NEW YORK. (Notes by New Zealander).

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 236, 7 January 1888, Page 4

NEW YORK. (Notes by New Zealander).

. '■. No, 3; New York — General Aspect — The Streets — The Shops — Wages Compared with New Zealand.

New York originally, and not so long ago, was limited to Manhattan Island, an area about thirteen miles in length by ten miles broad in the widest 'part. The corpo : rate limits are now extended over the main, land to the north and east ; so that the city now covers forty-one square miles, whilst on the opposite shores of all the surrounding water ways are populous towns. The East River, the Haarlem River, and the mighty Hudson, converging with the capacious harbour and numerous adjacent arms of the sea, combine all the requisites of a great port, there being over fitty miles of shore available for the loading and discharge of shipping. New York proper is long and narrow, laid out with .almost uniform regularity in rectangular blocks. The great business highway — Broadway —■ which traverses the city from and to end, takes, however, a somewhat irregular course, cutting, in some instances, diagonally across the straight "avenues" which run the whole length of the island, except those broken by Central Park. It is undoubtedly a fine street, but not so very .wide as the name implies, being 80ft between the buildings. In the crowds which throng the pavements, the ceaseless traffic in the roadway, where every vehicle which runs on wheels is represented, the shop-windows blazencd out to attract, you soe materialised, as it were, the restless' activity of American life. Many of the buildings in this and other main streets are ten to twelve storieß in height, built of brown stone, with handpome fagadeu. Astor House, where I took up my Quarters, stands on the opposite side oi Broadway from the Post Office, close to the City Hall Park ; the political and business centre of the city. This is one of the several pretty little parks with lawns and shrubberies, kept in beautiful prdor, which Broadway circles round in its course through the city. Whether it is the innate good sense of the people, or the strict supervision of the police, I cannot cay, but the " apple pie order " in which all the public reserves are maintained, freely open as they are to the public, is notable. . The handsomest street in New | York is, beyond doubt, Fifth Avenue streets running longitudinally are numbered from First to Eleventh avenues), 100 ft wide, which runs almost in the centre of Manhattan Island. It presents examples of the best church and residential architecture in the city. The older houses at the lower end are generally of brick, which gradually, as you proceed north, develops into brown stone lacings and borders, and then into uniform rows of most elaborate brown stone structures, with imposing porticos reached by broad flights of steps. As Central Park is approached, the more modern houses are of all designs and varieties of material, thus breaking down the monotony of the rich yet sombre brown. Heie and in Madison Avenue, which runs parallel between Fifth and Fourth Avcnue9, reside the crime, dt la creme of New York sdciety, and in and about this neighbourhood millionaires are as thick as gooseberries. A few days' sojourn, it may easily be understood, does not enable one to do more than form a general idea of New York, and note the more striking peculiarities. Many j characteristics are common to all big cities; but at the same time there are generally distinctive points which arrest attention, As mentioned in my last paper, the weather was exceedingly hot, exceptionally even for | the season. Whether this was the reaeon, I andthepracticewasexceptionaljlamnotable | to say ; but I remarked that business men, as well as the ordinary street loungers, were almost universally dressed in various phases I of what might be termed cool dishabille, and abjured the bell-topper and frock coats, conventional at many seasons in European and \ many colonial capitals. Straw hats were , very generally worn, and light suits frequently of flannel. Youths and boys, who by the way " pervaded space," the schools J being all closed, as they always are during the heat of the summer, abjured as a rule coats and waistcoats', and displayed a good deal of ornamental shirt— a dress by no means un picturesque. The girls looked very captivating in the light coloured airy fabrics which they affected, and the daughters of the people wore various patterns of jaunty little straw hats, in pleasing contrast to the fantastically hideous erection which the fashionable lady and those who ape* the fashions stick nowadays on their heads. Another characteristic of the streets is the frequent location of corner stalls, where the most delicious iced drinks can be had for a few cents. I especially took to cream-soda, which, flavoured with fresh fruit, strawbferry or raspberry, is really delicious. Then there are, as in all American towns, the boot-black institutionscomfortable chairs ranged against the sidewall of a by-street, an awning overhead, and rests for the feet. You sit comfortably whilst the artist, for the small sum of five cents, gives your boots or shoes a resplendent polish— a far preferable arrangement to the English one, where you have to stand on one leg, as it were, in the centre sometimes of an admiring crowd, and subject to the not very complimentary remarks of unemployed street boys. In the matter of locomotion, New York stands alone in the world in the complete system of ' elevated railways. The tracks are laid upon a firm road-bed, composed of piers and girders, forming a species of arcade above the roadway of the streets, the line being generally on a level with the first-floor windows of tho houses. In some of the wider avenues the tracks are erected upon' a line of columns at each side of the street-car track, and connected at the top by light open elliptic arch girders. In Bowery, a wide and crowded thoroughfare, the avenue of the humbler classes, lined with cheapshops; beer saloons, etc., four double sets of tramcar' rails occupy the entire' width' of the railway, while it is roofed over with another set of elevated tracks above:* The' convenience of the elevated railway for rapid* and -comfortable transit is undeniabloj the lines run through the length and'breadtb: of the! city, right up, in fact, to 'the- HaarlemRiver/ The statesmen frequent'the oars,; handsomely equipped, thefare,uniform and' moderate, being 5 cents for any- tiistanoe; On , the" other Tmnd 5 these 1 railways notably disfigure the streets through 'Which: they ruiK and more or leßS f diminish s the' value of property therein. *■ Itisno^pleasanfc.'to'say 'tfte.leasti'of it," to have"a'4oh# train 'of "cars* drawn by"' a 'snorting; 'funnel .belches foiM within- a few^feet^of Jyotft windows' every minute or so in the day and up to midnight. The better class-of,.,busmeB&*.stj:£Gts have been in most caies avoided7&ut the loss to 'mppirty-holders Mvrek told ihadibes&enoi'- j : -nious;f , , tWa^there^o > .o^j^ctioji > I gfctui{fjly - Asked ,).;aiseji to for «lngLOpn-.

