Post Impressions Part 7

The Subway has brought this delightful region within the radius of ordinary tourist travel, though I am told that the element of adventure has not been completely eliminated, owing to the necessity of transferring at Atlantic Avenue, where it is still the custom of the traffic policemen to direct pa.s.sengers to the wrong car. At the time of which I am speaking, Prospect Park South lay off the beaten track, but the difficulties of the venture were atoned for by the delight of finding one's self, at the journey's end, in a world of new impressions, a world untouched by the rush and clamour of our own days, and steeped in the colour and poetry which Cook's, cotton goods, and the cinematograph have been wiping out in Europe and the Near East.

There were no Baedekers then for travellers to Prospect Park South.

To-day I presume guide-books and maps may be purchased at the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge if people still go by that route. We did without guide-books or guides, because the inhabitants of Prospect Park South were a kindly folk and as a rule would wait for visitors at the trolley stops, with an umbrella. When this did not happen, we asked our way from pa.s.sers-by. These were always strangers who had lost their way.

The inhabitants were either peacefully at home or waiting at the trolley stops. For that matter an inhabitant, when encountered by rare chance, was not really of a.s.sistance. A resident always referred to streets and avenues by the names they bore when he first moved in; and inasmuch as the streets in Prospect Park South are renamed every year and the street numbers altered at the same time, the settlers, who would find their own homes by intuition, were worse than useless as guides. On the other hand, to meet a stranger who was lost was always a help. It was a peculiarity of strangers who were lost in Prospect Park South that they would always be pa.s.sing the street you were looking for, while you in turn had just turned in from the street they were looking for, so that an exchange of information was always mutually profitable.

The following hints for travellers to Prospect Park South are based upon our experiences of some years ago. Those who go by the Interborough tube will probably find that changed conditions have rendered many of these rules obsolete. But for those who go by way of Brooklyn Bridge they may still be of some value. First then as to dress. As a rule one should dress for Prospect Park South very much as for a short run to Europe.

That is to say, woollens are always preferable, especially in the rainy season (which in Prospect Park South is coextensive with the visiting season), owing to the long waits between cars. It is true, as I have said, that the inhabitants of Prospect Park South are accustomed to wait at the trolley stations with an umbrella, and no household is without a full a.s.sortment of old mackintoshes and rubbers to lend to improvident visitors who believed the weather reports in the paper. But house parties in Prospect Park South are frequently large and there may not be enough old raincoats to go around. A light overcoat, an umbrella, rubbers or a pair of stout shoes, and a pocket electric light for reading names on the street lamps at night, will be found sufficient for the ordinary traveller.

The choice of route is important. Those who, like us, live in upper Manhattan may lay their plans (excluding the Subway) either for the Ninth Avenue L or the Sixth Avenue L. As far south as Fifty-third Street the two lines coincide. Below Fifty-third Street the question of route should be determined by one's personal preferences in the matter of scenery; though not entirely. Veteran travellers a.s.sure me that there is also a difference in comfort. The curves are sharper on Sixth Avenue, but there are more flat wheels on the Ninth Avenue line. According as the tourist is susceptible to lateral or vertical disturbances he will make his choice. The front and rear cars are to be recommended above all others because a seat may always be obtained. I recognise, however, that if the traveller has long been a resident of New York he will force his way into the middle cars. Then, hanging from a strap, he may curse the company and be in turn cursed by the quick-tempered gentleman upon whose feet he is standing.

A phrase-book is not necessary. The English language is used on both the Sixth and Ninth Avenue lines, and being equally incomprehensible, cannot be looked up in a dictionary. Only legal currency of the United States is accepted at the ticket-offices, but change is frequently given in Canadian dimes. It is convenient, but not essential, to supply one's self with reading matter at the beginning of the trip. Newspapers are always to be had for the picking on the floor of the cars. The question of fresh air, a topic of constant unpleasant controversy between American travellers and Europeans on the Continent, need not concern the traveller here. The matter is regulated by the company management which keeps the windows closed in summer and open in winter. Pa.s.sengers of an independent turn of mind will be wary of opening windows on their own account. The sudden entrance of air following upon the heavy perspiration induced by the effort has been known to lead to pneumonia.

