im- personate German, French, Cockney, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Russian — all humanity. Furthermore, our foreign-born citizens have their own papers and their own theatres. At least three New York daily newspapers are pub- lished in German, two in Italian, one in French and several in Hebrew. Periodicals of less fre- quent appearance are in Spanish, Chinese, Jap- anese, Turkish, Finnish, Russian, Roumanian — what not ? If you are familiar w ith Spanish or 238 ziK IRcal mew l?orft Italian you can understand the weekly Ecoul Americei, for Roumanian is a descendant of Latin. There are six periodicals published in the Syrian colony, their language being Arabic. Their quarter is Washington Street, and a great sensation was recently caused by an allegory, published by a poet, Ameen Rihani, rebuking old Syrian ideas in combat with Americanism. He was warned that his life was in danger, but de- termined none the less to spend his summer under the cedars of Lebanon. Of foreign theatres there are many play- ing the entire season. The French, curiously enough, have not been able to support a theatre, and even the opera companies that prosper in New Orleans usually strand in New York; but the chief French stars visit this country, and the same is true of the Italians, who have been able to support nothing more than a quaint marionette show. A series of Russian orchestral concerts by Russian performers was given this last winter. A vast majority of our orchestra performers are German. The Germans main- tain a first-class stock company at the Irving Place Theatre, and the most famous German tragedians and comedians play here as "guests." There was for many years, in the Germania Theatre, a company that played hilarious local farces based on German experiences in New York. Z\K flDan^ peoples of mew ll)orU ^^^ The enormous Jewish immigration, especially from Russia and Poland, has gathered a popu- lation which will soon reach a million, and has earned for New York the occasional nickname of the '*New Jerusalem." There are several theatres supported by these people. Two of them, the Thalia and the Windsor (once the fashionable opera house of the city), are on the Bowery. An ornate new one is in Grand Street, where Rubinstein's opera, "The Demon," was given last March for the first time in this coun- try by Russian amateurs. Jacob Adler is a famous tragedian, a noteworthy Shylock and the lessee of the theatre. If he is the ''Yiddish Salvini" Jacob Gordin is the "Yiddish Shake- speare." He has written seventy plays in his twelve years here, and twenty-five of them have been successes. They are written in that jargon called "Judisch" (i. e., Jewish) or Yiddish. At these theatres one may also see occasional adaptations from the reigning successes. Sar- dou's " Gismonda," for instance, was twisted into a moral lesson and ended w ith a marriage and a duel in a synagogue. There is a union of Hebrew actors and one of Hebrew vaudeville actors. At these theatres and at the variety halls the signs and programmes are altogether in Hebrew characters. The foreign races, as a rule, gather in clusters, and make certain districts their own; some of them occupy more than one colony. Thus, the 240 ^be IRcal mew l?ork great Jewish district, "the Ghetto," is around Hester, Division and Grand Streets. It is said to contain three times as many Hebrews as the "Ghetto" of London, five times as many as that of Paris, and six times that of Berlin. In the section south of Houston Street and east of the Bowery a recent canvass showed some 400,000 people, of whom eighty per cent, are Jews, half of them Russians and a seventh Roumanians. But the open- ing of the Williamsburg Bridge has seen a second exodus. Brownsville, on the outskirts of Brooklyn, is the new Canaan, and it has grown like a Western boom-town, though the same unsightliness, the same uncleanliness, sordid n ess and sweat-shop perfume distinguish the new as well as the old Ghetto. People prefer their own national odors, and the Ghettites are noted for their common scents. Contrary to a general opinion, they have no objection to the bathtub; they have found that it makes an excellent coalbin. The Italians also have migrated. Mulberry Bend was their original centre, and still thrives, IN FRONT OF A YIDDISH THEATRE THE GHETTO ZiK flDanv^ pcoplce of Mew ^ov\\ 241 but "Little Italy" proper is now on the upper West Side around One Hundred and Tenth Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where variolas drinking-gardens, merry-go-rounds and cheap shows have also earned the region the name of "Little Coney Island." The Spanish business houses are in Cedar Street and Maiden Lane; they have no special home centre. The English are pretty well lost in the native American population, but there is a colony about Gansevoort where, as we are told, roast beef is cut the w^rong w^ay of the grain and where dropped "h's" do not attract attention like spilled tor- pedoes. The royal birthdays are usually cele- brated by a banquet of the faithful and a cable- gram of loyalty is sent regardless of cable tolls, for the English are slow to give up that old creed which brought on the War of 1812, "Once Brit- ish always British." The French centre has been shifting, and it is a curious fact that the poor French usually move into districts from which the negroes are just moving out. The negroes have usually frozen out the Irish — though there are now no exclusively Irish districts in town. The Jews, as a rule, follow the French or the Italians, and anti-Semitic prejudices give them an undisputed possession. The French still linger in some numbers on South Fifth iVvenue, for Fifth Avenue is aristo- 16 242 Z]K IRcal mew ^ovW cratic only along its middle distance, as North Fifth Avenue is very largely populated by Ger- man Jews. The main body of the French are flocking to the West Twenties now, and num- berless table d'hote cafes are found in this re- gion, where the signs, the supplies and the guests are wholly French. The better class of the French live in the West Nineties. The Austrians gather on lower Second Ave- nue, in a district wdiich they fondly call Little Vienna, or ** Klein Wien." The East Houston Street district is known as "Little Hungary," and the street itself is often called ''Goulash Row." The Gentile Poles are also here. The Bohemians cluster in First and Second Avenues, between Seventieth and Eightieth Streets. The refugees of Finland mainly pass through New York to the West. In the last five years their numbers in this country have increased from 3,000 to over 200,000. That is to say, one- tenth of all Finland has come to this country since the Tsar's decree depriving the nation of its constitutional liberties. Many of them linger in New York, and they have in the Battery Park Building a clubroom where one hears the fa- miliar greeting of " Good day" answered by the national "God grant it." At this "Finnish Ex- iles' Club" the gratitude for their American ref- uge finds vent in cries of "America E lakoon!'" (America be blessed!). Unlike our immigrants from many other nations, our Finnish acquisi- Zbc flDanv^ Ipcoplco of IHcw li)oik '-'^^ tions are frequently of the highest soeial posi- tions; but the poor eome also, and there was great excitement caused by the recent publica- tion of the fact that in Blythedale, a region around Sixtieth Street in South Brooklyn, commonly known as ''Finland," one can now obtain a genuine Finnish bath. This luxury resembles the Russian and Japanese institutions in that it is conducted by women. The hot steam which is raised from throwing water on boulders is not the only shock the American gets, for the bather — or bathee — is invited to appear clothed only in his right mind, if he can retain even this diaphanous garment. He is then soaped and beaten to a fever heat with leafy branches. The Greek population is not large, yet the "Ajax" of Sophokles was recently given in the original Greek at Clinton Hall in Clinton Street. It was claimed that this was the first perform- ance of the text for twenty-three centuries. The Greeks incline to the trade of florist in New York. The Russians in New York are mainly Jews, who feel no friendship for the country which has treated them almost as badly as we have treated the negroes. At the outbreak of the Russian war with Japan this feeling of hostility •for the country whose tyrannies had driven them across the ocean found expression in the move- ment to subscribe for a battleship, name it The Kishinev and present it to the Japanese navy. 244 ^be IRcal mew lJ?orh This very undiplomatic idea was fortunately not carried out, but it led David Warfield, that vivid impersonator of the downtrodden Jew, to sug- gest that a good battle motto would be, ** Re- member the Kishinev." There are enough Christian Russians, how- ever, in New York to support the beautiful Church of St. Nicholas in East Ninety-second Street. There are about three thousand ortho- dox Russians in New York, their centre being Avenue A between Seventy-second and Seventy- sixth Streets. For them four newspapers are printed in the Russian language under subsidy from their Government. One of these is pub- lished at the church and is called The Russian Orthodox, its editor being the pastor, Father Hotovitsky. There is a '' Greek Orthodox Mu- tual Benefit Society," which holds its conven- tions at the church and participates in a religious service lasting a week. The Easter of the Greek calendar is elaborately observed at the Russian church. The ceremony begins at midnight and lasts three hours. The worshipers stand ready with unlighted can- dles. The ritual includes a picturesque search for the body of Christ, which had been sym- bolically laid there on Good Friday but is now not to be found, since the Christ has risen. The procession of priests and deacons passes out of the church and the chant dies away, only to increase again as the pageant reappears exactly ^be nDanv> peoples of IWcw IPorU 245 at midnight. Then the great crystal cliandelier bursts into flame, and, as the priests witli lighted candles pass through the crowd, the nearest wor- shipers light their own tapers and pass the light along, greeting each other with a smile as they cross themselves. The Bishop then takes his post at the royal gate and calls aloud, "Christ is risen!" "He is risen indeed," the people respond. The Bishop then gives the three kisses of peace to each of the dignitaries, and through- out the church the worshipers also exchange kisses and the greeting, "Christ is risen. He is risen indeed." Communion is administered and dyed eggs are blessed and distributed among the worship- ers, who kiss the gold crucifix. There follows a feast of Easter dishes, including "kalitch," which is of cake, and "paschal," which is of cheese. Now the Tsar's health is drunk by the congregation, for the Tsar is the Russian Pope as well as Emperor. The service ends with the •national hymn, which is sung with deep fervor in these war times. The Germans of New York are so numerous, and they so quickly Americanize themselves, that it is difficult to limit them. They are remark- able for their club life, their athletics and their musical interests. Among the many Turn-Ver- einen is the Central in East Eighty-second Street, which occupies a six-story building that cost 246 Zbc IRcal IHcw IPorh $700,000, and the New York, which has a large clubhouse in Eighty-fifth Street. Of clubs the principal are the Arion, the Liederkranz, the Aschenbroedel and several Mannerchor, all of large membership and occupying handsome buildings where choral and instrumental per- formances are constantly given. Their most exclusive social club is the German Verein, on Fifty- ninth Street facing the Park. The most picturesque is the local chapter of the " Schlar- affia," in which the ritual of knights and squires is carried out and fierce beer duels are fought with amusing ceremonies. The negroes can hardly be called foreigners except by a long backward look. The North- ern negro is as distinct from the Southern as the progressive Japanese from the old school. The negroes in New York suffer, of course, from the national race prejudice, which is in some ways more severe up here than in the South. Their true paradise is in European capitals such as London and Paris, where they suft'er little or no ostracism from white society. But they are numerous enough in New York City to make a world of their own, and some of them attain a high degree of prosperity and political impor- tance. They have their clubs, their churches and their castes, and perhaps there are no more elaborately dressed men in New York than the aristocratic negroes. In fact, by their willingness to indulge in the more brilliant colors and the Zbc n!>an\) peoples of IRcw ^ov\\ 2^ more extreme styles, and by their frequent good taste in the combination of other tints with their native bronze tliey sometimes outshine tlie pale- face Beau Brummells. They have also their vicious strata, and there are districts where the proverbial razor is a weapon to which frequent reference is made. Their principal districts are West Third Street, AYest Twenty-eighth Street and West Fifty-third Street. Sixth Avenue from Tw^enty-sixth to Thirty-second Streets, is often called the "Darkey Fifth Avenue." The vicious negroes ON DARKEY FIFl^H AVENUE 248 Zbc IRcal IHcw ^ovh haunt numerous low dives, and there have been occasional outbursts of race war along Seventh and Eighth Avenues, between the rough ele- ments, Caucasian and Ethio- pian. The dances given by the colored aristocrats often attract white audiences, who find great amusement in the profound dignity of the couples. They can be graceful as well, when they forget their dignity, and the Cakewalk is amoup: the most graceful of national K" dances. Small wonder that it has invaded Europe and set the courtiers to studying A NEW YORK ALDERMAN ragtime. It is a common joke that the Irish own New York, and run it to suit themselves. With a million of them here, all of them ambitious, their prominence in politics is as legitimate as it is unde- niable. It is their native element. In London also they play a prominent part in the military as well as literary life, and it is astounding how often one finds that a prominent Englishman is really an Irishman. The Police and the Fire Departments of New York are very largely Hibernian, and the heroism of both is of the highest quality. At the latest award of three medals for acts of particularly brilliant heroism all three were earned by Irishmen. Zbc fIDanv) pcoplcci of 1Hc\v \)ov\\ 240 On St. Patrick's Day enormous })rocessions march both in New York and Brooklyn (hiring the day, and banquets and athletic sports fill the afternoon and evening. On this occasion the old Irish game of football can be seen. On last St. Patrick's Day 10,000 Irishmen marched in Brooklyn, and in New York 30,000 paraded Fifth x\venue for five miles. This j)rocession included over fifty Irish societies, the most prominent being the Irish Volunteers and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The comic papers for so many years had so much sport with the antediluvian high hats that used to mark this occasion that they were discarded for a more businesslike felt. The emerald sashes, however, are still worn, for '* the wearing of the green " is a memory that is held sacred by the victims of centuries of oppression. The English deter- mination to destroy the Irish language had almost succeeded, but the Gaelic revival has done so much for the resurrection of the national life and literature and music that its reflex is found in this country. Meetings are frequently held where nothing but Gaelic is spoken or sung, and a Gaelic drama was recently presented. A prominent place in all Irish gatherings is taken by the Sixty-ninth Regiment, the onl}^ regiment in the American National Guard which has a distinct nationality. Made uj), as it is, of Irishmen and their descendants, it and its offspring, the Irish Brigade, took so prominent 250 ^bc 1Rcal mew ^ovh a part in the Civil War and were so alert in the Spanish War that it has been commonly said that the Sixty-ninth is the best known regiment in the world. As a token of the city's trust in Irish fidelity to their foster-fatherland, the New York municipality has recently presented the regiment with a $600,000 home, which will be in many respects the finest armory in the United States. It would be hard to find an important race that has no representation in New York. The city has become a congress of nations, in per- manent session. The Persian rug makers, the cigarette-rolling maidens and men from Egypt and Turkey add their exotic notes to complete the infinite variety. Other capitals are Meccas of interest to tourists, but foreigners who come to New York come here to live. They may have cherished false hopes of the extent of personal liberty, and of the ease with which money is to be acquired, but at least they find opportunity un- limited and they are humiliated by no hereditary nobility — save for the paupers of foreign peer- ages who visit us in flocks. But they, too, come here on business, and the number of American women who have bought foreign titles with human attachments is legion. It has become an international industry for which a clearing- house is needed. Chapter XIV WHERE TO EAT — THE COOKERY PROBLEM IN NEW YORK — THE RESTAURANT SYSTEM THE COSMOPOLITAN MENUS CHEAP LUNCHES THE STREET STANDS AND THE BUFFET LUNCHEON CHOP HOUSES THE AMERICAN OYSTER AND CLAM CULINARY ARISTOCRACY OLD- TIME RESTAURANTS SOME LARGE ESTABLISHMENTS THE KITCHEN AT THE WALDORF THE LUNCH CLUBS THE NEW YORK TABLE d'hOTE ROOF - GARDENS THE PARK. RESTAURANTS — THE SPORTY PLACES AMERICAN MENUS THE CHINESE RESTAURANTS THE FRENCH, GERMAN AND OTHER NATIONAL RESORTS WHERE to eat, and what?— that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the stomach to suffer the slings and arrows of out- rageous kitchens, or to take up arms against a cuisine of troubles, and by going out to a restau- rant increase them ? New York life is distinctly a homeless, apart- ment existence, and the domestic problem has ceased to be anything so rosy as the struggle to keep a good cook and has become the forlorn hope of keeping any. The distraught house- keeper simply vibrates between the dining-room and the employment bureau, and watches sul- tana after sultana pass by. Erin gives place to Bingen, and Jap to Lap; Swede walks out as Finn walks in. The comic papers make a 252 z\K IRcal 1Rcw l!)orh staple of it, but it is gruesome reality to the mis- tress who endures unheard of humiliations and serves her servants' whims. The Spanish Inquisition had a favorite in- strument of torture known as the chafing-dish. It has been revived for the New Yorker, along with the ''diminishing walls," now known as the seven-room flat. The average householder eats out, or goes without, unless his wife buys some ready-made food — "no work, no heat; just pray, then eat." Even the gastric juices have formed a union and the New Yorker must have his food masticated and digested for him in a factorv. He can do the rest — with liberal pepsin. The consequence is a shiftlessness that is appalling to the chance visitor, and the discon- tent is incredible. You will hear pale pluto- crats wailing that Delmonico's never has any- thing fit to eat, and that the guests at the Wal- dorf are starving to death. For we all come to realize that bills of fare, like truffles, have never been what they used to be. A further consequence is that there is an un- precedented rivalry in the efl'ort to tempt and tease the Manhattan alimentary canal to a little secretion. All the chefs of all the nations juggle all the cookbooks into one culinary anthology, until there is surely no city on earth where such elaborateness and variety distinguish the menus. Verily, we are in the period of the Restauration. Mbcrc to leat 253 We have everything tliat every otlier nation has, and all our own besides. Our curries might not satisfy the Maharajah of Bling, and our gulyas might not fascinate either Buda or Pesth. But it is not for lack of having Hindus and Hungarians here to prepare them, and at least we have a fair imitation, while in Singa- pore you cannot get even a bad roas'in'-ear of green corn, nor in Versailles a soggy pumpkin pie. As for elegance of appointment, we are Babylonian, Sardanapalian. Other cities have their splendid refectories, but the best of any of them is not equal to half a dozen of ours. The American becomes calloused by easy stages to the cab fares and the res- taurant prices, and if cost is a proof of anything ex- cept slavery our very tips are enough to wring a howl from foreign nobility. On the other hand, you need not prate of the cheapness of life abroad, and talk of your little cafes in the outskirts of Paris or of some sewage-perfumed wharf of Venice where Lu- cul feasts may be had for the Lazarine obol. For here, too. New York is not lacking. In un- counted nooks there lurk little restaurants where AT Dennett's 254 c;hc 1Rcal mcw) IPorh some lowly genius takes more pride in his cook- ery than in the purity of his napery or the gleam of his front windows. And he who will lay aside the hypocrisy of the untidy will find that the town is fairly sprinkled with lunch-rooms where, at ridiculous prices of five and ten cents, one may eat the most delicious cereals, wheat cakes of Titian hue and truly contemporary eggs, while he sips surpassing coffee under high-tiled ceil- ings and in glistening walls that a Pompeian nobleman would have envied. The sanitary mind will forgive the clatter for the sake of the neatness. It was of our national delicacy, the buckwheat cake, that Matthew Arnold made an observa- tion of surprisingly poor acumen. He and his wife w^ere entertained at an American home. The breakfast ended in a glorious tower of buckwheat porous plasters. Mrs. Arnold de- clined them with suspicious timidity. St. Mat- thew was persuaded to nibble. Turning to his wife, he draw^led, '* Try them, my d'yah, they're not half so nahsty as they look." To have complained of them after they had lain on his ''little Mary" for some time might have been excusable, but a word against their auburn beauty was only a proof of an inartistic eye. The English never had a sense of color. De Peyster and Calverly were at it, as usual, over their respective cities. De Peyster broke out: Mbcic to Eat 255 "You cannot get at any price at any London hotel a cuj) of coffee as good as you can get at any of two hundred and fifty places in New York for five cents. At the ABC restaurants alone in London can one be sure of good coffee, but they are all slovenly. The Duval places in Paris are clean but comparatively high-priced. The New York lunch-rooms are not only very cheap, but they show affidavits proving that they buy the most expensive coffees in the market; the proprietors keep their own dairies, cultivate their own maple syrup forests, preserve their own fruits and make their own breads and pastries. The Childs, the Hartford, the New Haven, the Charter Oak and other lunch-room systems are legion, but they are all clean. People laugh at the places bearing the name of Dennett, be- cause of their Biblical mottoes. One sign as- sures you that the Lord is your shepherd, but the next warns you to ' Keep your eye on your overcoat.' Still, if ever religion showed its fruits it is in this immaculate service and honest cookery. You are invited to visit the kitchen, and you are not expected to tip. "And they are open all night, while in Lon- don the belated must seek a filthy coffee stand or wait for his breakfast tea." The New Yorker takes his breakfast at home, as a rule, and, from the influence of Europe, it is likely to be limited to fruit, coffee and