The World,
She Supposes, Owes Her Everything Because Of Her Silken Train, Even
Room Enough In A Crowded Thoroughfare To
Drag it along unmolested.
But, according to her theory, she owes the world nothing in return.
She is a woman
With perhaps a hundred dollars on her back, and
having done the world the honor of wearing them in the world's
presence, expects to be repaid by the world's homage and chivalry.
But chivalry owes her nothing - nothing, though she walk about
beneath a hundred times a hundred dollars - nothing, even though she
be a woman. Let every woman learn this, that chivalry owes her
nothing unless she also acknowledges her debt to chivalry. She
must acknowledge it and pay it; and then chivalry will not be
backward in making good her claims upon it.
All this has come of the street cars. But as it was necessary that
I should say it somewhere, it is as well said on that subject as on
any other. And now to continue with the street cars. They run, as
I have said, the length of the town, taking parallel lines. They
will take you from the Astor House, near the bottom of the town,
for miles and miles northward - half way up the Hudson River - for, I
believe, five pence. They are very slow, averaging about five
miles an hour; but they are very sure. For regular inhabitants,
who have to travel five or six miles perhaps to their daily work,
they are excellent. I have nothing really to say against the
street cars. But they do not fill the place of cabs.
There are, however, public carriages - roomy vehicles, dragged by
two horses, clean and nice, and very well suited to ladies visiting
the city. But they have none of the attributes of the cab. As a
rule, they are not to be found standing about. They are very slow.
They are very dear. A dollar an hour is the regular charge; but
one cannot regulate one's motion by the hour. Going out to dinner
and back costs two dollars, over a distance which in London would
cost two shillings. As a rule, the cost is four times that of a
cab, and the rapidity half that of a cab. Under these
circumstances, I think I am justified in saying that there is no
mode of getting about in New York to see anything.
And now as to the other charge against New York, of there being
nothing to see. How should there be anything there to see of
general interest? In other large cities - cities as large in name
as New York - there are works of art, fine buildings, ruins, ancient
churches, picturesque costumes, and the tombs of celebrated men.
But in New York there are none of these things. Art has not yet
grown up there. One or two fine figures by Crawford are in the
town, especially that of the Sorrowing Indian, at the rooms of the
Historical Society; but art is a luxury in a city which follows but
slowly on the heels of wealth and civilization.
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