In A Month Or Two All These Things May Possibly Be
Learned; But The Visitor Requires His Facilities For Locomotion At
The First Moment Of His Entrance Into The City.
I heard it
asserted by a lecturer in Boston, Mr. Wendell Phillips, whose name
is there a household word,
That citizens of the United States
carried brains in their fingers as well as in their heads; whereas
"common people," by which Mr. Phillips intended to designate the
remnant of mankind beyond the United States, were blessed with no
such extended cerebral development. Having once learned this fact
from Mr. Phillips, I understood why it was that a New York omnibus
should be so disagreeable to me, and at the same time so suitable
to the wants of the New Yorkers.
And then there are street cars - very long omnibuses - which run on
rails but are dragged by horses. They are capable of holding forty
passengers each, and as far as my experience goes carry an average
load of sixty. The fare of the omnibus is six cents, or three
pence. That of the street car five cents, or two pence halfpenny.
They run along the different avenues, taking the length of the
city. In the upper or new part of the town their course is simple
enough, but as they descend to the Bowery, Peck Slip, and Pearl
Street, nothing can be conceived more difficult or devious than
their courses. The Broadway omnibus, on the other hand, is a
straightforward, honest vehicle in the lower part of the town,
becoming, however, dangerous and miscellaneous when it ascends to
Union Square and the vicinities of fashionable life.
The street cars are manned with conductors, and, therefore, are
free from many of the perils of the omnibus; but they have perils
of their own. They are always quite full. By that I mean that
every seat is crowded, that there is a double row of men and women
standing down the center, and that the driver's platform in front
is full, and also the conductor's platform behind. That is the
normal condition of a street car in the Third Avenue. You, as a
stranger in the middle of the car, wish to be put down at, let us
say, 89th Street. In the map of New York now before me, the cross
streets running from east to west are numbered up northward as far
as 154th Street. It is quite useless for you to give the number as
you enter. Even an American conductor, with brains all over him,
and an anxious desire to accommodate, as is the case with all these
men, cannot remember. You are left therefore in misery to
calculate the number of the street as you move along, vainly
endeavoring through the misty glass to decipher the small numbers
which after a day or two you perceive to be written on the lamp
posts.
But I soon gave up all attempts at keeping a seat in one of these
cars. It became my practice to sit down on the outside iron rail
behind, and as the conductor generally sat in my lap I was in a
measure protected. As for the inside of these vehicles the women
of New York were, I must confess, too much for me. I would no
sooner place myself on a seat, than I would be called on by a mute,
unexpressive, but still impressive stare into my face, to surrender
my place. From cowardice if not from gallantry I would always
obey; and as this led to discomfort and an irritated spirit, I
preferred nursing the conductor on the hard bar in the rear.
And here if I seem to say a word against women in America, I beg
that it may be understood that I say that word only against a
certain class; and even as to that class I admit that they are
respectable, intelligent, and, as I believe, industrious. Their
manners, however, are to me more odious than those of any other
human beings that I ever met elsewhere. Nor can I go on with that
which I have to say without carrying my apology further, lest,
perchance, I should be misunderstood by some American women whom I
would not only exclude from my censure, but would include in the
very warmest eulogium which words of mine could express as to those
of the female sex whom I love and admire the most. I have known,
do know, and mean to continue to know as far as in me may lie,
American ladies as bright, as beautiful, as graceful, as sweet, as
mortal limits for brightness, beauty, grace, and sweetness will
permit. They belong to the aristocracy of the land, by whatever
means they may have become aristocrats. In America one does not
inquire as to their birth, their training, or their old names. The
fact of their aristocratic power comes out in every word and look.
It is not only so with those who have traveled or with those who
are rich. I have found female aristocrats with families and
slender means, who have as yet made no grand tour across the ocean.
These women are charming beyond expression. It is not only their
beauty. Had he been speaking of such, Wendell Phillips would have
been right in saying that they have brains all over them. So much
for those who are bright and beautiful, who are graceful and sweet!
And now a word as to those who to me are neither bright nor
beautiful, and who can be to none either graceful or sweet.
It is a hard task, that of speaking ill of any woman; but it seems
to me that he who takes upon himself to praise incurs the duty of
dispraising also where dispraise is, or to him seems to be,
deserved. The trade of a novelist is very much that of describing
the softness, sweetness, and loving dispositions of women; and this
he does, copying as best he can from nature.
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