AMERICA'S WONDERLAND.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10830, 24 November 1906, Page 6 (Supplement)

AMERICA'S WONDERLAND.

A young officer on board one of the great trading steamers running between Southampton and various American ports sends to his friends m Ciu'istchurcli tlie following account of a trip to Coney Island : — "The evening before we sailed from New York I managed to get away from the sjiip for a few hours, and went with the doctor and purser to Coney island. We took a tram to something or other street, and an elevated ' railway to ditto jetty, and then a terry steamer across to Long Island, and then another tram to Coney Island. We took two hours getting, there, so didn't arrive until just about 9.30. It is absolutely impossible to describe everything one sees at Coney Island, but it is a marvellous place. We paid half a dollar to get m, and, having done so, we found ourselves m a perfect fairyland. All around were golden palaces and marble terraces, and silver streams, and everythinjj covered with millions of fairy lights. We rushed m a small boat down an almost perpendicular winding mountain torrent; we whirled down a huge water chute, and daslted at 250 miles an hour round an electric switchback. We passed m a small boat through tlie gates of darkness and through the passages of the 'weird and awe-inspiring lvell. We walked down tho place of laughter and looped the loop We drank beer m a Cafe Chantant, and rowed through the mysteries of dreamland. We had ten cents' worth of flying machine, and rode m. the smallest tiailn m the world. We went round the scenic railway, where the car goes down hills at an angle of 75 degrees. We slid on our tails down the chute and strolled through the fairy grotto. We did dozens of other tilings, and there were dozens more we didn't do, and at last we finished up by j dancing m the great ball-room. The place closed at midnight, and then we came away. What pleased us (or. rather, me) most, was the numbers of sweet little girls. There is one tiling 1 can say for New York, she knows how to dress lier children. We went shaking, rattling, and bumping on the terrible little New York tram-cars, and swore ut the rush and horrible shrieking, grind of the overhead railway, which, every time a train passes, sends showers of dust and stones to the street below. We eventually reach. Ed tlie ship at three m the morning, tired out. We left New York m the afternoon for Jamaica, where we hope to arrive early this morniing."