OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 217, 12 September 1911, Page 6

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

.(Prom Our Special Correspondent.) > NEW YORK, July 22. A HEAT WAVE. The heat wave which baked this city during the first half of July was unusual in its length, there being only one day in fourteen that the mercury did not exceed OOdeg, but was not exceptional in the severity of the heat except on one or two days when the official themometeT on the top of a building 25uft high at the water front registered 98, and thermometers on the street showed anywhere from lOOdeg to 115 deg. It was the nights with-o"'' much relief, darkness above OOdeg dawn at 87deg, some nights without the slightest breeze, and most of them with such humidity that perspiration was continuous, that caused havoc to flesh and blood. The deaths of 225 persons,in the metropolis are attributed to this hot wave, and about 1400 horses died in the streets. Animals incapacitated for work by poor accommodation in close, ill-ventilated stables and weakened by their labours on hot pavements. dropped in their tracks never to rise again. The city demanded 40,000 tons of ice in a day, but the demand could not bo met by more than 25 per cent, and prices rose to 50 cents a hundredweight. The handling of the holiday traffic at the Grand Central Station was made peculiarly difficult one day when a partial cutting off of the electric power made it necessary for the great, hot, tired crowds to be carried in and out of the terminal on two tracks instead of four. 'lt was all the weather's fault. The excessive heat expanded the pipe that protects the transmission cable so that its insulation was chafed and the current interrupted. This happened at 117 th Street at 5.15. During the period of repair, emergency traffic arrangements went into effect, and although some of the locals were delayed as much as 50 minutes, a shifting of passengers made it possible to help the people in and out with less than half that delay.

NOVELTIES IN BATHING. Of course, al! the bathing 1 teaches have been crowded daily and the dizzy sights have been in some cases enough to give one prostration without the solar heat. Oddities and novelties in the way o! bathing garments come out as regularly as the bathing season begins to loom ahead on the calendar. And regularly such styles are picked up eagerly by sand loungers and as readily are they scorned by those who actually go down to the sea to bathe and swim. Styles vary somewhat from year to year. If tho general fashion in sleeves and skirts is scanty, so too are the bathing skirts and sleeves, and if the reverse is true then these details take on bouffantry which is in line with land clothes. This season the harem skirt has been quite at home in the water and on the sands leading to it. Perhaps it has been found.itself better fitted and more heartily welcomed there than ir. any other quarter. Some of the barejc. skirts that have been seen in bathing Euits have been uncommonly well-lr,r,king. This harem bathing skirt at its best is a sort of glorified bloomer, being much shorter than the regulation Turkish trouscr, but full enough to look much like a skirt. Among the good things recently done by the city authorities has been the construction of big bath houses at Coney Island, where for a ten cent, cost anyone can be assured facilities for disrobing and dressing before and after as long a stay upon the sands as be may choose. The building will accommodate sewn thousand a! :>nce and cost about ,058,500. Hitherto the private bathing estabbshments have increased their rates to forty cents, or a dollar each whenever there was a crowd on a Sunday or holiday, and even at that prospective bathers were obliged to stand in line hours at a tirnb waiting the.Lr turn.

SUNDAY BAND PERFORMANCES. Band concerts in the parks and at all other resorts of public attraction are usual on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. As a contrast to this custom the United States, the following editorial paragraph from a leading daily of Halifax, Nova Scotia, exhibits the sentiment in Canada: "We are sorry to see that the Sunday Band Concerts are once more talked of for afternoons and evenings during the summer months. We arc sorry, because wo consider them both unnecessary and pernicious. They are pernicious because they unquestionably have a tendency to keep people out of church, and. make a mockery of a day of devotion by providing an excuse for what is neither more nor less than mere loafing on the part of many, who might be better off elsewhere, both in regard to their morals and their manners. "We have maintained up to the present time in Halifax the good, old, simple, quiet and respectable Canadian Sabbath, and do not wish to change it for the undesirable so-called continental Sunday. We are not conscious of any particular boldness when we state that the Sunday band concert has little or no connection with religion, and is a hindrance rather than a help to devotion. The Sunday concerts are unnecessary, because there are few fine evenings during the entire summer, when there is not a hand playing somewhere, in some part of the city where all classes may enjoy the music without money and without fee.

■ GIRLS AND ATHLETICS. The New York City Board of Education recently refused to sanction a girl's athletic meet, fearing that injuries would ensue. It had been complained of by some parents and physicians that the girls were apt to strain themselves in their Anxiety to outvie their brothers. When the decision had been read the,' gymnasium, of the girls Manual Training School rang with yells of feminine fury and many were the things that were said about the members of the Board of Education. BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK. The New York City Board of Estimate has granted to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, which controls most of the passenger and 'transportation facilities in Brooklyn, franchises for the construction of 120 miles of additional subways connecting Brooklyn with Manhattan and up through the city at a cost of 234,000,000 dollars. The Mayor has not yet signed the contracts and says he has the power to veto them and that he will, bnt the B. R. T. says it will proceed with construction work at oncc.