rolls, unless he still sticks to the national custom of 256 trbc IRcal IRcw )J)orft eating an early morning dinner, or, as a result of the physical culture crusades, wisely skips breakfast altogether. Luncheon no New York man takes with his family. It is one of the evils of the shape of the city that everybody's home is too far north to reach and return from at the lunch hour. This has its effect on the domestic situation and the divorce courts. There are numberless places downtown which serve practically nothing but lunches, and their whole day's work is preparing for and recover- ing from a mad flood of humanity at the noon crevasse. These places range from the little can- opied stands where harrowing pies and lyddite doughnuts are gobbled by office boys to the downtown Delmonico's or Robbins's or the Sa- varin, where multi-millionaires try to force deli- cacies on their dyspepsias. At the St. Andrew coffee stands a huge cup of coffee or tea is given for one cent, and the tamale man, with his Mex- ican dish and his cry, ''All hot, all hot!" rivals the dealer in Vienna sausage. The luxurious can polish off* with a penny's worth of dubious ice cream served on a scrap of paper by an Italian whose hands are rich in local color. The buffet lunch is a curious scheme for sav- ing chair space and waiters' fees. You wander about and help yourself to various articles, all price-marked, eat them standing at round ped- estals, and, as you go out, declare your own THE HURDY GURDY DANCE Mbcre to lEat 257 bill to the man at the wheel, who whirls you out a ticket, which you cash in at the door. Few people will cheat for the sake of a few pen- nies, and an eye is kept on the over-hearty. In the ''Automat" restaurant one drops coins into slots and receives a viand which he drops into another slot. There is also a company which delivers cold lunches in paper boxes at your office, just as there are companies that pro- vide clean towels and soap. . London has long had vegetarian restaurants. They are just coming in here, under bland and ladylike titles, such as "The White Rose" or "The Laurel." But even for those who do not believe in limiting themselves to a single mania it is worth while dropping in at these places on occasion to give the stomach a rest from the meat-chopping wear and tear. The prices at these restaurants are very low; hence they have not interested the general public, which likes to pay for novelties. The vegetarians get up various amusing fooleries in imitation of steaks, cutlets, filets and ducks; they call them "true meats" and get their black effects with nuttose and protose and other " oses." Even the coffee is made out of blistered peanuts— or at least so it tastes. But the vegetables are amaz- ingly well feooked, and have quite a new taste when there jare no meats to distract the palate. And they db wonderful things with fresh mush- rooms and nuts. Sometimes they serve a black 17 258 ^be IRcal IRcw IPorU cream of mushrooms that is worthy of a pluto- crat. The chop house is an adaptation of the Eng- lish grill-room, though few of them invite you to select your own chop and watch it brown on the hissing gridiron, as they so appetizingly man- age it in London. Still, we have "Old Tom's," in Thames Street, back of Trinity Church; Far- rish's, in John Street; Engel's and Brown's, which are much frequented of actors and singers and have fascinating collections of old prints and quaint photographs. But in compensation for our inferior chops we have what England lacks— a real oyster. He holds court in numberless oyster "bays," in rough- and-ready stands near Fulton Market, where a deft gentleman nicely splits the horny shell and proffers the delicacy on the pearly lower half ; or the more ornate places, like Dorlon's, O'Neill's, Shanley's, Jack's, Burns's, Kennerley's, Still's and the like. England has a pathetic little pickley affair, of which one can only say, " God made it, therefore let it pass for an oyster" ; but the Englishman himself is the first to pay homage to the Amer- ican bivalve, sweet, succulent and varying in area from the aristocratic Blue Point to the leviathan from Saddle Rock, concerning which Thackeray, when first he achieved one, ex- claimed, with cannibal glee: "I feel as if I had swallowed a baby!" Mbcrc to lEat 259 And then there are chuns! Think of it! Europe has only metapliorical chims. No won- der Columbus discovered America. But what did those ante-1492-ers eat when there was no "r" in the month ? How long would King Saul have sulked had he only been able to go down to some near- New York beach and have a shore dinner on the sand ? It begins with clam broth, then fol- low clams on the half -moon, succeeded by a luxurious clam chowder, as a prelude to the stewed clams, whose empty shells, thrown over the shoulder as a libation to the gods, measure the honorable capacity of each guest by the height of the monument behind him. But this is getting far from town and the grinding lunch-hour. Wednesday De Peyster invited his sister and Calverly and Miss Collis — now "Myrtle," thanks to Calverly — to drift about downtown. and see the jewelry shops of Maiden Lane, the Stock Exchange and such like. For luncheon he invited them to the Savarin. De Peyster was one of those who take their meals studiously, and he tried usually to get on terms of friendship with the chef at any place he frequented. The chef at the Savarin was one of his most valued acquaintances. *'We have had eminent cooks in New York," said De Peyster, "including some of the highest salaried men in the world, with salaries of $10,- 2(30 ^bc IRcal IHcw) l^orft 000 or so a year — the wages of a Secretary of War. We have had cooks of distinction, too. America got its first fondness for ices from an old French nobleman who fled from the Revolu- tionary guillotine and became a fashionable caterer in New York. His delicate confections drove out the English puddings and custards. New York's table customs in the managing of knife, fork and spoon are also more Parisian than English. The average American child would be sent to bed for using a knife after the manner of an English duchess. Then there was an Italian exile, il Cavaliere Buchignani, who founded a restaurant in Third Avenue near the Academy of Music, when that was our grand opera house. He had all the big warb- lers for his guests, and they vocalized his garlic everywhere. "Many of the French cooks are college gradu- ates — B.A.'s and Litt. D.'s. The head waiter at Delmonico's sent his two sons to Yale and his two daughters to Vassar. ''The chef here at the Savarin is a Bachelor of Arts from the University of France at Bordeaux. He has $7,500 a year and his meals — and a con- tract for ten years. He has fifty men under him in the kitchen. Luncheon is the only meal they give in large quantities, but between 11.30 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon they serve an average of 6,000 persons a day. There are five or six large dining-rooms, besides a Law- Mbcrc to i£at 261 Club. The kitchen is on the ei(>*]ith yers ^^ floor." De Peyster sent his card to the chef and, when the rush was over, he was invited up. The elevator to the eighth floor landed them in a lofty and airy space of ferocious cleanliness. Son Altesse le Chef showed them the multiplex pneumatic tube system, by which the guests' orders came popping up with requests for ''roshif saignanV or ''bien cuiV — the con- sumption of hot roast beef sandwiches by hasty lawyers or brokers is stupendous. Luncheon is served in nine departments, each with its own color of order card. Twelve dumbwaiters were banging up and down to disprove their name. Bells buzzed, whistles shrieked, voices roared. An order received at the desk was howded out by the clerk, taken up by the potato cooks, passed along by the vegetable men, echoed by the specialists in soup, sung along by the artist in pastries, reverberated by the eggists, faintly repeated by the keen- eyed superintendent at the spit, where a great roast revolved before a vertical bank of coals, and finally acknowledged by the master of the game. Other establishments have even more elaborate plants. Places like the Holland, the XTTTlTTr 262 Zhc IRcal mew ^ov\\ Majestic, Delmonico's, the Imperial, Sherry's, the Manhattan, the Grand Union, the Hoffman House, the Fifth Avenue and the others serve one continual meal from morning to morning, both to their thousand or more guests and to a ceaseless stream of casual visitors. At Sherry's there are sixteen chefs and 200 kitchen em- ployees. The Waldorf-Astoria has by far the largest army, in command of General Oscar. It is said that he has 1,500 employees under him, including thirty-five chefs. In a separate ''studio" is a pastry poet who designs banquet confections in the forms of portraits, statuary or big electric structures. There is something very plebeian in the quantities of foodstuffs devoured by the well- groomed cattle that feed here. In one day they carry away : 5,000 loaves of bread, 20,000 rolls, 300 chickens, 25 barrels of potatoes, 6,500 eggs, 500 gallons of milk, 600 gallons of soup, 1,000 pounds of roast beef, 500 gallons of coffee. At Delmonico's, famous for its game, 1,500 quail are eaten a month, and more than fifty gal- lons of their famous chocolate are guzzled every afternoon. At Maillard's even more litres of the Mbcrc to lEat 203 black syrup are consumed by the women who flock there, thou<^h it is hinted that not all is chocolate that goes into the cups. There is some effort to mitigate the horrors of the noon scramble for lunch, and there are various clubs. The Downtown Club fills a large building with throngs of capitalists. The exchanges have their clubrooms, the lawyers and other professions and trades have theirs. At the Hardware Club, in City Hall Park, the Mayor usually eats. The Uptown Club, in the Constable Building, combines business men and publishers. Then there is the Women's Lunch Club, whose members regale themselves, when shopping, on salads of recherche design and ice cream overpoured with maple syrup and walnuts, and other innovations of endless charm. And so, all things considered, one who wishes to lunch in New York should find something to his taste and time. As the French twins had bew^ailed the lack of sidewalk cafes, so the Englishman cursed the absence of barmaids and tea shops. "I agree with you about the barmaids," said De Peyster; "they are the only women in Lon- don who know how to dress simply. They are the most artistically gowned women you have. But I'm glad we have no flower-girls, for I never saw one abroad that was pretty or clean. We have a few newsgirls — they're bad enough. 264 tibe 1Rcal IRcw E^orft *'The tea habit has never fastened on New York. We get our dyspepsia otherwise. 1 don't mind the fact that all the pretty tea-rooms that have been started have failed, but 1 regret the absence of tea regularity in the home. Many people serve it if you want it, but it is not an institution as with you. We manage better with dinners and suppers. Where would you like to dine to- night.^" "Where would be the best place .^" said Myrtle. "Dining in New York is like other forms of religious worship. There's something for every taste. In London all restaurants serve the same thing. It's only the prices that vary. They have grand old roast beef, mutton that we can't compete with and the usual asbestos veal. London has six vegetables — potatoes, Brussels sprouts, salsify or oyster plant, parsnips, Brus- sels sprouts and potatoes — and boils them all. Then there are 246 kinds of tarts and puddings, including the glorious plum pudding, which they make one Christmas and eat the next. The wines are genuine and they are gloriously cheap — old sherries and the best champagnes for the price of mediocre clarets here. But the ices are bad, and they charge a high price for miserably small portions. In New York you can get al- most anything that has ever been heard of, served in every imaginable style, at every imaginable price." Mbcrc to leat 265 The table (Fhote dinner ranges from $2 with- out wine to forty eents vin compris. For forty cents you can get a wet napkin, a dirty table- cloth, tiny portions of tough meat, good spa- ghetti and a roast English sparrow with a bottle — called a half-bottle — of ''grand old vin ordi- naire," otherwise called red ink; or, for $1.25, THE SYRIAN CAFE you can enjoy a banquet at Martin's, as French as France, w^ith its mirrors, long w^all seats, marble tables and its lively frescoes by Leftw ich Dodge. There is an open air terrace in sum- mer — the nearest approach we have to a side- walk cafe. On a summer night it is fine to linger over your demi-tasse and look through your cigar smoke across Madison Square at the stalwart figure of Saint-Gaudens's Farragut, and beyond to the Garden tower above its trees. 2()6 z\K IRcal mew l^orh Then there is the Cafe des Beaux-Arts, where for $1.50 you eat choicely and hear ItaHan sing- ers caroUng their gondola songs. In the Savoy, at the men's cafe, they give you a wondei-ful menu, with frequent terrapin, for$l. It costs more in the other rooms, but then you can eat in the hall of the beautiful Caryatides, or you can sit about in low wicker armchairs. One of the pleasantest and costli- est places is Sherry's. It might be spelled $herry's. In summer there is a terrace, and the waiters are coolishly dressed in white linen suits trimmed with red. In some ways it is our most aristocratic eating place — at least until the new Hotel Astor is opened. Cattycorner to Sherry's is the exquisite new Italian palazzo which James Brown Lord de- signed for the Delmonico dynasty — which has been an American proverb for elegance ever since it was founded in 1826 by the two humble broth- ers, Peter and John, from Switzerland. The Majestic, the Ansonia, the Cafe de Paris on the upper West Side, are all gorgeous shrines, where high quality weds high price. Best of all, they have roof -gardens in the summer, and there can be nothing more beautiful than to dine far above the world in the open air, under the stars, with the moonlit river in the distance and a spring breeze tugging at the napery and winnowing your soul. '* The roof -garden dining-room," said De Peys- Mbcic to Eat 2G7 ter, "is a glorious compensation for the lack of sidewalk cafes. Then we have Claremont, over- looking the ralisades, and in Central Park two restaurants, the Casino and M'Gowan's Pass. They have nearly the same beauty as the roof- gardens, though they are on the level — a thing that can't be said of quite all their guests. M'Gowan's Pass was named after a farm-boy who saved a part of the retreating American army in 1776 by volun- teering to guide the foreigners and then misleading them." "That seems to be a favorite New York trick," said Calverly. "I'd like to dine where there is no music." "The Holland House is one of the few that has that distinction," said De Peyster; "but it's a little too respectable for you, Calverly. Some night we'll go out together to Shanley's; it's a great place for game — and dead game sports. They have one dining-room arranged as a Roman court. Rector's is also very lively as well as gorgeous, and the scene of merrymaking there on New Year's Eve is one of the after-midnight sights of the year. The Hotel Imperial has a palm room that has seen some informality. We must go to Muschenheim's Arena; that is the chief stamping-ground of college men and A NEW YORKER 26S Zbc IRcal IHcw U^ork has a fine array of trophies and athletic em- blems." ''But is there any place that is particularly American ?" said Calverly. "There is the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where corn- bread is served with the rolls. The Grand Union serves a very fine steak on a plank. This is owned by Simeon Ford, one of the chief after- dinner humorists. ''The Westminster gives a Southern dinner of fried chicken and sweet potatoes. Then there's Healy's, which makes a specialty of dinners of nothing but beefsteak. This is served in the crypt on barrels and boards. You wear an apron up to your chin and eat the luscious tenderloin served on bread, without knife or fork and with only celery and beer to accompany it." Miss Collis, however, was tired of American food. She said she wanted something foreign. "Almost every nationality is represented by a dining-room and a cook," said De Peyster. "The lady from San Francisco is tired of Chi- nese food, but there are dozens of more or less picturesque chop suey places all over town. The meals are cooked and served by Chinese, but the patrons are mostly of a low class, and negroes seem especially fond of Celestial fare. Chicken is their common bond of friendship. "There are many French restaurants besides those I've spoken of — the Logerot, Mouquin's two places, the Lafayette-Brevoort, which took Mbcrc to Eat 269 the place where Martin's grew famous before it moved up to Delmonico's old place. At these j)laces you can practise your French on the waiter, though if it's very bad he will answer in English." *'Of all insults that's the worst," said Cal- verly. " A waiter ought to be discharged for it." *' There are other places where you can polish your German accent and get Teutonic archi- tecture as well as beer, Rhine wines and solids. The German resorts are too numerous to count, and the German usually has his whole family with him wherever he goes. His wife and his children sit round and take their beer in a man- ner shocking to many Americans, but very beau- tiful from a domestic point of view. Scheffel Hall and the Hofbrauhaus are reproductions of German beer palaces, with walls and rafters covered with drinking scenes and legends from German poetry and with steins of elaborate de- sign. Terrace Garden is a huge establishment with music and vaudeville, and, in summer, Strauss's comic operas are given in German. "The musicians and the musical critics frequent Luchow's in Fourteenth Street or Mock's in For- ty-second Street. Reisenweber's and Pabst's Grand Circle are two others where the cooking is apt to be good and the beer sure to be. In fact, you can hardly turn round without strik- ing some odd German resort, from Atlantic Gar- den down on the Bowery up to Pabst's in Har- 270 ^be IReal IRcw ^ovk lem and on to High Bridge. There is one over- looking the entrance to the Speedway. " The Itahans have some of our best restau- rants. The Moretti dinner is famous, and Mor- ello's has been a rival for years. Then there are two places claiming the name of Roversi's, and the so-called Spaghetti House, besides Gaz- zo's, Zangheri's (which has a so-called 'Jolly Dungeon'), Maria da Prato's, Gonfarone's, Guf- fanti's, dozens everywhere. " The Hungarian restaurants are next in num- ber to the Italian, and include the Hotel Hun- garia, the Cafe Boulevard, Little Hungary, Lor- ber's Art Nouveau in Grand Street, with its Cupid's Cafe, and many others. '*Far down in Washington Street is a Syrian cafe where rice is cooked with everything, in- cluding curdled milk and sweetened milk. They serve also a sort of tamale made of rice, spice and cabbage. In Madison Street is a Greek restaurant where the favorite dishes are chicken in rice and bread fried in honey. "There are also restaurants kept by Turks, Swedes, Finns, Russians, Bohemians " "That's what I want to see," said Miss Collis. " Something truly Bohemian. That's what Paris is so famous for. Is there such a thing in New York.^" De Peyster met her promptly. "We'll have to go on the hunt for it this very night." Chapter XV THE HUNT FOR BOHEMIA BOHEMIA! WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? THE OLD BOHEMIA AT " MARIA's " PROFES- SIONAL BOHEMIANS IMITATION BOHEMIANISM THE SECRET HAUNTS OF BOHEMIANS QUICK GROWTH OF THE BOHEMIAN CAFES CAFE LIBERTY HUNGARIAN DISHES, SAUCES, WINES AND MUSIC THE ONLY BOHE- MIANS ARE HUNGARIANS ''T1 niERE is Bohemia?" V V "Where is to-morrow?'' "Well, then, what is Bohemia?" "There are as many definitions as there are stars in the Milky Way. What would be Bo- hemian in a society woman would be snobbishly conventional in an editor's wife. What would be Bohemian in an editor's wife would be prim indeed in a chorus girl. Bohemia is largely a matter of income and profession and personal- ity. Bohemia may be one of the tables at a church festival; and philistinism may sit and eat its spaghetti with knife and fork in the din- giest little forty-cent dinner table d'hote restau- rant in Twenty-eighth Street. But here comes a literary man, let us ask him." They were seated in " Peacock Alley" at the Waldorf. Th-ey saw Simes approaching; he 272 ^be IRcal mew L^orft had a harrowed look and was plainly making for the cafe. "We were talking of Bohemia," said De Peyster. " Miss Collis wonders if there is any Bohemianism in New York." "There are oodles of it," said Simes, "or of violent attempts at it. When I first came to New Yawk I was, of course, full of Murger's 'Vie de Boheme,' and was restless to find Bo- hemia in New Yawk. I felt that I was a genius, and that every genius is a gipsy by nature. Soon after I arrived I made some acquaintances who constantly spoke of Bohemia and 'Maria's' as the same place. I was finally honored with an invitation to come along. It was down in Twelfth Street — a slovenly little basement, and what we should have called a cheap bo'ding- house down So'th. I was most amazed at the long yahdsticks of bread and the enormous bowls of soup, and the way they had of sprinkling powdered cheese oveh everything, soup included. And they put large chunks of ice in the claret — - a combination I was brought up to believe a sacrilege. I was taken out in the kitchen and introduced to Maria with a great flourish. She was a large Italian cook, with her sleeves rolled up, and it ratheh amazed me to see how defer- ential her guests were, and how proud anybody was to whom she spoke an extra word. I un- derstood this betteh when I learned that a good many of the men owed her for their bo'd, and .\i"~;i>j4)».^ A BUSY SATURDAY NIGHT ^be Ibunt for Bobcnua 273 that it was generally believed that one or two of them got their meals free for acting — as — well, we would call them — cappehs, or pullers-in, anywhere else; but here they were called mas- tehs of the ceremonies. ''There was what they called an al fresco dining-room, which consisted of a large shed in the back yahd. The guests were a strange ragout. Some of them were plainly business men tryin' to understand what they had struck; othehs of them were hahd-headed philistines making a pitiful attempt at being hilarious in a talented manneh. My friends pointed out the celebrities. Some of them were long-haired, but few of them had even that supposed sign of temperament ; most of them were only seedy. The most curious thing about the celebrities was that, while I had been reading all the magazine and book reviews for yeahs and yeahs, I had never even heard of any of these great men. I have heard of them since, as I have heard of certain druggists and grocers and policemen, through living in the same town. A few of them had a tired look, as if they had been honestly working — these were the newspapeh men, who are driven like dogs in a treadmill, who often spend brilliant abilities on unworthy jobs and whose really good work is published anony- mously and crowded out of memory by the next day's news. "But most of the Bohemians were simply 18 ^. 