With these few general considerations in mind, we may proceed to give a rapid sketch of the route the tourist traverses. As we have said, down to Fifty-third Street the pa.s.senger on the Sixth Avenue and on the Ninth Avenue will pa.s.s through the same landscape. As the train makes the magnificent curve through One Hundred and Tenth Street he will have before him on the right the towering ma.s.s of the Cathedral of St. John, which a kindly neighbour will tell him is Columbia University, and on the left the lovely, wooded heights of Central Park, their base skirted by a low line of garages and French dyeing establishments. At Ninety-eighth Street, on the right, is a water tower of red brick, which probably has the distinction of being the tallest water tower on Ninety-eighth Street. At Seventy-seventh Street to the left is the Museum of Natural History, which the same kindly informant to whom we have referred will describe as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On every cross street to the right one may catch a glimpse of the beautiful Riverside Drive with the smoke from the New York Central's freight engines rising above the trees.

At Fifty-third Street the Sixth Avenue trains diverge to the left for a short distance and then, turning south once more, carry the traveller through a region heavily overgrown with skeleton advertising signs of woman's apparel and table waters. If the Ninth Avenue route is selected the vista is one of tenement houses and factories. At Thirty-third Street is the new Pennsylvania Station, the cost of which the same kindly neighbour will exaggerate by several hundred millions of dollars.

Ten blocks further down are the buildings of the General Theological Seminary, so beautiful in line and colour that no resident of New York ever alludes to them. A few minutes further down the train rounds a curve and the traveller, if he goes in the early morning, as every visitor to Prospect Park South must, catches a glimpse of the fairy land of steeples and battlements of lower New York, a Camelot wreathed with wisps of steam. For the lover of scenery the Ninth Avenue is to be unhesitatingly recommended, whereas the Sixth Avenue route will give pleasure to the citizen who takes pride in the development of our garment industries.

I have no s.p.a.ce to describe the interesting views to be had while crossing Brooklyn Bridge. I can only mention the harbour with the sunlight upon it, a spectacle of loveliness for which New York will be forgiven much. Straight under the span of the bridge is the pier from which Colonel Roosevelt set sail for South America. On the left, close to the edge of the river, is the beetling ma.s.s of sugar refineries famous the world over as the scene of an epoch-making experiment in modifying the law of gravitation, when the sugar company succeeded in weighing in three thousand pounds of sugar to the ton and paying duty on the smaller amount to the United States Government.

Of the trip through Brooklyn to Prospect Park South I will not attempt to give any description. For that matter I will not pretend that on any of our journeys I have carried away a definite idea of Brooklyn. For that a lifetime is necessary.

XIII

UNREVISED SCHEDULES

Life's ironies beset us whichever way we turn. The very day that Woodrow Wilson signed the tariff bill, I discovered that Emmeline is a Protectionist.

Thrice in the course of the evening I alluded, with pretended calm, to the signing of the bill, without awakening the least response in Emmeline. The tariff apparently had no meaning to her. Thereupon I reproached her openly.

"It is characteristic of your s.e.x," I said, "not to betray the slightest interest in a matter that comes so intimately home to you. Here is a bill which is bound to affect the problem of high prices. Every woman who carries a market basket, every woman who shops, every woman who has the management of a household on her hands, is directly concerned in the question of lower tariff duties. Yet I dare say you haven't read two lines on the subject in your newspaper."

"What have we been paying duties on?" she said.

"On everything," I replied with spirit. "Anchors, for instance. We have been paying one cent a pound on them. That means twenty dollars a ton.

You know what the average anchor weighs, so you can figure out for yourself what we have been paying out all these years for this commodity alone. We have been paying 85 per cent. on bunion plasters, 10 per cent.

on animals' claws, and 85 per cent. on teazels."

"But we hardly ever use any of these things," she said.

"I was simply ill.u.s.trating the iniquitous extremes to which our tariff advocates were prepared to go," I said. "It may seem natural to put a duty on beef, and shoes, and cotton goods. But the tariff barons were not content. Insatiable greed demanded that a tax be put on teazels."

"What is a teazel?" she said.

