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Before the first street-car line, which was a shambling affair, had been laid on Front Street, the streets of Philadelphia had been crowded with hundreds of springless omnibuses rattling over rough, hard, cobblestones. The city was as eager to see street-cars replace omnibuses as it was to see railroads replace canals. There was opposition, of course. There always is in such cases.
You cannot, for example, chloroform the vocalist in the neighboring apartment, nor stop the street-cars while you study; you cannot rule out fatigue sensations entirely, and you cannot build a fence around the focus of your mind so as to keep out unwelcome and irrelevant ideas.
"Be present at interview between Miss Martha Lacey and the girl. "Let Miss Martha take the lead." There were a few further instructions, but Miss Lacey here broke in upon the reading. "I'm going to ask you to do one more gallant thing for me, Sir Walter." "I'm ready." "Put me on the right car for Hotel Frisbie. The Boston street-cars are a hopeless muddle to me, always were and always will be."
We are breeding in our slums a degenerate race,-boys who grow up used to vice, and girls that drift naturally into prostitution; we are allowing disease to spread from them, through the children that go to the public schools, the shop-girls we buy from in the stores, the servants that enter our houses, the men we rub elbows with on the street or in the street-cars.
Over the hill were the yellow towering walls of a great hotel in Central Park West. In the street below could be heard the jingle of street-cars. On a road in the park could be seen a moving line of pleasure vehicles society taking an airing in the chill November afternoon. "Poverty, ostracism," she thought. And should she marry rich? Of course, if she could. And whom should she marry?
Instead of darting straight out of the alley, the men turned in at a small gate at the side of a narrow building on the corner, and slammed the gate behind them. He could hear the drop of the wooden bolt. He knew perfectly that entrance. It was to the littered back yard of a cheap saloon, at the side of which ran a narrow passageway to the street beyond, where street-cars passed every half-minute.
The shop-fronts glowed through frosty panes, the passers bustled on the pavement, the bells of the street-cars jangled in the cold air, the newsboys hawked the evening papers, the vestibules of the theatres, illuminated and flanked with coloured posters and the photographs of actresses, exhibited seductively their swinging doors of red leather or baize, spotted with little brass nails.
You see I was on the lookout for a fare, but wasn't expecting one, on account of the fact that this here train was an accommodation, and folks that usually come in on it take street-cars and not a taxi. Well, the minute I seen a good-lookin', well-dressed woman comin' out the door, I sort of noticed. It surprised me first off, because I asked myself what she was doing on that train."
In the hearts of these men, moving about in their dim-lighted room, was reëchoed the joyous murmur of the great world without: the gayety of the throngs in city streets, where the brilliant shop-windows, rich with holiday spoils, smile out upon the passing crowd, and the clang of street-cars and roar of traffic mingle with the cries of street-venders.
Arthur, who had naturally taken a prominent part in this case, was regarded by the colored people of New York as a champion of their interests, and it was not long before they sought his aid. At that time, colored people were not permitted to ride in the street-cars in New York City, with the exception of a few old and shabby cars set aside for their occupation.
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