II 



NEW YORK CITY 



TALL buildings, tall fortunes, tall things generally 

 appeal to some eyes more sympathetically than to 

 others. The gospel of the skyscraper, the ethics of 

 the Oil Trust, do not command the respect of all 

 alike. That there is something indefinably impres- 

 sive about the hustle and haste of this long and 

 narrow island city is undeniable. Whether even 

 its own citizens think it really a thing of beauty, I 

 am uncertain. The lady who, on board the ship 

 drawing to her moorings, introduced me to its roofs 

 from afar, called it so, but in her voice rang a half- 

 defiant doubt. And yet, and yet there is a 

 hypnotism about its tiers of hurrying, money-hunt- 

 ing traders, herding in the streets and over bridges, 

 soaring to overhead railroads and delving in brightly 

 illuminated subways, that, having in the ordinary 

 way no warm love of the life of cities, I essayed in 

 vain to resist. 



He who comes to New York fresh from the 

 unsophisticated expenditure of European capitals 

 gets early indication of a new standard of living. 

 A fifteen-shilling cab fare from the docks to his 

 hotel on Fifth Avenue, a drive that half-a-crown 

 would cover from any London terminus, is quickly 

 succeeded by a charge of a sovereign a night for a 

 room. True, the cab is better upholstered and may 

 be even better horsed than the average London 



18 