274 ^be IRcal IRcw l!)orh loafelis, who preferred red ink to black, ciga- rettes to pens, and who would ratheh talk about the great things they were going to do than to do something good, and they made themselves proud by finding fault with the work of men who were succeeding, instead of giving the public the advantage of their own superior gifts. "During that evening I heard every editor in New York called a low-browed ignoramus, and it seemed to be the unforgivable sin in any author to get a story, a book or poem into actual print. "Well, as the dinneh went along it grew mer- rieh and merrieh, and there were some witty things said. But you will hear witty things in the conversations of a street cah conductor and the motorman. There was a good deal of fa- miliarity in the behavior of some of the couples and a certain amount of love-making that would have been more impressive if it had not been so promiscuous. Then there were speeches and stories, songs and poems. Many of these were very pleasant to heah, and none of them was without a certain charm, but they almost all lacked the final earnestness, the real grip that comes from constant exercise in trying to get a grip. They usually lacked real conviction and real workmanship. They showed the 'pren- tice hand or the lazy hand, and you began to realize how it was that these men did not get their works more often printed, why these ZiK 1bunt for Bobcniia 275 women did not get tlieir books finislied or pub- lished, and why tliese submerged actresses were always the victims and never the victors over the * jealousy' of stars. *'l had come to New Yawk full of illusions and full of detummination. I found my illusions siippin' away like smoke wreaths and my de- tummination evaporatin' into a lazy 'what's the use ? ' **Then I took myself by the back of the neck and said : ' See heah, Peteh Simes, Bohemia may be a ve'y nice place, and fo' those that like that sawt of thing it is about the sawt of thing they like; but fo' a man that wants to w^ork and take a pride in his work and to keep up a detummina- tion to make that work as good as possible and as successful as possible, Bohemia is the wrong place. ''I like to go back now and then, as I like to go to Coney Island, once or twice a yeah, but it is a place of more pathos than recreation to me, for the only Bohemians that work are the news- paper men and the newspaper artists, and they are grinding their souls away with little to show for it. As for the rest, the dreamers, they are still dreamin'. Some day they'll wake up and say, like Rip Van Winkle, 'Wlieah am I .^ Whence came these gray hairs ? How the world has changed!' "Then there are the professional Bohemians, heah just as in Paris, who posture and pretend 276 zbc IRcal mew ^ov\{ and get their meals and drinks free. They are meant to draw the gullible philistines to certain restaurants, where they will forget what bad stuff they are drinkin' and eatin' in the raptur- ous thought that they are makin' a visit to Bohemia. "Of co'se, there is anotheh sawt of life that is sometimes mistaken for Bohemia. That is the relaxation of hahd-working writers, artists, mu- sicians and actors and doctors and lawyers and the like, who amuse themselves after a liahd day's work by informal dinnehs in odd nooks, where hilarity attracts no attention. They have earned the right to play gipsy, and they like to call themselves Bohemians; but they are not; they are simply good, honest, hahd- working blacksmiths, taking a little recess, in ordeh that they may renew their strength for the anvil and the sledge and go back and work some mo'. If that were Bohemia I should be a Bohemian. But the true Bohemians, the true gipsies, do no work and attain no success, but dawdle idly from failure to failure, thinking they are happy be- cause they run away from work or hardship. Little they know that the true rapture is in wrest- ling with circumstances, diggin' at the beautiful in the ugliness around it, till the blood comes from undeh the fingeh nails. You must pah- don me if I have fallen into the sermon habit, but I've been so long with that blamed preacheh from Terre Haute." Z\K Ibunt for ffiobcinia 277 "Will you join us to-night in a search for your Bohemia ?" '' I'd like to," said Simes, *' but I've promised to show the preacheh some mo' of ouah inerad- icable virtues," and with a thirsty cough and an apologetic bow he was awav in search of the Pierian spring. Calverly decided that he was not much interested in Bohemia. He judged from Simes's description that it must be "deucedly vulgah" and " a ghastly baw." Miss De Peys- ter a2:reed with him and decided that she did not care to go. Calverly thought that a quiet evening at home would be more enjoyable than anything else, and Miss De Peyster agreed with him again and suggested her home. Miss Collis looked her disappointment. She had always idealized Bohemia. It was identical in her mind with Paris and art student life. It was her chief grievance against New York that the art student life did not flourish here as in Paris. De Peyster admitted that the Anglo-Saxon temperament could never hope to amuse itself or take its art as religiously as the Latin nature. But there were compensations in other direc- 278 Zhc IRcal mew l^orft tions, and New York has an extensive colony of artists, as well as a few schools in which the standard is quite as high as in Paris, and the students amuse themselves well, though not so elaborately or with such co-operation as in Paris. There is no Montmartre here, no Quartier Latin, no *' Quat'z'-Arts" — the police would hardly allow this last. And there is no Bal Bullier, more's the pity, though there are dozens of dance halls where the same class of women will insist on no more formalities of introduction. "It would be foolish," De Peyster continued, "for New York to pretend to compete with Paris in the pursuit of happiness for its own sake. To them it is a science and a religion; to us happi- ness is either a vice, a relaxation or something hidden away in the depths of business and prog- ress. We can only console ourselves for our many inferiorities by the many magnificent qual- ities in which New York excels Paris and the beautiful promise that all good Americans shall go to Paris when they die. Alas, most of us will never take up happiness as a profession until that time." Miss Collis had her heart set on seeing Bo- hemia. She believed that she would enjoy it in spite of Simes. De Peyster volunteered to go a-hunting with her. "But your sister does not care to go and I have no other chaperon," she said. " Good Lord ! A chaperon in Bohemia — the tEbc Ibimt for Bobcinia 279 two terms are contradictory. Now is your chance to show whether or not you have any of your boasted Boliemian blood in your veins. 1 be- lieve you are afraid to go Bohemianizing with me. Miss Collis was not one who took a dare. She held her head up proudly and flashed back at him defiantly: **I dare and I will!" And so it was agreed. Then arose the prob- lem where to go. **I should like to go to Maria's," said Miss Collis, *'and see if Mr. Simes has not maligned it. "Oh, the old Maria is a thing of the past," said De Peyster; "she made so much money in her dingy little place that she moved uptown. Two clubs grew out of the crowd that used to gather at the old place. The first was the Edenia, which met upstairs around her rheu- matic piano; out of this grew a Revolutionary Committee that wanted a little more comfort, better meals and a higher class of entertainment. So they called themselves the Pleiades, and they meet every Sunday night at some large hotel or restaurant, where sometimes two hundred of them gather together and enjoy a really good dinner. They wear evening clothes, as a rule, and they do not rent them. The women are well dressed and their model of behavior is not the artist model. Every Sunday night they have 280 Zbc IReal mew ^ovk as guest of honor some prominent personage, and their Christmas and annual dinners are bril- liant events. "The 'Black Cat' is another Bohemian re- sort that has suffered from prosperity. It be- gan as an imitation of the 'Chat Noir' in Paris, and later the proprietors opened a much more elaborate place in Twenty-eighth Street. "Down in Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Streets there are several quaint places where a few cronies still gather. They try, as a rule, to keep these rookeries a secret, knowing that as soon as a place is branded as Bohemian a mob of philis- tines rush in and spoil it. Not only does the crowd lose quality, but the food as well, and the proprietors are infected with the craze for rapid wealth. There are dozens of places in New York whose habitues love them so jealously that they organize themselves into little lodges. "One of these is much haunted by sculptors. The proprietor was formerly a chef to the Italian King. On the walls are photographs of him in an officer's uniform — over the brim of his hat spills the tail of one of those roosters which he can cook so extremely well that you think you are eating a bashful pullet. When you arrive you are permitted to go into the kitchen and drink the health of the patron in a petit verre of his own mixture. You can stand by and watch your dinner cook in spotlessly clean surroundings, and if you are complimentary enough you will ^be Ibunt for Bobcntia 281 later be invited to have brandy to burn in your coffee. After you have been there a few times the signora is very apt to embrace you when you come in and pat you on the shoulder when you compliment her on the spaghetti. I would take you there but for the terrific promise I gave as my initiation fee. For the sculptor who took me there said in an awestruck tone: *Come any time you like, bring any girl you like, but for God's sake don't bring any ladies!' Some of the best known artist models are there, and they talk art as earnestly as they try to inspire it. " Down on Seventh Avenue near Twenty-sixth Street is Guffanti's. You can tell that this is an artistic place because there are stains on the tablecloth and because the women and men begin to hold hands about the time they reach their second glass of Bar- ber a. The waiters are in shirt sleeves, you lay your hats and coats on the billiard table, the proprietor ad- dresses you as almost his equal, and the spaghetti on spaghetti night is a feast in itself. " One of the liveliest places in town is the Cafe Francis in Thirty-fifth Street. There are three orchestras here, and you sit along wall seats be- SPAGHETTI 282 ZV)C IReat IRcw IPorft hind marble-topped tables as in Paris. It is a place much affected by painters, sculptors, actors, as well as newspaper men from the nearby Herald. You will see some very pretty women and some very jovial parties here. The music is really worth while, the long-haired French trio being especially good. "The most showy places are down on the East Side, and, if you have pluck, you will go there." • She had the pluck, and felt proud of it, till he called for her shortly after six, and in evening dress. '' Bohemia in those things ?'' she asked. "Yes," he replied, "and, what's more, in an automobile. Society people crowd into Bo- hemia and look at each other. If there is any . room left in an odd corner — or rather in the cen- tre of the room— the true Bohemians slip in. But they have about as large a place in Bohemia as the American Indians have in America. We foreign invaders call ourselves Americans, and it is very consistent that we should call ourselves Bohemians when we annex this new territory." "But I have put on my plainest things," she objected; "you'll have to wait until I change." "No one will notice the difference, and you may get credit for being a real Bohemian. You cannot look more beautiful in ermine — M- Myr- tle." The name still came rather hard. "All right, G-Gerald; I am a true sport." Z\K Ibunt for ©obcniia 2S3 When they were scudding down Broadway in the dusk of the automol)ile lie tried to hokl her hand — "just for good fellowship," he explained. But she would none of it, even when he insisted that all true Bohemians must know the ''grip." They went first to the Cafe Boulevard, on Second Avenue and Tenth Street. It was too cool for the guests to dine on the balconies, which they fill in summertime, but the place was alight and the strains of Hungarian music came splashing through the windows. Myrtle's heart lit up like the windows of the cafe, and she felt that she was in a foreign land as they strolled through the rooms decorated in the Art Nouveau and through the grotto. They wandered here and there through the many rooms, all of them full and voltaic with high spirits. The pro- prietor, who had seen his little out-of-the-way cabaret grow to an establishment accommodating 850 visitors, greeted De Peyster with cordiality. He offered him a table pleasantly located on a mezzanine floor, overlooking the main dining- room, but De Peyster stopped short. He saw that his next-table neighbors would be A. J. Joyce, "Ananias" Blake and two young women whose manner already showed the influence of the Hungarian cocktail, made of plum brandy and called Slivovitz. They were also making rapid inroads on a bottle which De Peyster recognized as Szegszcirdi Voros, from the Royal Hungarian Government cellars at Buda-Pesth, 284 ^be IRcal mew l^ork which is well worth the price, since it costs but one dollar, title and all. Joyce came forward, and very effusively ex- claimed : "Won't you join us, you and your — cousin?" De Peyster could have throttled him for that last word, but he remembered his breeding, and with a sweet smile answered: *' Thank you, my cousin and I just dropped in to look around; we have an engagement else- where." Myrtle started to protest, but he gave her a silencing look, and by pure will power silently dragged her from the room. Once outside, she gave voice to her disap- pointment, but he promised her something still more foreign, and ordered the chauffeur to take them to the Cafe Liberty, in East Houston Street. As they drove down Second Avenue they seemed to be in a foreign country, reading such signs as "Karatsonyi & Kmetz," and a little shop marked " Lesezirkel, Ungarischer Importir- ter Tabak," where, when her parents are away, the beautiful little Hungarienne, Erna Roswaag, aged eleven, and her little seven-year-old brother, will sell you the latest number of the Pesti Hir- lap in the most charming manner. A little further down is the Swiss Benevolent Society's Home, and on East Fourth Street is the hall where, on every Sunday night, the Roumanians gather for a dance. Z\K Ibunt for Bobcmia 285 The automobile soon turned into the twist- ing streets of the Jewish quarter of the East Side, where the signs were in Hebrew and an- nounced that the food was "kosher" — that is to say, that it was clean — cooked in conformity with the laws of the Jewish faith. One dingy hole in the wall bore the ambitious and am- biguous sign, "Cafe de I'Europe, Inlandische und Auslandische Zeitungen." Across the WHEN TWO HUNGARIANS PLAY CARDS street was the Cafe Liberty, familiarly known as "Little Hungary." Here, too, as in all Bohemian resorts in New York, the crowd has grown from a couple to 500. A few years ago the owner of a modest cafe gave a dinner in his wine-cellar on Friday night — that being the eve of the Jewish Sabbath. The sharp-nosed sleuths who are eternally ransack- 286 ^bc IRcal 1Rcw ll)orft ing New York for something odd found out this cafe, and now crowded dinners are given every night in greatly enlarged space, that threat- ens to absorb the entire building, where at present six or eight large rooms accommodate the meetings of the secret societies of the East Side, and where the ballroom is the scene of Hungarian dances and weddings. Friday night is still the great night of this cafe, and it is usually necessary to engage the tables ahead. De Peyster led the way down into the cellar and through two dining-rooms, with long tables and walls decorated with love scenes and Hun- garian legends, into the more quaint room of the great casks. They chose a table next to one of the black old tuns. A page in gold and blue uniform with- out command brought them a tiny glass of Sliv- ovitz. The table d'hote dinner followed, course by course. Csiga leves — a soup containing noodles shaped like snails — preceded American fish with a Hungarian sauce. Among other of the many courses were the Hungarian national dish, the gulijas (goulash) and ^paprikas csirke, or chicken hot with paprika; a salad led to almas retes (applestrudel), a delicious light pastry filled with sliced apples, almonds and raisins; the cheese was Liptauer, and the demi-tasse was crowned with a puff of whipped cream. With each course was served some Hungarian wine. With the soup came on a dark liquor Z\K Ibunt for Bobcinia 2^7 drawn direct from one of the casks througli a rubber tube. Hungarian wines were too sweet to satisfy the dry taste of De Peyster, but they delight a woman's pahite, especially when she does not realize that the morning-after head is due to sugar more than to alcohol. Myrtle noted that as fast as she emptied her glass the waiter filled it again. It is a pleasant but a dangerous custom at this place to put no limit on the quantity, the price for dinner includ- ing the individual capacity. Some of the wines were poured from flagons by the incessant wine-boy, but soon the pictur- esque implement called the *'glass-heber" was set on the table. This is a bottle with a giraffe neck, inverted in a tall rack. It has a little auto- matic glass stopper and one has only to press his glass against it to have it refilled. Myrtle took great pleasure in reading the wine list, with its curious and unearthly names, such as Szamarodni, Szanto, Szegszardi, Tokayi Asszu, Slivovitz and Borovicska. The simplest name, Erlauer, masked the deadliest wine, a thick red fluid which the Hungarians call bull's blood; it leaves its stain upon the glass and is heavier than a thrice concentrated port. The general good fellowship around the crowded tables, the unfettered laughter and the careless jokes joined with the serial wines to hypnotize the girl from San Francisco. But, most of all, the Hungarian music intoxicated her. 288 z\K IRcal mew l^orh The leader, with his frankly admiring and tena- cious stare as he drew honey from his fiddle; the other musicians, in their picturesque cos- tumes, and the wild arpeggios and tremolos of the man hammering the Hungarian piano, the ''czimbalom" — all united in wild and irresistible strains of barbaric candor and thrilling rhythm. Myrtle's heart filled with an amorous longing when they broke into the csardas. De Peyster, too, felt his Fifth Avenue com- posure giving way to the Magyar passion, and he found himself telling Myrtle how beautiful she was, and how dear, in a language that re- gretted its everyday English and longed for a command of some Hunnish spice. After dinner was lingeringly finished they adjourned upstairs. Here was a troupe of troubadors playing and singing like mad. The crowd listened with eager zest, hissing down those who made love immod- erately or joining in any tune that grew familiar. The women were given fanciful souvenirs and many of them puffed frankly at cigarettes. It was midnight before the merrymakers be- gan to dwindle homeward. Gerald and Myrtle — the names came glibly now — were among the last to leave, and as they re-entered their auto- mobile in the cool dark air she murmured: "The only true Bohemians are the Hungari- ans." And now she let him hold her hand — ^just to show that she was really a Bohemian. A GALA NIGHT AT THE CAFE BOULEVARD Chapter XVI SUMMER IN NEW YORK THE SUMMER EXODUS FATHER KNICKERBOCKER A GRASS-WIDOWER IN SUMMER SCHEMES FOR FIGHTING THE HEAT SUMMER COSTUME ROOF -GARDEN DINING THE SUFFERING SLUMS MAY DAY AND MAY QUEENS ATHLETICS IN TOWN THE COACHES THE RACETRACKS THE COOL EN- VIRONS OF NEW YORK THE next morning Calverly ran up to take breakfast with the De Peysters. They called it breakfast, though it came at the lunch hour. People who have been abroad are fond of such twists. Calverly seemed uneasy and kept dropping his monocle into his plate, then scouring it with much assiduity. At length he said, apropos of nothing in particular: "Do you know, Gerald, old boy, there's some- thing I rather think I ought to tell you ?'' " What's the matter ? Don't you like this scarf I'm wearing.^" "Oh, that's not it! Truth is, old fellow, I'm engaged to be married." "Great Csesar! How did you ever get cour- age to propose ?" "Oh, I — I was — assisted, you might say." "Well, fancy anyone accepting such a duffer as you! Lord, you'll make a wonderful hus- 19 290 z\)C IRcal IRcw l^ork band ! Who's the unfortunate woman ? Do I know her? She must have been desperate." "Be careful, Gerald," said Miss De Peyster; "you're forgetting yourself." '*But it seems so ridiculous to think of him engaged. He's a nice enough man's man, but he'd bore a woman to death. Well, tell me, what is her name .^ I'll telegraph her my con- dolences. Come, come, who is she .^" "It's your — sister." "Um! um — hum! ahem! I — I congratulate you both. I'm sure you'll be terribly happy. You're — oh, ah — um — so congenial. But when did all this happen .^" "Last night, when you and Miss Collis were out in Bohemia. We — I — well— before I knew it, old chap, I was engaged, wasn't I — Miss De — Consuelo, dear g-girl .^" "Yes," said Consuelo, furious at the gaucherie of the whole affair. "W^ell," said De Peyster, anxious to retrieve himself, "there's one thing about it; my sister must be genuinely in love with you, for she swore she'd marry nothing but a title." This happy suggestion seemed only to make matters worse. At length Calverly said: "Well, I am to be a peer, it seems. I had a letter that my elder brother cannot live more than a few months. I've got to go back at once. Terribly doleful, isn't it ? I told your sister last night, and she was most sympathetic, and be- Summer in 1Hc\v l!)orh 291 fore I knew it I had told her how much I — I — how 1 have grow^n so — deuced ly fond of her, don't you know ? And besides, when I have the title, I'll need a lot more money, you know — er — that is — of course, that sounds rather raw — but — what a deucedly warm day it is all of a sudden, isn't it ? Seems like summer, doesn't it ?" Then, with a desperate effort to change the subject, he exclaimed : "By the way, old chap, what do you people do in New York when summer comes ?" "We get out," Miss De Peyster broke in, still angry. "New York is simply deserted in sum- mer. There is not a soul in town." Her brother smiled. "Not a soul, eh.