"I am not sure that I know," I replied. "But that just ill.u.s.trates one of the favourite methods of the tariff plunderers. It consisted in slapping a stiff duty on articles people did not know the meaning of and so would pay without protest. I say teazels, but, of course, I mean meat, and sugar, and cotton, and woollen goods, all of which things will soon be within the reach of all. I should imagine that women would be grateful for what has been done to make the living problem so much easier."

"Under the new tariff bill," she said, "will there still be only twenty-four hours to the day?"

"The new tariff doesn't repeal the laws of astronomy," I replied.

"That is what I was thinking when you spoke of the living problem being made easier for us," she said. "Putting twelve more hours into the day would be a help. Did the old tariff have a big duty on hanging up pictures?"

"I don't know what you are driving at," I said, but in my heart I thought I knew.

"I mean," she said, "around moving time. I have always thought there must be a very heavy tax on every picture that a man hangs up; or rugs--"

I decided that frivolity was the best way out of a situation that had suddenly become menacing. "Usually we don't hang up rugs," I said.

"That may be an oversight on our part," she replied. "Perhaps, if we hung up rugs and put pictures on the floor it might appeal to your pa.s.sion for romance. You might even find it exhilarating."

The idea seemed to fascinate her.

"There are a great many things," she went on, "that I should like to see on the free list. Seats in the Subway, for instance. I stood up all the way from Twenty-third Street this afternoon, but I suppose the duty on a man's giving up his seat to a woman is prohibitive. Then there's Mrs.

Flanagan who comes in by the day. She has a baby who is teething and cries all night. I wish there was a lower duty on babies' teeth, so that they came easier; and on sleep for mothers who have to go out by the day. I also wish there was a lower duty on the whisky that her husband consumes. She could possibly afford to stay at home more than she does."

"He'd only drink himself to death," I said.

But she was not paying attention. "There might be a lower duty on efficient domestic help. It would be a relief."

"Foreign household help are not under the tariff law at all," I said.

"They come in free."

"That's what the girl said yesterday when she decided to quit, an hour before dinner. And from the way she spoke to me I imagine that her language also came in free. The more I think of it the fewer advantages I can see for us women under your new tariff bill." And then the bitter truth came out. "I think that on the whole I am in favour of a high tariff on most things."

"You are in favour of Protection," I stammered, hardly believing my senses.

"I am in favour of protecting domestic industry," said Emmeline, and I saw that she had been reading the newspapers more carefully than I imagined.

The protective system which Emmeline outlined to me that evening would have made Senator Penrose sob for joy. One of the first things she demanded was a heavy duty on tobacco. She said she would be satisfied with a flat rate of 100 per cent. on the nasty article, with a super tax of 100 per cent. on all half-smoked cigars left lying around the house, and another 100 per cent. on cigar ashes and half-burnt matches.

Alcoholic spirits should be totally excluded. She wanted a pretty heavy duty on raincoats left lying on chairs when they should be hung up on the proper hook. She was also in favour of a prohibitive tax on all arguments tending to prove that woman's natural sphere is the home.

Lodge dues, club dues, and the practice of reading newspapers at the breakfast table should be heavily taxed. There were a great many other schedules she proposed, carrying a minimum duty of seventy-five per cent. I cannot pretend to remember all, but my impression is that plays dealing with the social evil and eugenics were among them.

By this time it will be apparent that Emmeline's views on tariff legislation were somewhat confused. She evidently made no distinction between import duties, internal revenue taxes, and the police power of the State. Before continuing our discussion I therefore insisted that we restrict debate to the specific question of import duties and the cost of living. The simple fact was that we had now changed from a high-tariff nation to a low-tariff nation. How would this affect ourselves and our neighbours?

Thereupon I was subjected to a severe examination as to tariffs and prices in other countries. My answers were, in a general fashion, correct, though possibly I may have confused the British tariff system with that of Germany.

"From your statements, so far as I can make head or tail out of them,"

said Emmeline, "I gather that in protection countries the cost of food and clothing and rent is always just a little ahead of wages and salaries."

"You have followed me perfectly," I said.

"Whereas in low-tariff countries people's wages and salaries are always just a little behind the cost of food, clothing, and shelter.

"That is due to quite a different set of causes," I said.