Humorous stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
A woman who has traveled a good deal is generally polite, and knows how
to treat her fellow passengers and the porter, but people who are making
their first or second trip, I notice, most generally betray the fact by
tramping all over the other passengers.
Another mistake, Henry, which I hope you will not make, is that of
taking very small children to travel. Children should remain at home
until they are at least two or three days old, otherwise they are
troublesome to their parents and also bother the other passengers. There
ought to be a law, too, that would prevent parents from taking larger
children who should be in the reform school. Some parents seem to think
that what their children do is funny, when, instead of humor, it is
really felony. It does not entirely set matters right, for instance,
when a child has torn off a gentleman's ear, merely to make the child
return it to the owner, for you can never put an ear back in its place
after it has been torn off and stepped on, in such a way as to make it
look the same as it did at first.
I heard a mother say on the train that her little boy never was quite
himself while traveling, because he wasn't well. She feared it was the
change in the water that made him sick. He had then drank a whole
ice-water tank empty, and was waiting impatiently till we got to
Pittsburg, so that he could drink out of the hydrant.
Queer people also ride on the elevated trains here in New York. It is a
singular experience to a stranger to ride on these cars. It made me ill
at first, but after awhile I got so mad that I forgot about it. For
instance, at places like Fourteenth street, and Twenty-third street, and
Park Place, there are generally several people who want to get aboard a
little before the passengers get off. Two or three times I was carried
by because the guards wouldn't enforce the rule, and I had a good deal
of trouble, till I took an old pair of Mexican spurs out of my trunk and
strapped them on my elbows. After that I could stroll along Broadway, or
get off a train when I got ready, and have some comfort.
The gates on the elevated trains get shet rather sudden
sometimes, and once they shet in a part of a man, I was
told, and left the rest of him on the outside, so that after a while he
fell off over the trestle, because there was more of him on the outside
than on the inside, and he didn't seem to balance somehow. It was rare
sport for the guards to watch the man scraping along the side of the
road and sweeping off the right of way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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