^ Perhaps you're right. All the souls are flying to the seaside and the mountains, but there are bodies enough broiling on the gridiron of the streets." It seemed so good to be talking of something besides engagements that he ran on: "Winters are comparatively mild and zero is very rare — the thermometer sometimes skips it for years at a time. But there are a few weeks in summer when New York is like a preparatory school for Hades. The only things that can be said in its favor are that, in the first place, it is easy to go away to some of the innumerable beaches and watering resorts; and, in the second place, it is not half so bad as we think it is. "People from smaller cities West or South 292 z\K 1Real mew ^ofw think New York is a summer resort, and, save for the occasional spasms of ferocious heat and the humidity that fairly stings, the old town is a comfy place to summer in. The nights are almost always cool, and the science of fighting the heat has certainly been carried to a higher point in New York than anywhere else, at least among working cities, for New York is not like the other tropical places where one takes a siesta in the middle of the day. "The first day of June there is a general ex- odus of people who can afford to go, and there are miles and miles of residence streets where nearly every house has its doors and windows boarded up, with no one at home but a poor cat that has been forgotten and left to starve. But all Americans work, and manv of the rich- est men take no more than a two weeks' vaca- tion — as much as they allot to their poorest clerks. Thousands and thousands of them live nearby in cottages or hotels and go out every evening, or take at least what you English call a Friday-to-Monday. "To a large extent. New York in the summer time is a big bachelor apartment house. The women who stay in town are either very poor or have business reasons for staying. The busi- ness of some of them is the entertainment of grass- widowers. The loneliness of deserted hus- bands, who work hard all day and find all the respectable homes shut up in the evening, has Summer in Ucw ^ov\\ 203 its enormous effect on the domestic problem. The divorce courts would not be nearly so over- crowded if American women would brinjy them- selves to endure the same hardships that their husbands go through during the worst part of the year. '*To the New Yorker who knows his town in the height of the season from autumn to late spring it truly seems that there is nobody here in summer. To the stranger from the smaller cities it is still packed and jammed with millions of hurrying and sweltering citizens. And while Father Knickerbock- er's wife may have de- serted him and may be spending her days in a bathing suit and her nights on a moonlit piazza overlooking the ocean, there is usually a faith- ful stenographer who dresses quite as well, whom the stranger in town thinks to be Mrs. Knicker- bocker when they are seen together dining on some roof and sitting out some roof-garden en- tertainment. But the facts all come out in the wash — and the divorce court is the great laundry." Calverly opened his mouth and dropped his monocle to say : A ROOF-GARDEN STUNT 294 Zhc IRcal IRcw ^ov\\ *'But you spoke of New Yorkers having car- ried the science of fighting the heat further than anybody else. Of course, that is only cheerful Yankee brag, I know, but what have you done to surpass dear old London ? We Englishmen have our blessed Thames, with its miles of cottages, with lawns going right to the river edge, and its punts, and swans, and the cozy little inns, and all that sort of thing. You haven't anything to equal that, you know you haven't ; now have you ? " "If the Thames were not nailed down," said De Peyster, "we'd either buy it or steal it. It is too good for you English people. London has no right to such a pretty toy, for London does not know what summer is. Your winters are infinitely worse than our summers, and I'd rather have a thousand of our hot days than a hundred of your pea-soup fogs." "But I was asking about the science of keep- ing cool," persisted Calverly. "What have you done about that .^ " "Well, in the first place, there is ice. Till a few years ago it was almost an unknown thing in London. Now it is treated as a sort of splendid luxury, a quaint little American affec- tation. There is probably more of it given away by New York charities, like the Herald Free Ice Fund and others, than all London con- sumes in a summer. Then there is the iced drink, particularly the divine mint julep, where Sunitncr in H^cw ^ovh 295 you bathe your fevered brow in ice cold leaves while you sip nectar. "There are thousands of other ingenious de- vices for distracting the mind from too much brooding on the rise of the thermometer. There is, for instance, the cooling gin rickey, and there is a curious fact about it. Its distino^uishinfi^ feature is the juice of the lime, and the sale varies so much according to the heat that the lime has become the greatest gamble in the produce market. It is vitally important that the limes should be fresh ; so, if a ship comes up from the Tropics and unloads its cargo on a boilingly hot day, the limes may sell for as high as $49 a barrel. If, however, the ship arrives here in cool weather the cargo may sell as low as 49 cents a barrel. There are thousands of old clubmen who watch for the first consign- ment of limes as eagerly as the farmer looks for the first robin redbreast. ''Then we have learned how to dress in sum- mer. It is still an article of religion in London that a high hat and a frock coat must be worn even on the most stifling days. Over here both office boy and millionaire dress as coolly as decency permits, and the women one degree cooler. "We have hundreds of electric fans where London has one. We have our roof-garden dining-rooms and our music-halls on the roof; and there are one or two steamers that give 296 ^be IReal IRcw l^orft vaudeville every evening as they plow the cool waters down the Bay." "But what about the suffering in the slums ?" asked Calverly. "Well, it is frightful," said De Peyster, "and there is no denying it. At night thousands and thousands flock to the roofs and sprawl on the tin that has baked all day, or they clutter the fire-escapes or huddle on the stoops and the curbs. On the worst nights they are now per- mitted to sleep in some of the parks. Unless the night is cool the pitiful wretches can only suffer till the angry daybreak brings a greater suffering. Their lot is that of the wretches of the Bible who said at night, 'Would God that it were morn !' and in the morning, * Would God that it were night!' It is terrible, terrible, ter- rible, especially for the children. There is nothing to say in palliation except that it might be worse, and that their misery has plenty of company around the globe. When summer is summer everybody must bake. The rich at the seaside and in the mountains cannot escape from the sun; the people in the small cities and villages feel the lash; the farmers fry in the fields and their women go mad in the kitchens. " We do the best we can to make it better here in New York. If you look on the map you will see that we are as close to the Equator as Spain. We are in just about the same degree of latitude Sinnmcr in H^cw ^ov\\ 297 as Madrid and Naples, while London is nearly opposite Labrador. " Charity is tireless here in New York. Every day in summer thousands of children are taken to the country or on picnics down the Bay. The Fire Department flushes the tenement streets with streams of cold water, wettinc: down the panting horses and the hundreds of children who enjoy the shower-bath. Most of the horses, as in London, wear bonnets of straw all summer w^ith most coquettish effect. Free con- certs are given on all the recreation piers, and the policeman usually looks the other way when the newsboys in their costume of two garments take a dip head foremost into the fountains. And there are many public baths in both the Hudson and the East River where men and women can swim. Besides it does not cost much time or money to reach the greatest pleas- ure circus in the world. Coney Island." De Peyster was on one of his pet hobbies now, and he went on with enthusiasm to point out that for those who cannot get out of town there are the parks. The first of May finds the streets leading to Central Park filled with processions of little boys and girls going out for a Maypole dance on the greens. This is one of the few towns in this country where the good old English custom of the Queen of the May is preserved, and it is one of the prettiest touches of the spring to see the little gamines, in their 298 z\)c IRcal mew ^ovk cheap white dresses, marching solemnly in line, with the crown of flowers on the proud head of their queen. On May Day at least 4,000 chil- dren invade the Park, dressed in their merriest. On the 21st of May, 1904, a number of Tam- many picnics were given; to the children 240 permits were issued for parties, and there were over 35,000 children in the Park, well fed and gaily entertained that day. Then there are the lakes, where the children sail their yachts, and where retired old mariners in their second cliildhood practise the nautical sciences in miniature, as they do at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. One of them put up a cup last summer, and there is a little boat- house where the old and young children store their navies. There are guards and a life- saving crew whose business it is to wade in up to their knees, pull out the children, who fall in by the dozen, and then empty them out. lustead of having barrels to roll them on they have kegs and tin buckets to fit their little cast- aways. Everybody in New York goes in for athletics of some kind. You must be very careful how you speak to the most spindle-shanked fop or the most hollow-chested bookkeeper, for ten to one he takes his exercise in the morning be- fore the open window and his muscles are like wire rope. It is a very athletic town, is New York. Summer in IRew )?orh 299 fflkrt^SS^Sl'^wi' On the coldest evenings of early spring you will see teams of boys and young men out for a 'cross- country, or rather 'cross- ^^^ city, run. It is very start- ^^"^ ling to see a covey of these ^^ striplings go by — striplings is the word, for a short-sleeved undershirt and a pair of short rowing breeches are all tliey wear, except for shoes and short socks. It is quite Grecian to see these bare-armed, bare- chested, bare-legged athletes go darting across street-car tracks and through the crowds dressed for dinner or theatre. With the spring the hunt clubs in West- chester County and on Long Island and nearby New Jersey go out and fill the country with packs of beagles and foxhounds and thorough- breds ridden by thoroughbreds in red coats and hunting caps. Those who can afford polo risk their lives and limbs in the polo grounds nearby; in the winter they play at such places as the armory of Squadron A. In the spring all the boathouses on the Harlem River pour forth their half-naked athletes row- ing their toothpick shells. And a hundred yacht clubs put out every form of craft, from the smallest cat to the ocean-going 300 Zhc IRcal nm )l>ork steam yacht, not to mention the naphtha launches, the automobile launches and the world-beating sloops which have kept the America s Cup here ever since it was captured by the old Avierica. The contests for that cup have been among the most brilliant of national outdoor events, and the whole city crowds into big excursion boats and adjourns to Sandy Hook on the days of these races. We have borrowed cricket, lacrosse, tennis and squash from England, and these games are much played here, though we have not yet been able to equal the foreign champions in most of them. In all the other athletic events, however, includ- ing boxing, track athletics, weight putting and tests of strength, we hold pretty nearly all the world's championships. Then we have our own national game of baseball, which is to cricket what whisky is to cambric tea. Even the Eng- lish crowds at Lord's in London sit languidly through the game of cricket, with an occasional little spatter of applause and a gentle murmur of ''Well bowled, old chap!" Compare this with the fiendish excitement of the mobs that watch the great baseball games and grow so frenzied over the complex and graceful contest that they call for the umpire's life when he decides some doubtful crisis against the home team. Besides the two professional leagues — with their high- salaried players whose names are household words and whose records are watched like quo- Sumincr in Bcw ll)orh 301 tations of the stock market — there are the teams of all ages and professions, who meet wherever there is space enough to spread a diamond. Then there are the fencing clubs for men and women and the numberless bowling alleys, the number- less billiard-rooms, the gymnasiums for men and women and children all about town; the pools, with swimming contests, and the thrilling sub- marine battles of water polo, and the basket- ball teams and the shooting galleries. In the fall comes football, and the whole town puts on college colors, carries college flags and lacerates its throat with college yells. The foot- ball fields are black with crowds; sometimes 40,000 to 50,000 are gathered round one grid- iron, where rival giants agonize like teams of angry bufl^alo. Football lasts till snow flies, and the ice rinks open with their artificial lakes and their hockey teams cracking each other's shins in high glee. On the rare days when it turns cold enough for ice to form in the Park lakes the red ball is put up to spread the glad tidings, ''Skating to-day," and thousands of men and women sally forth steel-shod and glide or bump till the last electric light is turned off at mid- night. Golf, of course, rages all the year round, like automobiling. In the number and speed of our automobiles we are still second to Paris, but far ahead of London. But the prettiest sight of all is the coaching, 302 z\)c IReal IRcw HJorh and there are various tally-hos that make daily trips to distant points. "The Pioneer" drives from the Holland House to Ardsley, twenty-five miles away, leaving at 10.30, lunching at Ards- ley, and making the home run between 3.30 and 6. For relays it has teams of four. The coaches return usually about twilight, and there is a touch of poetry in the scene when the pat- tering hoofs come in through the gloaming and the tarantara of the long horn echoes down the crowded Avenue. For many years the Coaching Club has had an annual spring meet. This year eighteen drags were in line, led by the same aristocratic whip who has conducted their triumphant chariots for twenty-two years. Round and round the town also go the " See- ing New York " automobile coaches, packed with tourists, who are shown all the sights under the guidance of a lecturer with a mega- phone. Many New Yorkers, too, join these parties, and learn with amazement what store of interest has been gathering here unbeknownst while they were gadding Europe. Then there are the races on various tracks within easy reach by train, such places as Graves- end, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Jamaica, Aqueduct and Morris Park. These events draw daily crowds of thousands, especially the races with large purses and the more noted horses. Among the chief events of the year are the races Summer in IRcw ipork 303 THE TIPSTER known to fame as the INIetropolitan, the To- boggan, the Withers, the Brooklyn Handicap, the Suburban and the Fu- turity. At these races crowds of 40,000 or 50,000 assemble. They make a beautiful array, packing the great grand- stands, blackening the lawns and crowding the graceful clubhouses, the clusters of tally-hos and the hundred or more gaily colored automobiles. But there is little thought of beauty, except for the thrilling beauty of equine perfection at its utmost endeavor. Messengers hurry to and fro among the women collecting bets, and the betting ring is one mad swarm of jostling, reaching and clutching gamesters, fighting to force their money on the willing layers of odds. It is all over in a minute or two. The confu- sion and impatience of the start, the hopes that are left at the post, the hailstorm of hoofs dying away in the distance, the silent shuffling in the pack far away from the hysterical crowd, the sifting out of the two or three who are to share the glory, the sudden rounding into the home- stretch, the growth of the pigmies to life size, 304 Zhc IRcal 1Rcw lJ)ork the frenzied rush for the wire, the flash past, the explosion of silence into hurricane — it is a short drunkenness, but intense and fiery. And then the reaction — the effort of those who have won to repress their bubbling exultation, the effort of the majority to look like good losers, the ran- sacking of pockets for overlooked change as a rescue from a long walk home, the resolution never to play the races again, the reappearance at the next event — it is the indelible insanity, and existed when those old apartment-house sports, the cliff dwellers, bet their axe-heads on the speed of their three- toed horses. So, taking all in all, no one can complain of the dulness of New York summers excepting him who is spoiled by the Saint Vitus dance of the winters. To the hordes of invaders from out of town New York is an ideal summer re- sort. To the discontented there are easy ave- nues of escape to the mountains, the hills, the river, the Sound, the sea. In fact, some of the best things in New York are just outside. The exit through the tunnels which are build- ing or built means a short suffocation that is very trying after the usual dash for the train. But from the Grand Central Station one quickly reaches the hills and vales and the pleasant coun- try places of Westchester County, with its golf, its country clubs, its rural life de luxe. East- ward is Long Island, which is studded with all manner of resorts, from the plebeian Coney ^t \)\J ^r AT THE RACES Sumincr in IHcw ll)orU 305 Islaiul to Brighton or Rockaway, and with nu- merous home towns along the Sound or the ocean down to Montauk Point and Shelter Island. Manhattan Beach is most famous, with its two big hotels and their big prices. There is an outdoor theatre here, where Sousa's band or some comic opera troupe can always be heard. The huge piazzas of the hotel are crowded with dining tables, and every afternoon thousands of business men roll down their desks and flit to Manhattan Beach for a dip in the surf, a dinner on the piazza and a stroll in the gardens and the soothing concourse of sweet sounds. To the west are the inland towns of New Jersey, famous, not without cause, for her mos- quitos — the only serious drawback to what were else a convenient paradise. Englewood, the Or- anges, Lakewood, with her pines; Lake Hopat- cong, more beautiful than its name; Summit, Nutley, Bound Brook, Montclair, the Hacken- sack Valley, Morristown and many another com- fortable resting place are here. Then there is Staten Island to the south, and further south, stretching away toward Florida, lies the long, long beach of the Jersey coast, to be reached by railroad, or, far better, by an hour's cruise down the majestic Bay on racehorse steamers. First is Sandy Hook, with its military estab- lishment and its proving ground for great guns. The Government, however, and its soldiers mo- nopolize this long reef; but nearby are the 20 306 ^be IRcal IRew l^orft Atlantic and Navesink Highlands and the hills bordering on the Shrewsbury River, where many of moderate income pitch their tents. Then be- gins the long chain of golden beads — cities that lie dormant in winter, but in summer are hum- ming with life. Every train is met by scores of young men and maids bareheaded and brown. Each town has its own tribe and individuality; its cottagers scorn the hotel mobs and the hotel mobs scorn the cottagers. The train runs league after league through one long lawn, one almost unbroken series of cottages, many of them pala- tial in structure and environment. Elberon, Seabright, West End, and then Long Branch with its array of Hebrew wealth. At Asbury Park and Ocean Grove are multitudes of Metho- dist, Baptist and other ardent religionists gath- ering for ostentatious prayer and praise, yet not forgetting the delights of mixed bathing or the ancient rites of the moonlit beach; and so on down the coast, to the more exclusive Deal and Allenhurst, and yet further, even, on to far but well-named Point Pleasant. All things considered, there is certainly no other capital in the world with such a variety or splendor of refuges from city turmoil, within such easy reach. Chapter XVII AT CONEY BY THE SEA THE MOST ELABORATE PLEASURE RESORT IN THE WORLD — THE OLD CONEY ITS TWO GOOD POINTS THE NEW CONEY LUNA PARK AND ITS WONDERS THE DURBAR — DREAMLAND AND ITS BALL- ROOM OVER THE OCEAN THE DESTRUCTION OF NEW YORK THERE is not now and never has been in the world or its history a pleasure resort approaching Coney Island in the elaborateness or ingenuity of its devices to wheedle away dimes and despondency. The name of Coney Island had been for years a byword of plebeiance at its worst. Side- shows in wooden shacks, peanuts and popcorn, rag-throated barkers, hot babies spilling out of tired arms, petty swindles, puerile diversions, a wooden elephant, a Ferris Wheel, an observa- tion tower, hot sands, squalling children, bathers indecently fat or inhumanly lean shrieking in a crowded and dirty ocean, sweaty citizens, pick- pockets picking empty pockets, lung-testers, noi- some bicyclists, merry-go-rounds, weight-pound- ing machines, punching machines, ''one-baby- down-one-cigar!"— ring throwing at ugly canes, ball throwing at coons, "guess-your- weight!" — 308 z\K IRcal IRcw l^orh tintype tents, dusty clam chowder served by toughs in maculate aprons, reliques of old pic- nics, a captive balloon, squalling babies covered with prickly heat, drooling sots and boozy women with their hair in strings, a boardwalk fetid with sweaty citizens, museums with snake-charmers who could charm nothing else, pretzels, fly- haunted pyramids of mucilaginous pies, shrieking babies with pins sticking in them, spanked by weary mothers and sworn at by jaded fathers, lemonade where overfed flies commit suicide, only to be disinterred by unmanicured thumbs, nigrescent bananas, heel-marked orange peel- ings, fractured chicken bones, shooting galler- ies snapping and banging and smelly of powder, saloons odious with old beer slops and inebriates, umbrellas on the sand where gat-toothed bicy- clists grin at fat beauties of enormous hip, little girls and boys with bony legs all hives and scratches paddling in the surf-lather with drip- ping drawers and fife-like shrieks, gaily bedight nymphs proud of their shapes and dawdling about in wet bathing suits that keep no secrets, poor little mewling babies that really need to go home, dance halls where flat-headed youths and women with plackets agape spiel slowly in a death-clutch, German bands whose music sounds like horses with the heaves, the steeplechase, where men and women straddle the same hobby- horse and slide yelling down the ringing grooves of small change, rancid sandwiches, sticky at (Zo\\c>? b^ the Sea 800 candies made of adulterated sweets and dye, more clam chowder, banging, bumping cars on creaking trestles filled with yowling couples, tangle-faced babies howling toward apoplexy, dusty shoes, obsolete linen, draggle skirts, sweat, fatigue, felicity — that is the Coney Island of long memory. There were just two things about it that were worth while: first was the sense of de- light it gave you to get back to N e w York; second, the shoot-the- chutes, where one felt the rapture of a seagull swooping to the waves — the long, swift glide down the wet incline, and the glorious splash into the flying spray! — who would not rather be a gondolier on one of those flat boats than Admiral Makaroff ? or the last flying machinist who spattered to the ground ? But these were the two exceptions that proved Coney Island to be a nightmare of side-shows in wooden shacks, peanuts and popcorn, rag- throated barkers, hot babies spilling out of tired arms — da capo al fine. THE STEEPLECHASE no ^he IReal IHcw l^ork To-day, though! The paltry Aladdin has rubbed his lamp. Palaces have leapt aloft with gleaming minarets, lagoons are spread beneath arches of delight, the spoils of the world's revels are spilled along the beach, rendering dull and petty the stately pleasure dome that Kubla Khan decreed in Xanadu. One night in the winter there was a fire — a suspicious fire — for how could a fire be both accidental and benevolent ? But, anyway, in one crimson night, the blood-red waves saw the plague spot cremated, all the evils and ugli- ness cleansed as on a pyre. The next morning the sun with smiling eye beheld acres of embers, charred timbers, ashes. Coney fuit! Then armies of carpenters and masons, en- gineers, electricians and decorators invaded Gomorrah. And this year's May found the old Coney Island metamorphosed, base metals transmuted into gold — or at least into gilt. Here is alchemy! here the palpable stone of philoso- phy! Henceforward London's Earl's Court is a churl's back-yard, the fetes of Versailles are nursery games, the Mardi gras of New Orleans, the Veiled Prophet of St. Louis, the carnivals