The Charms of Living in New York.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4986, 20 April 1889, Page 3

The Charms of Living in New York.

“ You see, it is in this way,” said the New York man, as he was walking along the street talking to a man from out of town. “ New Yorkers won’t have anything but the best of everything. This being the metropolis of the western continent, we are put in a position where we can have our pile of everything, and you can well,believe we take the best every time. You will notice this,” he went on, as they just managed to get out of the way of a truck team on a crossing, got punched in the backs with the pole of a furniture van, heard the driver of an ice wagon swearing at them, and were well spattered with the six inches of mud on the pavement by a hack team being driven 12 miles an hour : “you will notice this the longer you stay here. Little annoyances that you have been accustomed to submit to, you will see regulated in New York. We reason like this,” he went on, as he dodged round a couple of garbage barrels, and a brick fell from the sixth storey of a now building, and cut a notch Jout of his hat brim ; “ our idea is this : that if we demand the best and stick to it wo get it. Of course, now, in your town, a country village, you have some rural advantages that wo can’t have j but then, we have numberless other advantages that you can know nothing of. New York," he ran on, as his foot slipped on a banana peeling and a [policeman threatened to arrest him for being drunk, and a grocery waggon horse took a bite out of his coat sleeve, “New York leads in everything in this country. It is not, of course London or Paris, but wo manage things better hero.” “ In the old countries,” he continued as he dodged a bob-tail car that already had blood on its wheels, jumped ten feet to one side as the cap on'an electric subway blew off with a loud report, and stood and waited for a procession of ten trucks to pass, each one of which spattered two quarts of mud as it went over a loose place in the pavement, “ over there the people haven’t got the energy they have here, and they don’t demand the best like wo do, and so they don’t get it. Now with us, he went on as he rubbed an elevated rail-road cinder deeper into his eye aud felt hot water running down his back from the same source and went up the dirty and crowded steps and the ticket seller refused to take a good quarter because it was a little worn, and the ticket chopper accused him of only dropping in one ticket, and the guard slammed the gate in their faces and swore at them a couple of times, “ with us we pride ourselves on leading in everything in this country; we have that reputation and so have to keep it up.” “ This elevated road,” he continued, as the next guard yelled “step lively there” and they crowded into a car and hung on to each other because there were already two men and one woman [suspended from each strap j “ this road is something you won’t find anywhere else. Instead of crawling along in street cars or paying exorbitant fares wo have this to carry us back and forth at a rapid rate. As I said, New Yorkers demand and get the best. We —’ here the train ran into another one, and the car ahead fell into the street, and the one behind stood on an end. “ Sit still right whore you are on the window,” shouted the New Yorker from where he lay on the roof with four men on him: “ keep perfectly still; the coroner will be hero inside of ton minutes. We have the best system of coroner service in the world—nothing but the best satisfies us, you know. Breathe easy and hang on—you’ll never want to live anywhere else after trying New York for two weeks.”