FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 41 



hustle in the wonderful, overcrowded city, in which 

 the exclusive of the Four Hundred live cheek by 

 jowl with the abusive of the Bowery, and where the 

 tinfoil trumpery of the drinking saloons in the 

 Tenderloin quarter can be seen by the aloof occu- 

 pants of the carriages that bowl along Broadway. 



The Englishman who spends even a month in 

 that land of liberty, equality and fraternity, will, 

 unless I am much mistaken, arrive at some strange 

 conclusions touching these Republican ideals. 

 Liberty ! Without one unkind thought of a city 

 that gave me of its hospitality, I venture to suggest 

 that there is in one hour of London more personal 

 liberty than in a year of New York. I have been 

 on a New York street car that took its full com- 

 plement of passengers before starting. Then, with- 

 out one word of protest from either these or the 

 conductor, as many more have boarded it within 

 the next half mile, most of them such " very 

 imperfect ablutioners " as to offer no attraction 

 whatever when it is a question of dandling them on 

 your knee. These things, after all, are a matter 

 of custom. When a very large and hot bricklayer 

 sat, without so much as "by your leave," on my 

 knee, I contrived, as I was on the outside seat, to 

 drop him in the road by a sudden straightening of 

 the right leg. The car was only just moving, and 

 no one was aware that he had left it otherwise than 

 voluntarily. When he got on his feet again he had, 

 no doubt, only the merest bruise as a reminder 

 of his unsuccessful raid on foreign territory. Had 

 he broken his back, I should probably have been 

 driven by remorse to look after him, but I saw him 

 walk after the next car without a limp. That is 