of Venice are sawdust and wax ; as for the rare and amazing Durbar of India — that is an everyday affair here. Still, on the outskirts the old side-shows persist like parasites, and those who enjoy nothing till it is ancient history need not bewail the old at Conep b\) tbc Sea 3ii Coney Island. It is simply shoved to one side. In its old abode there is super-regal splendor. Last year's Luna Park finds this year a rival, Dreamland, and the two have exhausted the achievements of past and the ingenuities of present device as completely as their passionate press agents have squeezed dry the dictionary of flattering epithet. There is no adjective left that does not smell of advertisement. So nouns and numerals must coldly foreshow what now exists to inflate the mind and deflate the purse. Luna Park has waxed to the harvest fulness. It claims to be greater than the St. Louis Fair, illuminated beyond any spot on earth; it has reproduced the Court of Honor of the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition. It covers forty acres, twenty-four of them imder shelter. Its broad sheet of water is not only swept by gondolas and punts, but it is over- topped by a three-ring circus suspended over the waves. Here in full view of thousands, in tiers of boxes and promenades, the spotted horses, the clowns, the acrobats, jugglers, hoop artists, intellectual elephants, Arabian pyramid- ists, tumblers, contortionists disport under the crackling lashes of the ringmaster, with his long-tailed coat and his ''Hoop-la!" From sky- ish towers wires hang, and hereon trapezists and men and women of remarkable equilibrium do the impossible a hundred and thirty feet above the waters that serve for a net. This 312 Zhc IRcal IRcw l^orh circus employs the most famous athletes, yet is free to all who enter the grounds. A Japanese tea garden, built by imported Japanese architects and wood-carvers and flor- ists, is rival to Yeddo. In the flower gardens thousands of tinted electric bulbs are hidden, to turn the night into noon. Babylonian gardens hang over all. Two high towers with suspended baskets will whirl the most phlegmatic giddy with cen- trifugal thrills. In the Helter-Skelter you may sit down on a polished and winding slide and renew the delights of banister days. The famous Trip to the Moon, with its convincing illusions, is still here, and you may go also, or think you go, 20,000 leagues under the sea. Infant incubators, a scenic railway, a midnight express, a German village, an old mill, the sea on land, a monster dance hall, a laughing show, a shoot-the-chutes are mere details. You will see battleships, torpedo boats, sub- marines and mines all combined in mimic war. One of the most elaborate dramas of realism is a whole city block crowded with people en- gaged in all the business and humor of town. Suddenly a building takes fire, a policeman rings the alarm, three fire engines, three hose carts and cordons of police appear. The whole block burns furiously in spite of the streams from the hose of a whole division. Fifty persons are rescued from the windows by ladders or blankets : at Conc^ bv> tbc Sea 313 AN OLD CONEY ISLANDER as the last woman Is saved the walls collapse. A thousand actors perform this big phiy. The climax of beauty is a repro- duction of the Durbar of India. Ancient Delhi is shown to the life, including an Indian sawmill with elephants at work or diving from heights into deep pools. The Dur- bar itself employs the largest herd of elephants in the world, sixty-seven in all, com- manded bv native mahouts, and decorated as nearly as possible in reproduction of the actual Hindu festival. The rival paradise. Dreamland, is said to have cost over $3,000,000. It has taken over the old Iron Pier and built above it the largest ball- room ever made, 20,000 square feet; beneath is the restaurant and a promenade, and beneath all the cool rush of the surf. The company runs four large steamers, as well as Santos-Dumont's Airship No. 9. In Dreamland you find a street called "the Bowery with the lid off," the spectacular Fall of Pompeii, a haunted house, a reproduction of the Doge's Palace, a complete midget village inhabited by three hundred Liliputians, a minia- ture railway, a double shoot-the-chutes, a coast- ing trip through Switzerland, a leapfrog rail- way, a camp and battle scene, a baby incubator plant, Bostock's Animal Show, the highest of ob- 314 Z\)c IRcal IHcw l?oik servation towers, a funny-room from Paris called '*C"^5^-a-nr^," and, finally, the Chilkoot Pass, a great bagatelle board, where the sliders win a prize if they can steer themselves into certain crevasses in the glaciers. Besides there is a great fire-fighting scene, not to mention a theatre where the best known vaudevillians hold sway, and innumerable music. But Luna Park and Dreamland are not the only spectacles of Pantagruelian proportions. There are others that have cost a hundred thou- sand dollars or more, such as the Johnstown Flood, in vivid reproduction, and the trip to the North Pole by way of a completely equipped submarine, with an amazingly ingenious illusion of the sea floor and the Arctic realm. There is also a huge theatre where a mimic New York is bombarded and destroyed by hostile fleets after a furious battle with the crumbling forts. Chapter XVIII LET US GO A-SLUMMING NEW YORK's SLUMS AND THOSE OF OTHER CITIES — DRUNKENNESS IN VARIOUS CAPITALS SORROWS OF RICH AND POOR AMELIORATION THE CRIME OF AIDING BEGGARS — THE OLD HAUNTS OF VICE TEACHING CHILDREN TO PLAY THE MORGUE THE CITY HOSPITALS AND PRISONS THE BOWERY OF OLD AND NOW BAXTER STREET THE GHETTO THE MOST DENSELY POPULATED SPOT IN THE WORLD THE FISH MARKET THE SWEAT-SHOP THE LUNG BLOCK — A CON- TRAST — THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE ON A GALA NIGHT TO the much-traveled Ulysses who has gone through the Infernos of poverty in Lon- don, Naples, Constantinople, Cairo and India the miseries of the New York poor will prove a deep disappointment, for few things are so dis- appointing as to find a mediocre comfort where one had expected a lurid agony. Drunkenness is far more frequent in New York than it should be, heaven knows, and the sight of intoxicated women is by no means uncommon, especially at midnight. But in this respect it is infinitely superior to London, where besotted females — they can no longer be called women — fill the ''publics" and lie innumerably in gutters and on doorsteps all about the great city, till it seems that it must have rained scarecrows. London- 3ifi Zbc IRcal IHcw l?orh ers are deeply hurt when Americans complain of the ghastly inebriation and the constant fight- ing of withered Bacchantes. The virtuously Episcopal London prides itself on being far su- perior to other British cities, especially to good old Presbyterian Glasgow, where, in the ''Cow Gate," one must at night pick his way with care to avoid walking on those who have fallen in the battle with Gambrinus. It is only in the heathendom of Paris and the beer-swimming Berlin that public drunkenness is rare. The poor of New York are far cleaner of ap- pearance and far neater of costume, as a rule, than the British poor; though, for this, the lack of soft coal and mud is perhaps more to credit with than the taking of the morning tub. In fact, compared with many cities, there is no poverty in New York and there are no slums. And yet, compared with what the lover of his kind would wish for others and would hate to lack for himself, there is bitter wretchedness in our slums, and thousands find only dregs in their cup of life. He who gives his charity to the chance beggar on the street gives it to one who is in almost every instance a common thief, stealing from those who need and deserve. There are few beggars in New York com- pared with Italy and Spain, or almost any Euro- pean country, but their number is still legion, and they are full of ingenuity. The woman who has Xct IDiei 60 H^Sluininiiio ^i7 lost her carfare; the bedraggled mother witli the infant in her arms; the pathetic blind man; the hoarse-voiced workingman out of a job; the elegantly dressed gentleman with the Southern accent whose remittance from Richmond is em- barrassingly delayed; the epileptic who, in his own technical language, ''chucks a dummy fit"; the famous crumb-thrower who darts into the gutter for a crumb of bread which he has care- fully thrown there and now absent-mindedly devours as if unconscious of being observed; the young man who is stranded and wants a dime for a bed or a little money to pay his fare back home — these and many others who prey upon the shallow sympathy of weak men and women should be left unheeded or turned over to the police. Tell them that there is a charity association on Twenty-second Street with competent facili- ties for any actual need and note the answer of scorn that you receive. Offer to take one of them who is starving to a restaurant and try to make him eat as a starving man would and see what happens. But if you have any self-re- spect or any real heart for the genuinely honest victims of ill-luck, give your money wisely to those whose business it is to hunt out and pro- tect the honorable poor. Those who drop their clanging pennies into the tin can of the profes- sional beggar, and give with proud thoughts of decent act, are only accessories in crime, and 318 Zbc IRcal mew l?orft their tenderness is that of the mother who gives her child a box of matches because it asks for them. In a word, the charities of New York, in spite of all their human imperfections, have been so completely organized that you need never ques- tion this statement: Everyone who begs is a professional beggar, no matter what the story or how plausible the appearance. It would be far more picturesque and dramatic to draw a picture of the New York slums in colors bor- rowed from a stormy sunset, with black clouds of poverty banked up in mountains, shot through with red streaks of crime, with the light- ning flashes of murder, and with the thunder of ferocious strife for existence; but the effort of this chapter is toward reality, and reality seen in some perspective and proportion. But let us to the slums to see how the slum- sters live and how the slums amuse themselves. Of all the people who have come to New" York for some years, the Rev. Mr. Granger, of Terre Haute, had the greatest expectations of finding unmitigated vice in the high places and immitigable wretchedness in the low. Peter Simes, however, having constituted himself a committee of one on conspiracy, had proceeded A NEW YORKER Xct Tri6 60 a^Slummlnc; 319 in cold blood to rob Terre Haute of the most stirring scenes from Sheol that were ever launched from a pulpit. "There are three famous places 1 have al- ways heard of and must not fail to see," said Mr. Granger. "They are the most notorious haunts of vice in New York, and while my series of sermons has dwindled down to one or tw^o, 1 must tell my parishioners of the festering wickedness of these places: Five Points, Mul- berry Bend and Corlear's Hook. Will you take me there .^" "Suttainly, suh!" exclaimed the Southern poet, with unwonted joy. Five Points — so named because several streets so cross as to leave five small and irregular blocks — is only a few steps north of City Hall, and once had a beautiful reputation. The word tenement did not then mean that large and sanitary and fire-escape-full hotel which the law now means by tenement, but a foul rookery of melodramatic charms. In its day of glory Five Points was full of grogshops and dens of iniquity. The Five Pointers killed a policeman every few months, and the station nearby w^as called the "Bloodv Sixth." But a ruthless Board of Health with no regard for the feelings of novelists or the ennui of tourists closed up such sweet crannies as Donovan's Lane and Cow Bay, and gave the name of Worth to An- thony Street — where the saint would have been 320 ZY)c IRcal mcvv IPorft violently invited but not seriously tempted by the nymphs of the region. The Rev. Mr. Granger, to his unutterable regret, found Five Points a clean and prosaic group of solid buildings all devoted to business, except the Five Points House of Industry and the Five Points Mission. At the Mission the "Shoe Club" was making its weekly distribu- tion of free footwear to poor children. ''This wonderful change pleases me beyond words," said the Rev. Mr. Granger, and he could hardly keep back his tears. " Let us take a glance now at that swamp of wickedness, Mul- berry Bend." Simes, with a malicious gleam in his eye, played Virgil to the zealous Dante and led him a short distance to the right to Mulberry Bend. Here was a broad park filled with children, playing, romping and laughing, while the mothers rested their weary bones on the benches and watched their offspring dabbling in the fountain or flying through the air on the swings. Nearby was a big schoolhouse. "This is Mulberry Bend as it is, suh," said Simes. "In other parts of the town there are other parks like this, where the poor may come to breathe and the children to be children. They are called the lungs of New York. Some people object, because there is not mo' grass in these places, and because they are not filled with * God's beautiful flowers.' But grass weahs out CONEY ISLAND Xct TIl6 (Bo H^Sluminino 32i like a boy's breeches, siih, and these children infinitely prefeh the outdo' gymnasiums, the cindeh tracks and the smooth places where they can play their games and run wild." There are other parks with more elaborate gymnasiums than this, such as the Seward Park, the Hamilton Fish Park and the Tompkins Square Park. At night, in the summer, there are band concerts here as well as .on the many Recreation Piers, where the poor can enjoy the luxury the rich feel when they sit out on balconies overlooking the moonlit waters. The most pathetic thing about these children's play- grounds is the fact that when they were first opened the poor little wretches stood about, not knowing what to do. They had been used to the hot streets and the dingy tenements, and they were deeply ignorant of the games that normal childhood knows. The little girls had learned to play housekeeping and funerals— they knew enough of these — but the boys knew little except street arab wickedness and the fighting of gang against gang. It was high time to open these parks. There is surely no more beautiful form of education than teaching chil- dren to romp. But probably the sight of so much comfort and recreation never caused so much despond- ency in a human heart before. In a failing tone the minister said : ''Take me, then, to Corlear's Hook, where the 21 322 Hhc IReal 1Rcw l^oih marble yards are, and where, as I used to read, the criminals, after having committed their fel- onies or their murders, take refuge in the wil- derness of the stone yards and the policemen do not dare to go alone or even in couples." Simes led the way across to the old Belt Line of horse cars that still swings round the circle, and they bounced along near the river, with its forest of masts and its caravans of sailing ves- • ^-^ sels moored to the slips. They eventually ar- rived at a large sweep of green with graceful pavilions and playgrounds fronting the river. "This is Corlear's Hook," said Simes. The Rev. Mr. Granger dropped limply upon a bench and found no cheer in the thronging commerce that swept down the river, nor even in the view of the governmental Navy Yard across the stream. Here, in a deep indentation on the Brooklyn Shore, known as Wallabout Bay, the old prison-ship Jersey was once moored, and here, where our ancestors rotted and starved, to-day our warships come glorious home from the ends of the oceans. From the Park they could see the old frigate Vermont and the huge drydocks, with their swinging cranes that pluck up a twelve-inch gun like a lead pencil. But the minister was interested in none of these things. Nothing would cheer him but mis- ery, and he longed to see crime. So Simes de- cided to take him to Blackwell's Island by ferry. He stopped to obtain a pass from the Depart- Xct 1116 60 a^Sluinmino 323 ment of Charities at the famous Belle vue Hos- pital at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. The pass was given without liesitation. Before taking the ferry they paused at the Morgue, where those who enjoy that sort of spectacle, or those whom awful necessity brings there in search of the lost, may find the unidentified and the unclaimed dead lying in chill nakedness on the marble slabs under the drip-drip-drip of icy water. How they stare through the glass, ap- pealing for decent burial! Then Simes and Granger took ferry to Black- well's. On this long, slim strip of land, known simply as "the Island" to all criminals, stands not only the great prison, but also an almshouse, a workhouse, various asylums and hospitals and especially a great charity hospital. There is strict discipline here. The routine is occasion- ally interrupted by a mad dash of some prisoner to escape and swim ashore; but the patrol boats get him if he doesn't drown in the swift tide that comes flashing down from Hell Gate. Still further north are Ward's and Randall's Islands, which the city has taken for its own and on which it has built a magnificent system of palaces for the care of those who are afflicted with any of the chronic diseases of insanity, pov- erty or what we call crime. This inspection was so long and interesting a tour that the minister reached his boarding- house at a late liour and in great fatigue. He 324 Zhc IRcal IRcw l^orft had seen much crime and much misery, but they were both housed in all possible comfort, where they would do the least harm and be done the most good. That same morning De Peyster had started forth to show Myrtle what he knew of the slums. They took the Madison Avenue car and it car- ried them through Union Square, which was once, like Washington, Madison and Bryant Squares, a dismal Potter's Field, from which even the dead were gradually evicted by the restless northward growth. The beauty of these green gardens, where the jaded can rest and the children scam- per, is a type of the evolution of all the black spots of New York. The car went on its way, passing Cooper Union, the meeting-house and reading-room of the poor. In front of it stands Saint-Gaudens's bronze statue of the homely old philanthropist who founded it. As they passed De Peyster said : "Now we are in the Bowery." "Why, it's still the same street." "Yes, but it has changed its name to Bowery or, rather, this place still keeps its old Dutch name when it was the lane between the Bou- weries; that is, the farms." "But it looks so respectable, with all these business houses and fine shops and beautiful savings banks." "Yes, it is so changed from the old days that many of the business men want to give up the Xct lae (Bo a^-SlununiUij 325 ancient name. The day of the 'Dead Rabbit' gangs and the old man-eating 'Bowery 13'hoys' is gone forever. This is the Broadway of the East Side and the aristocracy of the slums come here to buy their carpenter's tools, their hats and clothes and shoes, to buy their diamonds, to revel in the auctions, to pawn their winter clothes in summer and their summer clothes in winter, or to see a rous- ing melodrama. On the Bowery you can get what they call a ' good regular meal ' for twen- ty-five cents; elsewhere they call it table d'hote and charge you fifty cents for less and worse. " But still the Bow ery is not quite dead, and it has so much individuality to the poorer classes that you cannot wonder at their homesickness for it when they are in other towns. The worst thing they can say of another town is ' This place is too far from the Bowery.' The Bowery is the street the sailors of all the navies of the world first make for when they make this port. It means all to them that a Paris boulevard means to the flaneur. For on the Bowery you can buy everything, from a toothpick to an ON BAXTER STREET 326 Zhc IRcal mew IDorh anchor, and the whisky is the strongest and the glasses the longest in the world. The sailor can find a concert hall or a variety show always go- ing, and he can get his palm read, his forearm tattooed or his pocket picked with the greatest ease. It may amuse you to see one of these seedy Dime Museums where the poor are enter- tained." They left the car and went into the yawning entrance of a tall building plastered with an- nouncements of all the wonders of the world, from the smallest dwarf to the lady who outdoes Katisha and wears a mane between her shoulder- blades; from the man built like a horse to the horse that knows more than a man; from living pictures to prehistoric skeletons. De Peyster paid his money to a languid maiden in a booth and passed from the flare of posters to the dingy rooms where cheap curiosi- ties failed to evoke curiosity. On the next floor was the gallery of the freaks, and here blinking albinos, fat ladies who were not so very fat and living skeletons who were not so very thin ex- changed commonplace conversation with a short- skirted, fuzzy-headed, gum-chewing Circassian princess who offered photographs of herself with a drapery of pythons. The deadly ophidians lay dozing in a box nearby; they looked as danger- ous as so many sections of rubber hose. De Peyster was for buying everything to be bought and wore a mask of immense enthusiasm Xct iri6 (5o fl:^Slutninlnij ^27 for everything. He engaged tlie freaks in con- versation and spent on them the courtesies he would have shown to a marchesa. llis reward was the final compliment of the princess, wlio said to him in purest Circassian: "Say, 1 don't wan' to give yuh no jolly, but usen't youse to be on the stage ? No ? 'Onesto- gawd! You act so much like a poyfec' gent 1 thought youse must be a actor." At this moment the barker brought forward a poor wreck of congenital malformation, one of the infinite variety of twins that have come coupled into the world. Showing the object of pity as if it were an object of pride, he broke out, in a nasal sing-song : " Come, see this miracle of Gawd's handiwork. Is it not interesting as well as instructing ? I want you all to take a good look and then go home and tell your friends that you have seen Gawd's own handiwork for ten cents. Gawd's handiwork, ladies and gentlemen. Next I invite your atten- tion to the wonderful lady who eats glass." When the talented lady had performed, De Peyster said : "It's really wonderful how that woman di- gests all those candy bottles." The piano-mauler now began, and De Peys- ter barkened to the voice of another barker who recommended the great dramatic enter- tainment — "admission, only five cents, a nickel or half a dime! Come one, come all!" 328 Zhc IRcal mew l^orh The dramatic entertainment was on the third floor, and it was deadly, save for the Uving pictures in which two or three ill-formed women took awkward poses in grotesque imitation of imaginary classic statuary. ''The next group," said the barker, "will be especially fine. You have all doubtless been to college" — several alumni of the night school and business college sat up straighter — "and while there you have doubtless read the works of Homer, a poet much used in schools and colleges. The next group is from one of his beautiful poems, where he describes Aenius bidding farewell to Dado." De Peyster fled with Myrtle up another flight of stairs to the Wax Works Palace. Of all horrors wax works are the most horrific. The worst of them have a reality that is uncanny, and their glistening skins, raw colors and glassy eyes, empty clothes and stiff poses are annoying as a grotesque caricature that tells a bitter truth inescapably. But when you find them in an obsolete condition, with their wax melted, their eyes askew, their colors run, their clothes moth-eaten and their straw stuffing coming out; and when these wrecks are grouped to represent moral lessons, the deeds and the punishments of murderers, throat-cutters — De Peyster and Myr- tle fairly tumbled downstairs to get back to the air and real people. De Peyster insisted on stopping at a gallery Xct '\Iie (Bo a^SUunmino 329 to have their pliotographs taken on a button. The artist — on the Bowery everybody is an artist who handles anything daintier than a pick — the artist treated them as lovers, to De Peys- ter's joy and Myrtle's embarrassment. De Peyster examined with great enthusiasm the pictures of Bowery bridal couples: the groom always sits down and it is hard to say whether he is suffering more from his '' noo soot of hand-me-downs," his tight shoes or from the pho- tographer's fork, the tines of which are stuck in the back of his skull. De Peyster studied these bridal pho- IN LITTLE ITALY tographs with deep respect, and began to ask, "How much do you charge for these .