A peculiar act just performed by Mayor Gayuor is the abolition of tolls upon all vehicles on the Brooklyn bridges. When the first bridge was opeaied, in May, 1884, there was a charge of one cent, for each pedestrian, although twenty tickets weTe sold for live cents.; three cents for everyone who crossed in a bridge car (two tickets for five cents) and ten cents or more for vehicles according to the size and number of horses. At that time there were no electric cars and no trolley lines across the structure. The bridge cars were pulled bv cables,

operated. by powerful engines at each I end of a mile and an eighth of length under the bridge management, running in trains of three or five cars. The first change was after the introduction of electric trolley cars and the granting permission to the Brooklyn surface lines to continue their route across the bridge. Then the pedestrian toll was abolished. Thus one could walk free or travel from any pari; of Brooklyn to the New York end of the bridge for one five cent fare, instead of changing cars and paying an additional 2A cents. Since then three additional bridges and a subway have been opened, but the tolls for vehicles were collected on all the bridges. They were not objected to and yielded the city a revenue of about' £50,000. The Mayor has now abolished all tolls for vehicles, and at one stroke cut off this revenue, saving only the wages of the toil-takers, besides antagonizing the ferry companies and getting no those who would have continued cheerfully to pay the tolls, for the abolition of which there had never been any agitation. Why he (did it is a mystery.

PROHIBITION IN MAINE. After twenty-seven years' experience with constitutional prohibition of the liquor traffic, Maine on Septem'ber 11 will hold a special election to determino whether the people wish to retain prohibition as a part of the organic law of the State or to cast it aside as a proven failure and an obstacle in the pathway of reform. While the prohibition men arc confidently predicting a sweeping victory, t'hey are 'plainly worried as to the outcome, for the Women's Obrißtißji Temperance Union, led Iby Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, of Portland, national president, and many other organisations, including church and Sun-day-school societies, are putting forth the most earnest exertions to insure the retention of the famous fifth amendment, which was adopted by vote of the people in September, 1884. William T. Cobb, formerly Governor and sponsor of the discarded' Sturgis law, under 'Which an attempt was made to 'give the State an effective enforcement of the Prohibitory Liquor law, has issued a formal statement announcing his firm intention of voting for the retention of the prohibitory amendment.

SUMMER ISSUES. The great New York restaurants, ■which are obliged to keep iin men so staffs of waiters and. cooks for any emergency, say ithey lost more than £250,000 by the hot wave of 'the first 'half of July. This is attributed in a considerable degTee to the possession of motor cars by many of their patrons, affording comfortable means of transit to a beadi. or elsewhere out of town at a moment's notice. Automobile manufacturers and salts people on the other hand are flourishing. Dullness reigns in business and politics in the American metropolis at present. Everyone :is out of town, or wishes he were, and' the only aiotivc lines of life are those of maintaining life. The great question of a reciprocity treaty with Canada is still unsettled toy Congress, but it seems likely now to pass the Senate. Whether it will be adopted by Canada is, however, anobhel' question, and there may be a general I election in regard to the matter thert> before the year is out.

JOTTINGS. The 37it yawl Pandora, which arrived here on June 23 from Australia, via Auckland and many other ports since she first left Perth on May 10, 1010, proceeded again this week for England. Joseph Blyt'he, the owner, and Captain Arapapakis are as lit apparently as when they began. 'Mark Twain left an estate of 471,130 dollars (about £95,000), besides a lot of stocks in different companies absolutely worthless, and a. great imany copyrights. The death 3>as occurred -here of John 11. Thiry, father of the school savings bank system, and likewise father of a fifth child by his second wife When he was S7. Thai was more than two years ago. He had' married a young lady teacher when he was 78.

Said to 'be the thinnest man in the world, Arthur Atherton, twenty-four year 3 o'ld, and weighing only 381b, though sft tall, married Blanche. Buckley, 10 years old, and weighing 1361b, in Chicago the other day. A funny race between an elephant and a: donkey started from Coney Island for Washington recently, a wager (being made by politicians, these animals being the popular emblems of the Republican and Democratic parties. Both gave up with lameness, however, before they got more than (half way, 400 miles. Five New England towns and cities — Lebanon, iEirfield, and Hanover ('N.H.), Hartford (Vt), and Pittsfield (Mass.)—" celebrated on July 2 the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of their settlement. Historical pageants, the homecoming of former residents, public addresses by notable persons, fireworks, and general festivities marked the occasion in each of the communities.

Charles Heinsey, a grainer, of Newton, N.J., lias taken out an insurance policy for 50 dollars to protect him against financial loss in case bis 'thumb nail, which is one and a-half inches long, becomes Recently the nail was cut on account of an accident, and he was forced to remain idle until it grew again. He says he can do his work well only with his nail. A Canadian wheat crop exceeding two hundred million bushels is expected this year, and the problem of getting it harvested is a grave one.