THE RUSH HOUR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 13101, 14 June 1913, Page 10

THE RUSH HOUR

This is the big excitement of ..their lives ! This teeming' rush hour—^ix o'clock at night. . . x I never saw such tired eyes ; I never saw such faces, So weary at the close of a hard day. Those bright electric bulbs' m the ! thundering Subway • Bring out the tragic lines on their tragic brows — Girls old before their time, dizzily swaying In that awful conglomeration of human beings. Those merciless lights ! — hiding no single blemish,, Placed there with their flaming candle power So ■ that ':■ .- the throngs may read- their evening papers. But some of the girls are far too tired to read. They only hang on the straps, ' iSick with the noise of the train speeding uptown, r Yet glad to .hear it, since it means to them" ■ That every moment they are nearer their- sad homes.' - Tt seems to me they are always rushing, .The forlorn sweatshop workers, the tired j j sales girls; ' ' ' | Tlie pale clerks who light a cigarette The '- moment.- ( that ; they- leave - the * -crowded Subway — .-■■ , Hurrying, rushing, pushing, shoving, •Always moving ;iri ; a monotonous pro-' i cession. v -_ i -•'- •• '-'. In the morning they rush to perform ; , miserable.-oqcupations {In factories and lofts and darkened ; rooms ;'•■"'■ And -m the : evening when! the whistle blows They rush -for. the same inevitable- cars That hurl them to their n'ndesired . . homes. . ■ ' Always these' tragic people are rushing, Pushing.' '..- . . . ■v .- ißut some day they shall go slowly, very i slowly, .... ■One at a time, to a distant quiet place-y fThe only leisurely ride they shall ever know. '".-'..' ; -" •' - j — Charles Hanson Towne, m Collier's | '- Weekly. f' . ' .