^ Do you think you could make a good group of us two .?" But Myrtle had gone, and he had to run to catch her. He found her red as fire, but not altogether angry, so he turned off the Bowery now to Mulberry Street, the new Naples. The :^3o Zbc IRcal IRew l?orh day was warm, with a presage of summer. It was a day for opening windows and laying off overcoats. It was spring in Little Italy ! And the Neapol- itan soul came out to meet the incoming spring — herself an Italian immigrant with her sack full of Favonian breezes, for winter was gone, and it was spring's turn to play, as said that earlier Italian : " Solvitur acris hiems, grata vice veris et Favoni." Mulberry Street was all out of doors. Those who were not in the street or on the sidewalk were hanging from the windows and calling to one another from the fire-escapes. The push- carts were jammed and tangled everywhere, selling fresh tomatoes from Florida, which these good souls could ill afford yet could not deny themselves. In the windows of the shops were heaped up fruits from Sicily and Calabria, and ropes of Italian melons strung in garlands. Cheeses in bladders hung next to kegs of Italian wines and cans of oil from real olives. The graceful fiascJii gurgled of home to these exiles. And their costumes showed their patriotism. For they had not yet laid aside their heavy shawls and green capes. They had not for- gotten to sing in the streets. The women had not learned the use of hats nor the men of col- lars. In the saloons they lounged and exchanged jovial gossip that sounded to the stranger like the bloodthirsty threat of brigands, for the let m> Go fl^Shnnming -^'^^i Italian language, so mellow in the singing when the vowels are dwelt upon, is ragged with con- sonants in the speech; even the double consonants are ke})t distinct and not slurred like ours. Myrtle was regretting her failure to bring her sketching materials, for every sj)ot was a pic- ture, every group a composition. She was in raptures over the beauty of the black-haired, olive-toned women and the still greater beauty of the men. For all the unfitness of the cos- tume they affect, with the short and overtight corduroys, nothing could rob them of their great Latin eyes or of their frank vanities of pose and manner. Paupers though they are, they have something of the gallantry of the Decameronian gardens. *'Look at that Grecian nose," cried Myrtle, " and those Praxitelesian curls." "Their forefathers were Greek immigrants to Sicily and Naples, as they are colonists here," said De Peyster. He took her to one of those shops where the street pianos are made and rented and repaired. For a few dollars any new tune can be inserted on the great barrel-shaped pin-cushion. These clatterine: instruments are the lutes wherewith the modern Trovatori go about the city distribu- ting Mascagni's Intermezzo and the latest rag- time hysteria indiscriminately. In the poorer quarters these strolling musicians are royally welcomed. It is a poor woman indeed who 332 z\)c IRcal mew l^orK cannot rest from her sewing long enough to revel in the pathos of "Those Cruel Words Should Not Be Spoken," and to wrap up a penny in a scrap of paper and throw it down in gratitude. And then the little knots of chil- dren dancing in the streets, cotillions in tatters, ragged dance - raptures of demoiselles of the gutter. As Myrtle and De Peyster left Mulberry Street, they paused to watch an Italian funeral. They learned that the dead man had kept a fruit-stand, and that he lived in a few rooms in a big tenement; but he was rich for Mulberry Street. He was a member of the Fratellanzo Calvellese (The Fraternity from the village of Calvello), and now a hundred of his brotherhood had left off work for a day to escort him to Calvary Cemetery in Brooklyn. Each of them was dressed in black and wore in his lapel a black ribbon with silver letters. The men marched in double file; at the head of one file the green, red and white flag of Italy wreathed in crape, and at the head of the other the Stars and Stripes of their new country. The procession was led by a brass band in brilliant uniform, the hearse was heaped with flowers and followed by a second band. Then came the double file of the brotherhood, and after that twenty closed carriages filled with w^omen and childen. Mass had been heard at the Church of Our Lady of Loretto. As they moved along with funeral Xet 'ine (5o H^Slummiiuj 333 music, the foreigners lifted their hats till the hearse had passed. De Peyster did the same. From Mulberry Street De Peyster turned into Baxter Street, made famous, like the Bowery, by a song; for it was here that old *' Solomon Levi" lived. Here, in front of every clothing store, was a rabid puller-in who did not stop at pro- claiming his wares or inviting attention, but seized the passer-by and tried to drag him in. Even De Peyster was laid hold on and could only get loose by threats. Myrtle thought it was a great irony on his Brummellian elegance to be haled toward such hovels of cheap clothing till they crossed into Division Street, where women acted as pulleresses-in for cheap millinery shops, and where De Peyster had to rescue her almost by force from their clutches. "Do you hear that smell .^" he asked. "We have come from sunny Italy into Bessarabia, from the careless joy of Naples to the fierce money-hunger of the Ghetto, where you hear no songs and little laughter, and where the thought of beauty seems never to interest even the women. Where Hester Street crosses Di- vision Street there was, a few years ago, what was called the most densely populated spot on earth. In the big tenements three and four fam- ilies lived in one room, and thought it nothing unusual except when one of the families insisted upon taking in boarders. But they have put the William H. Seward Park there now, and it is 334 ^be IRcal IRew) l^orh one big outdoor gymnasium where the children are learning the art of fun." The Ghetto is filled with the homeless race of the jealous God who forbade graven images and whose faithful people abjured sculpture and painting. The rich and the trav- eled of the nation have gone after the arts as well as the daughters of Moab, and in all the arts have shown a wonderfully high average of success. But the peasants reveal less of this than per- haps any other peas- ants of the civilized races. The men are not lazy, yet they carry industry to a criminal extent. Thrift becomes vicious; they grow wealthy without advan- taging themselves of the graces which wealth can buy and ought to buy. The men, with their treasures hoarded away, look like beggars and live like vermin. And the women have almost less sense of the beautiful than the men. They begin wrong at the start. When an orthodox Ghettess marries, instead of trying to remain beautiful for her hus- ON THOMPSON STREET Xct iBie (5o a^Sluintnino 335 band's delight, she euts her hair short as a trib- ute to fideHty and thereafter wears a hideous, brown, ill-fitting wig — a schaitel — beneath which her own ugly poll shows ridiculously. The in- consistency is like that of the Egyptians who shaved their chins and stuck on a false beard, or that silly dignity of the English Bench which wears a powdered wig always a little too small. But the English wigs are white and clean and worn only by men; the Ghetto wigs are all brown, dirty, greasy, slipshod, odious — and they are worn by women. Heaven help the nation whose women cease to be foolishly anxious to seem beautiful! If there is anyone who disbelieves in corsets, let him go to the Ghetto. Better the tightest lacing and all the concealed derangements of internal af- fairs than the formlessness that comes of neg- lected waist lines. In the Ghetto the lean wo- men are slabsided and the fat are unspeakable. The young women are slatterns whose hair — soon to be snipped away— is heaped up in dis- order; their occasional unavoidable beauty of feature is neglected and is ruined as quickly as possible. The old women are hags and crones. Their soul life is no fairer than their bodily exist- ence. Laughter is rare, tender and amorous poet- ry of manner or speech is rare; beauty is a thing despised. All of us are greedy, but most of us are ashamed to be frank in the matter. In the Ghetto they make a pride of greed, an honor of haggling 336 Zhc IReal IRew l^orh To a girl of Myrtle's beauty, her zest for clean- liness, her joy in beauty of line, color and mo- tion, the Ghetto was all a bad dream. The street was crowded with merchants; everybody was bent on selling or buying. The sidewalks were diked with pushcarts full of ugly stone china, fire-sale remnants of cloths, strings of gar- lic bulbs, rank vegetables, leaden knives, forks and spoons, shiny oilcloths, tinware, shoes — everything graceless, everything hideous. The little shops were heaped with wares remarkably uninviting; the cellar doors were bazaars of unpleasant utensils; old crones stood about with baskets of cheap calicos, ginghams and coarse laces. Buying and selling were not, as elsewhere, a mere affair of looking at a price mark and mak- ing up one's mind. The price asked was only meant as a declaration of war, the act of pur- chase was a battle of insult, the sale was a com- promise of mutual hatred. "Weiberle, weiberle," cries the merchant; "come by me and git good 'metsiah' (bargain)." The woman stops with a sneer, pokes contempt- uously at the merchandise, insults it and the salesman, underbids him half. He tries to prove that he would die of starvation if he yielded to her disgusting bid. She implies that he takes her for a fool. In a moment he is telling her that he hopes her children may strangle with cholera for trying to make a beggar of him. She AMATEUR NIGHT AT A BOWERY THEATRE Xct 'me 60 a:==SUimnunG 337 answers that he is a thief, a Har, a dog of an apostate Jew. She makes as if to spit on his wares; he grabs them from her and throws them back on the heap. At length a sale is made and she moves on to the next bout. If there were in this any of the exultant rap- tures an Irishman feels in a battle, if it ended in a laugh, if it made in the least for happiness, it would be small matter. But it is as miserable as it is hideous. Life is not worth living. Judea in New York has many phases. It has its millionaires living in palatial homes; it has its masters of music, drama and all the arts; it has its gilded youth — someone called them the Jewnose doree; it has brilliant men and fascinating women who are welcomed with pride every- where; it has its lower middle class that takes life serenely and comfortably; its music-halls, its theatres, its decent fare. But in its lowest stages it furnishes New York with its most re- pulsive elements. The slums of the Yankees, the English, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans are at their worst more vicious, more shiftless, more helplessly and hopelessly bad than lowest Jewry. It is actually the higher average of in- telligence and energy that makes the Ghettites hardest to forgive. The others are lazy and worthless and ugly because they are the sifted chaff of their races. These might all be so much better and live so much more wisely and cheer- fully. 99 338 Zhc IRcal IRcw lOorh But they cling to the brawl and stench of the Ghetto, with its horrible streets and its more horrible tenements, so high and so crowded that in one square mile there are 250,000 souls — if souls they are. In rooms where the sun never reaches, and where the dust is never disturbed, men, women and children sleep, eat and perform all the necessary and unbeautiful functions of life. Shame is a different thing here from else- where ; self-respect and respect for others are ex- otics that perish soon. In these places are sweat- shops too numerous for the law to reach. It is not only in the shops and low-roofed lofts that they sew; the home also is a shop. The sewing machines whir all day and half the night, and the dancing needles stab the numb hearts into a brutish doggedness. Father, mother, the sons, the daughters and the little children turn and baste and work the button- holes and stitch and hem hour after hour, win- ter and summer, cold season or hot. In the corner, perhaps, squats an old, old man. His eyes are weak and his trembling fingers drive the needle often into his own flesh, but still he sews. He is racked with a consumptive's cough, but still he sews — sews the white plague into the fabric for the wretch who is to wear it. At night he sleeps with coats and trousers for coverlets. At early light he is sewing again; and the endless seam goes on, interrupted only by the spasms of coughing, coughing, coughing. Xct ine (Bo a^SIuininino 339 At the sewing machine nearby, in the dark corner in the dim hght, sits one of his daugh- ters. She is of the age when spring stirs in the blood and the heart quickens with desire, when every w^oman is, or should be, a Juliet. But her heart is squeezed back in her bent and stunted breast. Her feet tread the dance of the eternal treadmill; her hands caress the rough cheviot of a cheap sweat-shop coat; her eyes follow the line of it as the seam runs forever under the eager needle. She hardly pauses to brush her neglected hair from her eyes; she cannot stop to sigh — and what should she sigh for ? No youth comes wooing her, no pretty speeches have ever tingled in her ears, no music has serenaded her save the twitter of the shuttle and the buzz of the wheel, the orchestra of the small room full of whirring machines. She knows nothing of joy; fatigue, pain, fever — these are life. She also coughs often and hard. Her old father's disease has caught her. She will not live to his age. In one thing at least she is blessed. But Myrtle knew nothing of this. She would not let De Peyster lead her into the dark, foul hallways of the tenements. The open air, the street scenes were more than she could bear. "Take me away from here," said Myrtle. **It's the ghastliest region I ever was in." *' There is one more spot you must see before we leave the slums. They're tearing down all the really beautiful horrors in New York, and in 340 ^be IRcal IRcvv l?orft a few years the Ghetto will be clean and orderly, and there will be a park, doubtless, at this other place, too. But while it lasts it is a genuine horror." They walked southward through gloomy rows of tenement after tenement, till they reached the cluster of ramshackle structures bounded by Cherry, Catharine, Hamilton and Market Streets. This one block of six acres, which a farmer would count hardly big enough for a pasture, houses a city of more than 3,000 persons; on each acre there is an average of 478 men, women and children living a prairie-dog life. All of the tenements are full of the gloom and uncleanliness of overcrowded dens. The worst of them is called the Ink Pot; it has front and rear tenements and the rooms are plague spots where tenant after tenant has died of consump- tion. It holds 140 tenants, Irish and Italian poor, 23 of them infants. It contains twenty rooms without a window. It is the pestilent centre of a mass of hovels for which 265 cases of consumption in nine years have earned the lugubrious title of *'the Lung Block." The Lung Block, for all its squalor, has more than doubled in population in a few years. For all its poverty, it is surrounded by saloons whose dingy caves are splendid refuges to the victims of heredity imprisoned in the great donjon-keep. For all its misery, it is infested with vice, and the lowest of low women drive a gruesome trade Xct ^e i3o H^SIinnnuno 34i among the drunken and filthy voluptuaries. They are tlie very dust on the scum of a liell- brew. But the crusaders of health are fighting the existence of these ulcers, and they must one and all be eradicated in the great crusade. De Peyster offered to show Myrtle the inner miseries of these repellent exteriors, but she was sick of ugliness. She had devoted her life to the beautiful, and she fled from its opposite as from toads and slime. She was so depressed that De Peyster felt called upon to exorcise the evil spirits by some especial evocation of beauty. So he proposed an evening at the opera. When they separated each flew to the hottest of baths and the roughest of flesh-brushes. After dinner they met again, and he was immaculate in broadcloth and snowy linen, while she was a, princess in robes of trailing satin with shoulders and arms bare and beautiful. The opera was " Lucia di Lammermoor," and the despair of the plot was no hindrance to the serenity of the melodies; the lovers parted to catchy melodies, and the broken-hearted girl went mad to liquid cadenzas and fluty trills. The tenor was Caruso, of Italy, the soprano Sembrich, of Poland — two of the greatest vocal- ists that ever reveled in the perfections of tone. The architecture of the building had only its size to commend it, but the enormous horse- shoe of boxes and balconies was the brilliantest 342 zbc IRcal mew l^orl^ sight in all the world, and the audience the most beautiful and most splendidly garbed. To please and to entice this big mob of oli- garchs, this polloi of aristocrats, the whole mu- sical world had been ransacked. The salaries paid are the highest ever known and the income from performances the largest ever achieved. At one performance the income has been $19,000; one series of eight brought in $100,000. With such funds there is small difficulty in kidnap- ping from the European capitals their Meister- singers. The audience is not alert for novelties, a na- tive American grand opera is unknown, and a singer without a European fame has no chance even to appear here for a verdict; and yet there are some compensations in the unrivaled bril- liance of the casts, and in the fact that Wagner's operas were a household word here while they were still unheard in many European cities. It was here that "Parsifal" was heard before it was heard anywhere else outside of Bayreuth. De Peyster led Myrtle, his sister and Calverly to the family box in the grand tier. The pro- gramme obligingly told the names of the occu- pants of these booths where fashion displays its diamonds, its ducats, its daughters and its dow- agers. Here were all the family names that had won a place on the golden scroll of fame which records the high caste of "among those present." Xct 'iri0 (5o fl^SUnnnuno ^^^ Calverly was delighted to see the American women in decollete. He confessed that the dis- play made in Covent Garden looked barnishly tame in comparison. In the double tier of boxes were grouped the proudest families of the nation; the women gowned and coiffed and bejeweled to the last reach of the cosmetic arts, the men furnishing a becoming background of black and white. Myrtle looked down on the long, broad sweep of the orchestra, with its checker of black-shoul- dered men and white-shouldered women, and its dew-sprinkle of diamonds and pearls in tiara, sun- burst, dog collar and necklace. She glanced at the Omnibus Box, with its hundred young bucks of fashion, most decoratively regular in their patches of black cloth and white linen. Then she raised her eyes to the top gallery, with its long, inclined plane of heads upon heads to the vanishing point, where the loftiest pigmies al- most touched the roof. It was a wonder-world to her, and the music of the huge orchestra took her into the cloudland of harmony. She had forgotten that this very moment a greater throng than this was scattered through fetid rooms, dimly lit and wretched. In this palace of violins, oboes, bassoons and mur- muring: horns she could hear no sound of that greater symphony, that unheroic symphony in monotonous minor played by the mighty orches- tra of sewing machines. 344 zhc IRcal IRcw ll)orft She sat in her shallop overlooking the sea of wealth, and she breathed deep of the perfume of luxury, the stupendous paraphernalia and pomp of fashion seeking diversion at any cost. The fat and lumbering chorus women and the gawky men with their two gestures— one with the right hand and one with the left — reminded her of Little Italy, though these chorus people in their court garb looked far more plebeian than the loungers in the doorways of Mulberry Street. But there was little to ridicule and all to admire. Surely this was life, sitting in this seat of the mighty, among the princes of the land, and at her side the princeliest of all! And then, suddenly, in the midst of one of Sembrich's divinest roulades, there was a sharp hissing sound. It was strange, for American audiences do not hiss. The sound came from the balcony. She glanced that way, and a whole section of it was blotted out with smoke. The memory of the Chicago theatre horror was fresh in her mind. She seemed now to see the whole orchestra rise in terror; she could see the women, tangled in their long trains, packing the aisles solid, shrieking, pushing, tearing the silks from their bodies, trampling beauty and grace underfoot, smothering one another in mad stampede. She reached out impulsively and seized Ger- ald's arm. It was hard as marble and did not %ct 'me ©0 a^SluniiniuG 345 tremble. lie looked at her in pale calm, and said : '' Don't be afraid, dear. We must show no ex- citement. It's the panic, not the fire, that kills." She clung to his hand and stared at the cloud of smoke. The people whom it veiled were plainly agitated, but they did not leave their places. Their heroism was sublime. If one woman began to scream and rush the whole house would go insane. Thousands had not no- ticed the disturbance, and Sembrich went on with her song while she watched the cloud of smoke. Then a fireman appeared and waved his hand to the people to be calm. When the New Yorker sees a fireman he feels safe; he knows that almost superhuman energy and courage are at hand. The smoke cleared slowly — it was only a fuse that had burned out in a group of lights, and soon the hearts fell back into the quiet rhythm, and music reigned supreme again. After the opera Gerald said : " They poke fun at society people, but breeding counts, and we are bred to take things quietly. They talk about getting back to good old nature and simplicity. Well, good old native sim- plicity would have set every man and woman there to screaming and fighting like mad to es- cape. Breeding said, 'Don't disgrace yourself; remember that a single indiscretion of yours may imperil the lives of others ; keep calm, what- ever you do.' That's what breeding does." 346 Z\K IRcal mew l^ork When Gerald took Myrtle home he said : "You showed true pluck to-night, Myrtle. I was proud of you." ''I was terribly afraid till I held your hand." "Hold my hand again." "No; for now it is you that I am afraid of." "But let me explain." "To-morrow. Here's my hotel. Good-night. I like slumming in the Metropolitan better than anywhere else. Good-night again!" Chapter XIX NIGHT IN THE SLUMS — A BOWERY CONCERT HALL — A MORAL IMMORALITY SHOW A NIGHT's LODGING FOR FIVE CENTS AMATEUR NIGHT A CONCERT SA- LOON VICIOUSNESS ON THE UPPER WEST SIDE EAST-SIDE GANGS DULNESS UNDER THE LID— A JEWISH VAUDEVILLE A STREET FIGHT PICKPOCKETS AND LOW SALOONS KNOCKOUT DROPS — A POLICE COURT SCENE SHE was rather plump for a soubrette, since she tipped the scale at over 200 pounds, but she wore short skirts, revealing a pair of grand-piano legs, and she sang in a still, small voice. At the end of each stanza she cried: "Join in, boys!" The boys consisted of an overripe human tomato sound asleep at a small table; two Ameri- can sailors extremely decollete and half afloat; three or four middle-aged creatures whose per- sonal attractions were those of washerwomen; a waiter, and a dismal mechanic at the piano, technically known as the ''professor who hits the box;" also A. J. Joyce and ''Ananias" Blake. As Joyce seemed to be the only visitor with an inclination to buy, he was the observed of all observers. His amusement at the kittenish behemoth on the stage was increased by her sue- 348 Zhc IRcal mew ^ov\{ cessor, a woman of a homely and spinster type of countenance, one of those whom we think of as virtuous by compulsion. She was what they call in the Bowery concert halls a "classic" singer, for down there any song that is not "rough house" is classic. On the rickety little stage in a common kitchen chair sat the third of the graces, a vivacious little plebeian with a gesture for each word of the rattling gossip she kept up with her companions. In the hope of preventing further music Joyce called a waiter and said: "The girls look very thirsty; perhaps they'd like some beer up in the balcony." The waiter surrounded the affair with an air of great mystery and danger, but the girls, after slipping on long skirts over their short ones, found their way to a table in the gallery running around the hall. Joyce and Blake ordered beer, though the girls insinuated that champagne was an interesting beverage. "Don't try to work a good thing to death," said Joyce. "Beer is what you'll get." The ladies compromised on claret. Blake explained that, as they got a commission on every sale, it would be bad form to limit the expendi- ture too severely. Blake was always very anx- ious that Joyce should not err on the side of lim- iting the expenditure too severely. Joyce lost little time in asking the usual ques- tion: "How did you come to this?" IRujbt in tbc Slume 349 The homely spinster explained witli chin still tremulous : *'You see, I was born in Skaneateles, and my parents is very respectable. Oh, they're right in the push in Skaneateles. Paw is the best sign-painter in town. They give me a splendid education— oh, I was educated grand! But one day along come a handsome traveling man — oh, but he was a handsome devil! — and he stole my young affections, and asked me to run off with 'um. He promised to marry me — honest he did — and then we come to New York, and then he deserted me cruel. And that is how I come to this. Maw would be broken-hearted if she knowed I was in this business." Joyce noticed that the sou- brette of the cetacean school was sobbing violently. "What's the matter with you?" growled Joyce, and the answer came: "— — her, she told my story!" While she wept Joyce turned to the vivacious girl whose beauty had a trace of honesty and of young innocence that might mean genuine in- nocence or might accompany extraordinary viciousness. He asked her if she did not WEST SIDE SWELL 350 Zbc IRcal mew ^ov\\ manage to make considerable additions to her regular salary. She was almost indignant at the implication, and answered: "Well, if I wasn't straight I wouldn't be working here, singin' from two in the afternoon to midnight, seven evenings a week for $10 and 20 per cent, on the drinks I can sell the cheap skates that comes in here. When midnight comes I'm dog tired, and it's me for home in a street car. I don't go home in no automobile, and I don't wear no necklaces of real polls. This string of beads cost me fifteen cents. I live with my mother, an' she takes in washing. So I guess I'm straight all right, all right." Then her native cheeriness resumed its sway; she burst out laughing: " Mother thinks I am a great actress, and she is always sayin' : * Why ain't your pictures in the paper ? I am always seein' Maude Adams and this Eyetalian Doos, but I don't never see yours. Joyce was grievously disappointed at the tame- ness of the conversation and the constant fear the women expressed of the police. "Why, would you believe it.^" said the plump one, now restored to equanimity, though still looking with scorn on the plagiarist, "the police won't let a lady come in this place alone. She's got to have a escort. That means money to a new kind of grafter. They are a lot o' young loafers that hangs around the doors, and they'll ItAiobt in tbc Slutn^ 351 escort one of these girls inside for fifteen cents; then they leave her at a table alone." Joyce was restless to be away, and asked the waiter for his bill. ''Two dollars," said the waiter, with extreme graciousness. "Two dollars for two beers and three glasses of cheap claret!" exclaimed Joyce, enraged. But Blake calmed him. "Take your medicine like a man; we all try to get all we can in our business." Joyce found that his smallest change was a twenty-dollar bill. The waiter regarded it with beaming eyes and explained: "Oh, we can change a hundred for you just as easy; and it is all reliable — we don't shove no queer in this place." He returned shortly with a roll of bills, counted it and placed it in Joyce's hands. "Better count that yourself," said Blake. Joyce counted it and began to roar. "There is only $17.00 here. Come up, come up; you can't work your short change game on me. The waiter, unabashed, took the money from Joyce and counted it over himself. "Right you are. I am shy one dollar." He reached in his waistcoat pocket and took out a greasy bill, which he gave to Joyce. The Chicagoan, with a triumphant leer, was about to put the money in his purse. 352 ^.be 1RcaI mew ^ovli ''Better count that again," said Blake, quietly Joyce counted and grew purple in the face. "You blamed thief! There is only $12 here." Without the faintest sign of embarrassment the waiter took the money and ran over it once more. Then with a laugh he said : ''Right you are." He handed back Joyce the money and took five from his other waistcoat pocket. Joyce was tucking the bills away in still greater triumph. "Better count that again," said Blake. The next tally showed $10. Joyce now began to bellow so loudly that the proprietor came up. He made a very poor pretense at indignation that such a thing should happen in his place. "Let me count that again," said the waiter. "No, you don't," said Joyce. "You must think I am easy. Give up that $8 or I'll call the police." The waiter tried hard to get another chance at counting the money, but Joyce was adamant and the proprietor sided with him. The waiter went through his pockets and turned out $5, which he solemnly swore was every cent he had; but at the magic word "police" he managed to discover $3 more, and without the faintest sign of ill-feeling or humiliation bowed Joyce out. As they strolled along the Bowery, now in the full blaze of night, Joyce was attracted by a museum of ostentatious wickedness. The post- Cn, . THE BOWERY mm in tbc Slume 353 ers were as risky as the law allows. The win- dow was full of suggestive photographs. To crown all there was a conspicuous sign, "For Men Only. No Minors Admitted." At the door stood a barker of leering mien, and he barked in a mysteriously low tone. Joyce could not resist his blandishments; here was plainly something wicked which the police had not re- pressed. The admission fee let him into a room with a disappointingly virtuous series of peep- holes, which revealed cheap chromos of scenery and battle pictures. A badly carved "fossil giant" lay in a coffin. It was a bad imitation of that famous Cardiff giant which was buried near Syracuse, rediscovered by accident and brought to New York by the arch-humbug, P. T. Barnum. But Joyce was not one of the typical Americans in whom Barnum found such a love for being humbugged. He strenuously objected to the unobjectionable nature of this exhibition. Then another barker beckoned him to another room, where "something was really doing." He paid an extra admission and entered this unholy of unholies. But his hopes fell again as he found a still more blameless collection of old newspapers. Civil War envelopes, wax casts of famous criminals and two or three slot ma- chines. He felt helpless, however, as he real- ized how impossible it would be to drag these men into police court for not showing him any- thing truly immoral. The other dupes in the 23 354 ^be IReal flew l^orl? room looked sheepishly at one another, grinned and slunk out without a word. In the whole psychology of swindling there is surely nothing more ingenious than this method of playing upon evil instincts without risking the vengeance of the law. Joyce dawdled along the Bowery, looking list- lessly for something vicious. Here was a shoot- ing gallery, announced by an incessant buzzing of bells and the short snap of small rifles; but it did not interest him. No more was he at- tracted by the galleries with long rows of mov- ing pictures and the phonographs with their pro- miscuous ear tubes. He did not care to have his tintype taken; he did not care to test his lungs; he did not care to take one of those elec- tric shocks the medicinal virtue of which the barker was constantly recommending. He had been in one concert hall and the rest did not interest him, though, judging from the litho- graphs shamelessly displayed outside, most of the prominent stars were appearing on the dingy little stage; for here were posters of May Irwin, Ethel Barry more, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Marie Tem- pest and Fritzi Scheff. Joyce was not even at- tracted by the Museum of Anatomy, where, for the trifling sum of ten cents, one can provide himself with bad dreams of disease and destruc- tion enough for a lifetime. Blake offered to show him one of those lodging houses with the attractive sign, "Rooms for miObt in tbe Slunta 355 Gentlemen Only. Five and Ten Cents." But Joyce had often looked from the Elevated into the reception-rooms of these caravansaries where the professional beggar, or panhandler, the sand- wich man, the political floater, the super- shabby genteel and the victims of bad luck and bad whisky doze all day long in preparation for a night of sleep in a cubbyhole, on a populous couch spread with blankets that are rarely changed. Joyce was not to be induced into any of the Hebrew theatres, though at two of them the "Fall of Port Arthur" was dramatized in advance. He would not be diverted even into entering one of the cheap theatres where low burlesque troupes conducted an anatomical show, where a slap stick is a wand of the harlequin and the highest form of repartee is a kick in the stomach. It was Amateur Night at one of the theatres, and Blake promised Joyce a rare treat in the ex- hibition of the volunteers who are courageous enough to submit their art to the hilarious ver- dict of the gallery. But Joyce was out for vice. Blake was getting tired and very thirsty and suggested a halt at one of the cheap concert saloons near Chatham Square. Here was the very subterranean grotto of the submerged tenth. The usual saloon, save for an unusual sloppiness, led to a back room filled with small tables and crowded with soldiers, sailors, workingmen, cooks, ladies of the pavement and 356 ^be IReal mew ^ov\\ the impresarios who live upon their earnings. At a rickety piano sat a hard-working mechanic in shirt sleeves, whose most artistic effect was a so-called mandolin attachment, which gave the decrepit instrument a still tinnier sound. A youth in a striped sweater stood alongside and roared out dismal melodies in a saturated voice. Joyce and Blake sat down at a dripping table and a waiter of pugilistic manner brought them glasses of diluted beer, mostly collar — the art of putting the maximum amount of foam in a glass being the foundation of a barkeeper's education. At the next table sat two middle-aged women in a boozy blear. One of these grisly old Fates smiled upon Joyce with what was meant for seduction — the result was a queasy sensa- tion that reminded him of the English Channel. The other poor old hulk was devoid of a nose, but none the less she was blissfully looking in a mirror to see if her hat was on straight. Still Joyce hungered for something wickeder than this. Blake grew impatient, and said: "Real vice is not attractive or pretty or im- posing. You can go down toward the river where there are various low dives, but they are all very much afraid of strangers, for every stranger may be a detective. The toughest part of New York has moved uptown. The place they call Hell's Kitchen is in the Twenties, but you would hardly know that you were in any place of especial wickedness, unless you went into a mUjbt in tbc Sluni0 357 back room of some saloon on Seventh Avenue near Twenty-seventh Street, frequented by vicious negroes and still lower white trash, and allowed some young tough to pick a quarrel with you, which he would be willing to do if you looked as if you had a dollar on your person." "" DE GANG Blake now remembered an imaginary engage- ment at his newspaper office, and said that he must leave Joyce to shift for himself. Joyce asked a few questions and seemed chiefly anx- ious to invade the haunts of Cherry Hill and in- spect the Happy Hunting Grounds of the gang that "Monk" Eastman led before he was sent up for trying to rob a young drunkard in evening dress and shooting at the police who interfered. "To murder is not the monopoly of the East 358 Zbc IRcal mew l^orl^ Side," said Blake, **and the red spots are all over town. The most horrible crime of all was, perhaps, the one that took place at the Empire, a drinking hall in Twenty-ninth Street, a few doors from Broadway, where an employee of the place beheaded a man and then tried to burn his body in the furnace. "If you are going on the East Side, the main thing you will notice will be the stupidity of everything and the quiet conversations in the saloons. Even the hotbeds of crime do not furnish more than three or four murders a year, and you must not be disappointed if you do not find wholesale butchery going on. The main thing is to keep out of a fight. "As for the gangs, there are a lot of them; the Five Points gang, the Gas House crowd, the Paul Kelly clique, the Yake-Yake Brady gang and the members of the 'Monk' Eastman fra- ternity are a few of. the most notorious. But you would not know them if you saw them. For manifest reasons they do not foregather in public, and they are simply more or less well- dressed rowdies. "Keep your mind on your watch, don't get into a crowd, and be careful what you drink — and, above all, mind your own business. If Mr. Yake-Yake Brady wandered into your ath- letic club he would probably be thrown out. Every saloon is a club for its regular patrons, and you need not expect politer treatment than you IHicjbt in tbe Sluine 359 would show to anyone who came snooping around into your affairs." With this advice Blake made his escape, and Joyce started on his errand of inquisitiveness. He dropped into one saloon where Blake had told him vice once reared its head. But the hostess behind the bar was dejected and cynical; the weight of the Lid was heavy on her soul, and the burden of her wail was, "Nothin' doin'!" ''I've saw me day. The police owns this town, and they keep it shut up now. They bar a lady out of her own home. If you want to see anything lively, the only place to go is the Station House. We are all dead ones. I guess I'll pack up my duds and go to the Colored Folks' Home. Nothin' doin' in this town no more!" Joyce took a peek into the back room where once the sound of revelry was high. The only tenants now were a yawning girl and a dejected youth listening to a twangy phonograph whence issued an uncanny comic song that added to the gloom of the situation. Joyce wandered away and got himself lost in the twisting streets. Bright lights drew him to a music-hall in Eldredge Street where the signs were in Hebrew. He entered and found a seat near an almost pretty little Jewess, who forewent the formalities of an introduction and explained to him that this was a benefit night for one of the company. Once in a while it was permitted a member of the troupe to add to his salary by 360 z\)c IReal IRew l^ork renting the hall for one evening and filling it to the best of his ability. The rest of the company gladly volunteered their services. The girl ex- plained the plot of the play, a combination of foreign customs with American surroundings. The hours passed pleasantly in the company of the almost pretty interpreter, and she had permitted Joyce to hold her hand. But she resisted further advances and explained : "I've got a faller. I work by a jewelry." Finally he bade her good-night and she shook hands cordially with him, saying: "Vull, I am glat to meet your acquaintance." Joyce drifted out into the night, somewhat shamefaced over his repulsed advances, yet cherishing a tender memory of the little Yiddish flower blooming in the rough loam of the slums. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock, and he had seen nothing to quicken a pulse. Up and down the dreary streets he meandered. All saloons looked alike to him. Some of them were surprisingly gorgeous. In "Silver Dollar Smith's" place there was a silver dollar in the floor here and there, but Joyce had seen that in the Palmer House at home. A sovmd of shrill riot caught his ear. He found two gamins fighting with all the ferocity of the gutter cubs. He joined the crowd and relished the work of the toy gladiators. Sud- denly someone cried: "Cheese it, de cop!" micjbt in tbc Sluing 36i There was a scramble. Joyce was jostled and hustled, and — then he was alone. No poHce- man appeared. "False alarm," laughed Joyce. He looked at his watch; or, rather, he looked for his watch. He felt for his purse; non est inventus. He clutched at his scarfpin. It proved an alibi. Even Joyce could not withhold admiration for the neatness of such a job. ** Good work !" he laughed. ** Time for spring house cleaning, anyway.. I'm much obliged to 'em for leaving me my trousers." On second inspection he found some loose coin in his pocket. He turned and called out: "Here, come back; you've forgotten some- thing." No one answered his invitation. He decided to go home. But he had lost his sense of direction and could not orientate him- self. He asked various passers-by to tell him his way and immediately forgot their labyrin- thian advice. Aiming for the interior, he found himself on the river front. He looked in at a saloon filled with sailors and their sweethearts. Joyce had a wholesome dread of the knockout drop, and in all the saloons he had visited he had bought cigars instead of the beer that was certain to be diluted if not drugged. But here the bar was neat, and thirst and fatigue were heavy upon him; so he ordered beer. 362 z\)c 1Real IRcw ^ov\\ A man detached himself from one of the tables and, leaning alongside Joyce, observed that it was a pleasant evening. Joyce was always glad of an excuse to talk. He invited the stran- ger to drink. The stranger invited Joyce to drink. He was well-dressed and he wore a mild look, so Joyce assented. Then Joyce treated. Then the stranger treated. Joyce retained cau- tion enough to see that even this fair-spoken person should not touch his glass, and that the barkeeper should put nothing in it. But what was to prevent the barkeeper from taking a glass in which there was a drug already waiting ? Joyce had not thought of that. And suddenly he did not think of anything except the remarkable weakness of his knees and his amazing drowsiness. Then he ceased to think even of that. He was a heap on the floor. In an instant the genial stranger had him by the collar and dragged him to a back room. There he went through all the pockets. The result surprised him. "Stung, by !" he roared. "The dog's on'y got eighty-fi' cents, and the knockout drops cost me $2! I'll kick his slats in for 'um!" But the other members of the gang restrained the victim of Joyce's deceit. The barkeeping confederate declined to have the body found round his place. So, after a proper reconnais- sance for the police, Joyce was picked up, toted to a dark side street and left on a doorstep. miQbt in tbe Sluin0 363 There he was found at 3 a.m., still comatose. He had no money to pay carfare. He did not need it. The city took him to a hospital in an ambulance. Victims of knockout drops usually die; but the dose given to Joyce had been com- paratively weak, and by six o'clock the physi- cians had pried his one foot out of the grave. The police decided to put the other into the police court. Joyce was arraigned for disor- THE MORNING AFTER derly conduct and disturbing a doorstep. He expressed some surprise at being arrested. The sergeant explained that the policy in New York is, '*When in doubt, pinch." *'But how could I commit disorderly conduct when I was — ossified .^" The sergeant explained that "disorderly con- duct" is a merely formal charge, a card of ad- mission, as it were, to be exchanged for a more definite tag. He was taken to the police court in a wagon now grown familiar to him. The white-haired Judge sat on high and lis- 364 ^be IRcal IRcw lJ)orh tened with little enthusiasm to the stories told him. He neither admired the imagination dis- played nor warmed to the tales of how the best motives in the world had been misconstrued by the neighbors and the police. He recognized many of the visitors — the inveterate old ine- briates; the swaggering solicitress, who winked at His Honor; the shuffling sneak thief, who couldn't imagine how somebody's else watch got into his hand; the well-dressed automobilist, whose machine could not possibly have gone over eight miles an hour and three children a mile; the young rounder, still in his evening dress, with his shirt crumpled and his hair rumpled ; the hard-working woman pleading for the worthless husband who used her for a com- bination of pocketbook and punching bag. There used to be a sprinkling of juvenile of- fenders in this procession, but wise and humane counsels prevailed, and there is now a separate Children's Court, where undergraduate crime is examined and an effort made to turn the mis- directed little feet into the main road before primitive instincts become a chronic disease of lawlessness. Eventually it was Joyce's turn to appear at the bar. "What's your name.^" the Judge asked, sharply. "J — J — James K. Polk," said Joyce. "Ever been arrested before.^" migbt in tbc Slume 365 "A — a few times." Joyce could not deny it before those cold eyes. " Humph, a professional criminal, eh ? Where do you come from ?'' '* Chicago," he faltered. '*Ten years at hard labor," said the Judge, and the court clerks, whose preferment depended on their agility in discovering His Honor's jokes, roared with laughter. The policeman explained that there was no real charge against the prisoner, and at length the Justice relented. He dismissed Joyce, after reading him a needless lecture on the mistakes made by Old Dog Tray and many another sad old dog. Joyce borrowed carfare from the policeman and flew to *' Ananias" Blake. Blake thought the whole affair a huge joke, till Joyce told him he would have to lend him enough money to get back to Chicago. This sobered "Ananias" in- stantly, and he was about to practise the sub- terfuge of his namesake, but Joyce's look was so woebegone that he asked the city editor for enough to transport the Chicagoan. The city editor remembered that the news- paper had transportation due it for railroad advertising, and he furnished Joyce with a certificate that he was a member of the staff. "Lord, I'm going from bad to worse," said Joyce. Then he wished to apologize, but Blake explained that it was impossible to hurt a news- 366 ^be IRcal mew !?ork paper man's feelings, and held up a reporter (who wrote up the baseball games in summer and the concerts in winter) for enough cash to see Joyce safely beyond Lake Michigan. Blake was wonderfully ingenious in showing other peo- ple ways of investing money. Chapter XX a round-up the many faults of new york! noise, crowding, impoliteness, expense, homelessness bronx park the jumel mansion and other his- toric places the columbia library the metro- politan gallery private collections the aqua- rium battery park bowling green the statue of liberty a storm in the bay daybreak bon voyage! ^ ' T3 UT, I say, old chap, hasn't New York JlJ any faults at all?" Calverly com- plained. "A billion," said De Peyster. It was about one o'clock Friday morning, and they were knocking the balls about in the De Peyster bil- liard-room while Consuelo was perched on a high chair, dreaming of herself as an English peeress playing billiards with old coronets. "Every inhabitant has at least two faults apiece. That makes a rather respectable total in itself. Then there is the noise; the roar of the busy streets is so terrific that it is almost impossible to talk; in summer, when the win- dows must be open, the uproar almost drowns the heat. Where asphalt pavement is down there is some relief, but elsewhere it is one horri- ble cacophony of slamming, squeaking and gong- 368 z\)C IReal IHcw l^oih banging surface cars, Elevated cars and automo- bile horns, trucks, bicycles, horses' hoofs. And then the street cries! — not musical calls as in France, but hideous yawps from raw-throated fiends with faces that resemble their vegetables. " Another great fault of New York is the crowd- ing. The roadways are, as a rule, less crowd- ed than in London, but that is because people over there are not packed and jammed into large street cars and Elevated roads as they are in New York, and because the narrow twisting streets of London congest the traffic — the man- agement of that traffic, by the way, is the thing which Americans most admire in London. Your bobbies would not stand much chance in a fight with our coppers, but they get far more respect from the drivers, and everybody says they are infinitely politer than our policemen, though I, for one, have never been insulted by a New York policeman, nor have I found one un- willing to give me any information. "But the crowding in the street cars and Ele- vated trains is one of the chief faults of New York. It is indecent, it is exhausting to the last degree, and, worst of all, there seems to be no possible cure, owing to the shape of the city. "The chief fault in New York found by strangers is the impoliteness of the people. A majority vote would probably give New York the disgrace of being the most impolite city in the world. The worst of it is that the people know better. It is not the bad manners of un- couth boors, who are rude without meaning to be, but it is the wilful insolence of well-bred and sophisticated people who understand the etiquette, not only of their own nation, but of most of the others. "The enormous expensiveness of New York is another vital fault. Food is high, though in many respects not so high as in London ; but the rents are skyscraping, and they are getting higher every year. Then everyone in New York is trying to keep up a bluff of having more than his real income. Few people are willing to retire on a modest stipend, as in London, and they wear themselves out in their fiendish devotion to business and their equally fiendish devotion to pleasure or the pursuit of pleasure. "To New Yorkers themselves the greatest fault of the city is its homelessness. We live in layers; the vast majority have not even a sin- gle floor that is all their own, to say nothing of a complete house. And those who own a house have no lawns, no gardens, no privacy ex- cept inside the doors with curtains drawn. It is this fact that makes New York people im- polite. Their only way of getting privacy is by mentally withdrawing themselves from the crowd that is packed about them. New Yorkers do not know even the names of people in their own apartment house or next door. "To Western people the New Yorker is a 24 / 370 zhc IReal IRew l^orft byword of impoliteness. But New York is largely populated by Western people. They come here with their chivalric notions, but they soon get the bloom rubbed off. The Westerner who would not dream of allowing a washer- woman to stand up in a street car, after three years in New York will hardly give his seat to a lame old lady. The New Yorker must be selfish or become a worm. It is the conditions and not the people that are impolite." **Well," said Calverly, with a yawn, "as you Yankees say, 'I guess that'll be about all.' I'm going to bed. Good-night, Consuelo." "I am for bed, too," said De Peyster. "For, after telling you what a mass of faults this old town is, I've got to spend to-morrow proving that it is nothing short of Paradise." The next morning early he and Myrtle were on their way to Bronx Park, to begin a grand round-up of the city's beauties. They wandered about this wild region and smiled at the pretty little stream that once turned the snuff mills that built the Lorillard fortunes. They sauntered through the Botanical Gardens, which will, when completed, equal any in the world, and the Zoological Park, with its superb lion palace and its reproduction of native haunts of animals, which will, when stocked, surpass any similar institution of educational cruelty in the world. Myrtle was in raptures over the color schemes of the floral opulence, and she was eager to be sketeliing the four-footed foreigners pacing their lairs in the discontent of imprisoned outlaws. De Peyster seized upon her mood as an oppor- tunity for persuading her to linger in the scenes she had grown to like. " Don't go to Paris," he pleaded. " Stay here and paint New York a delicate flamingo." "But 1 must study my art." "You can study here — at the Art Students' League, for instance. There are many good judges who say the training is better than in your Paris ateliers, where a famous painter looks in once a week and gives you an epigram; the rest of the time you spend imitating the classics or chasing some of the crazy schemes of the an- archists. Stay here and be an American." " But I must see the great architecture and the galleries — the Louvre, the Luxembourg, the National Gallery, the Vatican, the " "All those will come in due time. There are enough of the old masters here to keep you busy a long while. The Metropolitan Museum of Art alone will repay years of study. It has a splen- did collection of casts from the antique sculptures and reproductions of the best bronzes. It has the finest collection of goldsmith's work in the world, donated by J. Pierpont Morgan; the finest collection of Cyprian antiquities ; the second best collection of Babylonian cylinders; the best col- lection of American painters, and the finest col- 372 Zbc IRcal mew lJ)ork lection in America of foreign masters. Raphael is almost the only master not represented. We have Michelangelo, da Vinci, Correggio, Ti- tian, Rubens, Rembrandt — hundreds of great works. Then we have some of the greatest works of the latest English, French, Spanish and Italian geniuses. The Metropolitan does not yet rival some of the Old World galleries, for it depends on private gifts and has no government support from this inartistic Republic; but it is growing rapidly. "Then there are the selling galleries, where the best foreign painters exhibit their latest works, for the American dollar draws the artist in oil as well as the singers and actors. And then there are the splendid private collections, like that of Mr. Yerkes, who has spent two mil- lion dollars on his paintings. I can get you ad- mission to these. In fact, in spite of our inferi- ority to Paris, Rome and London, there are far more masterpieces in New York than most people ever see in a lifetime." But still she would not be moved. They left the Bronx and moved southward, pausing at the old gem of Colonial home-craft at One Hundred and Sixty-first Street, the Jumel mansion. It was built in 1758 for Mary Philipse, whom Washington wooed. Later it was the home of Mme. Jumel, whom Aaron Burr duped into marriage and bankrupted before she divorced him. A mile or more away is Edgar Allan Poe's cottage in Forclhain. De Peyster and Myrtk* next made their way down to Morningside Heights and the cluster of buildings devoted to Columbia University. This also is historic soil, watered with the blood of our forefathers. The Engineering Building marks the victory of Har- lem Heights, one of the few bright spots in this period of the war. Barnard College for Women covers the "Bloody Buckwheat Field." Myrtle was less affected, however, by the vague story of these early skirmishes than by the marble perfections of the Columbia Library, a million-dollar gift by Seth Low in memory of his father. There are 235,000 volumes on the shelves within, making it the fourth largest li- brary in the country. But the exterior of the building is surpassed for beauty by none other on this earth. It was now the hour for luncheon, and De Peyster called a hansom and directed the driver to Claremont. The atmosphere of the place and ^ the vivacity of the guests gathering here, far from the haunts of business, in carriages and drags, on horseback and in automobiles, exliila- rated Myrtle as with wine. They sat on the glass-inclosed veranda, and, as they ate, gazed almost with reverence upon the broad river, mag- nificent among its lofty parapets. Myrtle drew in a deep breath of exultation. "You'll miss that view in Paris," declared De Peyster. 874 Z\K IRcal mew l^orft She would have had him stay awhile, but he said there was no time to spare. Down the green aisles of Riverside Drive the horse pat- tered, and she would have lingered here also; but still De Peyster said, "We have no time." Then they turned into Central Park and rounded its wooded curves. Vista after vista brought little gasps of delight from Myrtle. They descended at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but De Peyster insisted that she should simply have a glimpse of it. Myrtle would have spent a hundred hours before the gems of this casket. Here was Rubens, and there Van Dyke. These canvases rejoiced in the miracles of Ve- lasquez, the irresistible bonhomie of Franz Hals, the poetic mists of Corot, the warm-blooded drama of an Inness landscape, the velvet of Diaz, the placid cattle of Troyon, the huge power of Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair," the multum in parvo of Meissonier, the broadsword play of Sargent — all the glories of all the schools from the cool morning of the classics to the high noon of the impression- ists. But De Peyster would not let Myrtle pause, and when she in- sisted he took her by the arm and told her if she would avoid a scene she must come along. a iRoiui&:-Trip 875 Again they took a hansom and sped through the Park, into the Plaza and down Fifth Avenue through the stately homes, the brilliant shops, the general uplift of luxury. Ahead of them loomed the Flatiron like a great chalk cliff. ''Nothing like that abroad," said De Peyster. As they neared Thirty-fourth Street they passed an enormous coach-and-six that excited Myrtle's lively interest. "What is it — the 'Four Hundred' in a coaching party .^" she queried. "That's the 'Seeing New York' coach, one of the city's newest attractions," responded De Peyster. "Twice every day a load of sight- seers starts from the Flatiron Building and makes the tour of the city, with a guide to point out all the landmarks. — Here we are," and he helped her from the cab under the por- tico of the Waldorf. In the midst of the creature comforts, external and internal, of the Waldorf Palm Room De Peyster exclaimed: "Great heavens! You haven't seen the one must-be-seen of New York. You wouldn't dare to look a Frenchman in the face and tell him you hadn't visited the Statue of Liberty which his country gave to us as a token of the liberty which she made possible for us." Myrtle was fain to loiter under the sheltering palms, but De Peyster was inexorable and dragged her to the nearest Elevated station. 376 Z\K IRcal mew ^ov^ They reached South Ferry just in time to miss a boat, which gave them leisure to glance at the Aquarium, with its 3,000 living people of the sea, and its 300,000 gallons of salt water changed every day. The shapes of these citizens of another element were often unbeautiful, and, as they drifted forward to the glass to stare in great-eyed amazement at the staring humans, there was little to admire in their contour or their expression. But their colors! In the prism of the water, among rich ferns and sands and rocks, these patches of living light seemed to live in a world of crumbled rainbows. As De Peyster and Myrtle issued from the Aquarium, they dawdled for a time about Battery Park, into whose beau- tiful welcome the in- coming immigrants are spilled by the thousand after their stay on Ellis Island. Battery Park, once the aristocratic ramble of the young city, was beautiful at this hour in the red garb of a sunset that lit up with fire the glowering rain clouds that had gathered swiftly. A step to the north was Bowling Green, a drilling ground for the Dutch in 1626 and a bowling green for the British in 1732; later the FROM THE FATHERLAND a iRounb^inp 377 site of a leaden statue of George the Third, which was erected in 1766 and ten years later was torn down by the Sons of Liberty, who re- turned it to its English owners in the form of some 40,000 bullets. The old iron railing is still there but it has lost the crowns that once adorned it. And it surrounds no longer the statue of a British king, but that of an old Dutch merchant who prospered here in 1700. Myrtle looked at the statue in amazement. "Why, it's Abraham De Peyster!" "Yes, an ancestor of mine," said Gerald. "How glorious to have an ancestor 200 years old, with a statue in a place of such honor." "You can acquire that ancestor by marriage." "There is the boat," cried Myrtle. "But it is getting late and it is going to rain." None the less they decided to take the risk. The wind was rising and the smallish boat bounced and tossed in the choppy sea. Myrtle looked uneasy. "There will be seven days of this crossing the ocean," said De Peyster, tauntingly. But Myrtle survived the voyage of a single mile, and they soon debarked at the little island, just large enough to hold the largest statue in the history of the world. Its pedestal rises from the salients of old Fort Wood. The idea came to Bartholdi in 186.5 — an idea as large as its embodiment has been. He proposed it to the French people, who were more enthusiastic 378 Zhc IReal 1Rcvx> ^ov\\ over the gift than the Americans were in build- ing the pedestal to receive it. In 1879 he be- gan the work, and in 1886 it was ready for the pedestal, the funds of which were collected only by the efforts of the New York World. The de- sign was from the inspiration of Richard M. Hunt, to whom America owes many of its no- blest works of architecture. V They say Bartholdi's mother posed for the statue, and there is a benignity and a maternity in the figure far more appropriate than any less solid structure would have been in typifying the ideal that stands at the door of a new world, holding aloft the lamp of freedom and shelter. A few of the visitors felt bold enough to at- tempt the climb to the torch, poised three hun- dred and five feet above the sea. The first half of the climb brought the weary sightseers only to the top of the pedestal. Few of them cared to go farther, but Myrtle was determined to reach the apex, and they mounted the dark in- terior, lighted by electricity and criss-crossed by braces, till they reached the beginning of the long, double spiral stairway. This led them eventually to the crown of the statue; the open- ings were windows, whence they could see such a vision as greeted the eyes of Moses lifted up on Sinai. Their gaze swept the vast cyclorama, crowded with ships and cities and glittering with the gold dust of innumerable lights. The sky was black everywhere except in the West, where the dense clouds were smothering a last blaze of flamboyant red. *'lt was just such a sunset that greeted me when I flrst saw New York," said Myrtle. "Is it to be the last we shall see together?" said Gerald. And they fell silent, not heeding the disap- pearance of the few who had climbed with them. Suddenly the sunset was gone from the sky. A gun sounded dully from the little round fort of Castle Williams, on Governor's Island. The torch above them blossomed into sudden life, and they saw each other's faces as in a new day. Myrtle clasped her hands in ecstasy. "Surely there is no more glorious place than this on earth or above it," she said. A drop of water smote her clasped hands. A shower began to patter about them, and they hurried inside the statue. Every light was gone; it was pitch black within, and they stood at the top of a well one hundred and fifty feet deep. They groped cautiously down the stairway. It seemed that its coils would never end. Then down, step after step, in gloom and silence, to the door. It was closed, fastened! They pounded on it, but their blows sounded dead and puny. They called and cried aloud, but their voices went echoing faintly up the black cage. The great bronze ribs of the statue be- gan to quiver with the rising storm. An hour 380 z\K IRcal mew l^ork or more they spent groping about the walls and pounding in vain. "I'll go back to the top and call from there," said Gerald. "I'll go with you," Myrtle said. "It is too far and you must be very tired," said Gerald. He had climbed wearily fifty steps or more when he heard her calling. "Wait! I am afraid to be here alone." She hurried up to his side. She did not ob- ject when he put his arm about her to help, though she knew how fagged he must be. They dragged their weary feet once more to the hate- ful spiral. He could not help her here and she must sit down often to rest. When they reached the crown again the storm was furious, and the statue rocked until it seemed certain to fall. While she waited within, he stood outside in the pelting rain and called. In the flashes of lightning he saw a sentinel hurrying along his post. Scream as he would, the storm screamed louder. And the sentinel kept his eyes on the great mountain of high buildings — Mount Babel — that rises in lower New York. Then, as the tempest increased in violence, he saw the man disappear into the shelter of the sentry-box. There was no hope now. He returned brooding and discouraged, and told Myrtle. "We might as well prepare to make a night of it," he ended. Myrtle took the blow with courage. They sat down on the steps and talked. a iRoim&^inp 381 It was so very hard to hear that they must sit close together. She seemed to understand him better so. He told her how well he had learned to know her in this little week of their acquaint- ance. He told her that the thought of giving her up was agony, and that the only happiness he could see for the future was with her for wife. She protested at first that they did not know each other, but the storm and the solitude and the loneliness and his persuasive voice were pleadings too strong, and, at last, in a moment's hush of the storm, she whispered the "Yes." He drew off a ring his mother had given him and placed it on her finger. *'And now we are betrothed forever," said De Peyster. "Forever," said she. "Forever," roared the storm. They talked of the wedding and of the plans for their life, until the fatigue of the long day and the fatigue of great joy overweighted her with sleep. He took off his coat and folded it so that the dry lining of it should furnish her a silken pillow. Then he left her and climbed the stairs again, to see if there was yet a hope. But the storm still raged and the sentry still kept his hiding; the cities round about were hidden in rain and almost all the lights were quenched. In the Jersev meadows he watched the moving light of a train, like a little glow-worm. He 382 Zbc IReal IRcw l^orft did not know that it carried Westward two acquaintances of his. One of them was Joyce and the other the Rev. Mr. Granger. They had shaken hands seriously when they met. "Wonderful city, New York," said the Rev. Mr. Granger. " It seems entirely devoted to the works of charity and the cultivation of all the vir- tues. I am going back to Terre Haute to do what I can to make my city imitate the ways of New York." Joyce looked at him with amazement and groaned. " Then God help Terre Haute. She'd better imitate old, innocent Chicago. I am go- ing home for a rest." He crept wearily into his bunk, to dream of expensive wickedness and deadly knockout drops, while his nostrils were filled with the odor of burning money. But of his dreams or of the Jacob's Ladder of saints that visited Mr. Granger's sleep, the far-off De Peyster neither knew nor cared in his storm- beaten eyrie. He turned back, niaking his way down the cavern again and finding Myrtle still asleep, he sat down to watch over her. Suddenly he started to find that the huge shell of the statue was filled with a dim light. The dawn was begin- ning. He stared up the shaft awhile, then, thinking tenderly of her, he looked down. Her eyes were wide. But there was such a dream in them that he bent slowly toward her and kissed her. And she, still half asleep, lifted H 1R0Utl^^lIlp 383 an arm, placed it about him, and kissed him. There was no need of words. They under- stood. And now she was eager to greet the dawn. It evoked the workl and her heart answered. They cHmbed again slowly, wearily to the crown. The black fog was gray fleece now, and it was lifting like a mantle of ermine. Beneath it the dance of the waters grew merry. The world was rediscovered. It was growing upward out of the chaos. The base of the statue was plain. A sentinel yawned and stretched. Myrtle said: "Call him; he w^ill hear us now." "No, dear child," said De Peyster. "I've been thinking it over. If we let them know we have been here all night it will be in every after- noon paper. We've waited so long, we'll wait for the first boat from land. It will bring sight- seers and we can go back with them unnoticed." This sophistication in her behalf pleased her. The sun-red came leaping along the heavens. The great ball of fire itself rose in the east, broke loose from the horizon, floated free, lessening and brightening. The harbor w^oke to life; ferries pushed from every slip; there was a stir on the freighters lolling at anchor below; a huge liner came slowly up the Bay. At last he said, almost with regret: "There comes the first boatload of tourists, just starting from the Battery." 384 ZTbc IRcal IHcw l^ork It stopped in midstream to let a great ocean greyhound pass, bound outward, taking the early tide. On board were the French twins hastening back to their dear Paris. They had taken the boat because they had heard Myrtle say she would take it. They had searched in vain for her. Their two hearts beat with one regret. As the steamer swept by the statue Myrtle read the name. *'That was to be my steamer," she said; and she laughed as she called: "I wish you bon voyage! Wish us the same! New York is good enough for us!" n5 ' 89 LEJi 7/ i ^ \ % ^•-•* f^ \ ^* «,^ ^ •©RST* ^ ^ oVJIak* V ^ •©Ms "^i " — . j HECKMAN •J BINDERY INC. J N MANCHESTER, I \ <^ 'f,^* G^ ^ * INDIANA 46962 A^ , <6 ^ , . -P ( ,-5^