,tbld, the „-whole 1 thing .was?"" financed " through the State Legislature and the City Municipality,* and, the owners "6f property had no show ! This means thrit'the necessary authorities and Bills were obtained through the .influence so woll understood, His to be much M regifetted, in American politics. It may, Be mentioned that these elevated rail; ways pay good dividends, although the first expense was enormous. The'slireet tramway service is very 'complete and well conducted, and permeates every part of the, city, even the exclusive purlieus of Madispn Square. The traction is by horses, remarkable for their splendid condition ; the fare, five cents for any distance. The conductors, as on the elevated railway, are civil enough when i addressed ; bub there is an official reserve about them Which may be generally observed in public employees in the States.

The Shop Windows. As in all great cities, the windows are an interesting study, being in fact an exhibition in themselves, illustrating tho social and cultivated life of the people. The profusion of very costly articles is striking, and one can imagine what the interiors of the houses of the well-to-do must be from the general character of the furniture and upholstery on view through the plate-glass fronts of what are literally show palaces. For the works of art that are freely displayed, tho woild would appear to have been ransacked, and when tho very high rate of duties on euch imports is considered, the prices must certainly be prohibitive, except to the very wealthy, who, however, in New York form a distinct and by no means numerically insignificant section of the community. In tho beat part of Broadway I noticed the establishments of clothiers, hosiers, and bootmakers, where the goods wore legibly ticketed, the prices evidently intended toattractby their moderation. As compared with London, and I might say' with any town in New Zealand, these price 3 were indeed eyeopeners, and demonstrated in a very practical manner tho enormous cost of wearing apparel of good quality. I am speaking within the mark when I state that all-round prices are 75 per cent, higher than goods may be seen marked at in shops of a similar class in London. The tailors I only heard of from— shall I say — their victim?. , The charges made by these tradesmen are enormous. A simple tweed morning suit costs from £10 to £12, and to my own knowledge a gentleman* well-known in Dunedin, placed himself in the hands of a fashionable artist, and had to pay lOOdol — about £20 — for the regulation evening dress — claw-hammer coat and continuations ! A "cheap swell" must have a sorry time of it in America. Heaps of shoddy garments, right onough as to cut, and with an ephemeral gloss upon them, are 'turned out by sweating factories and sold at comparatively low prices ; bub they are literally "here to-day and gone to--morrow," stand no wear and shrivel up at the least shower. There is a general and, I have reason to believe, well-founded complaint as to t fche quality of locally - manufactured material'; and clothing in consequence is a serious item of expenditure with the working classes, who require of course to be warmly clad in the long severe winters of the Eastern States. As to feminine apparel and tho thousand and one .appurtenances thereto, onegentleman whom I consulted on the subject merely groaned— he has a wife and* daughters ; another vented some New England expression unsuitable for publication. The fashionable world, import their dresses, bonnets, etc., from Paris, and it may be imagined what these cost with the high ad valorem duty added. The New York milliners have, however, a. large clientele outside the very upper circle, and make big fortunes, the import charges on silk, lace, and other materials enabling them to stick it thick on their customers. It seems, indeed, an inevitable contingency that the person who uses or consumes a protected article has to pay nob only fche amount of the duty, bub a heavy percentage thereupon. The result, however, of this particular expenditure is so far satisfactory in New York that the women of all classes whom you may see in - the streets or in Central Park are well, and in most instances tastefully dressed. I noticed, especially, a simplicity of toilet in the young people which was very becoming. As to the seaside costumes, 1 shall have something to say by-and-bye. Not only in the matter of dress, bub in respect of all other details of personal and house expenditure, New York struck me as being very expensive— so much so that I frequently asked the question: "How do people with moderate or small incomes, not to speak of the actually poor, manage to get along at all V From the information I was able to obtain, there seems no doubt that among what may be described as the lower middle class the scale on which thedomestic menage is arranged is very low, whilst I had ocular demonstration, in my rambles through the city, of the squalid wretchedness in which tens of thousands of the poorer classes exist. It is by no means "all beer and skittles" for the working man in America, and the improvident and lazy here, as elsewhere, go to the wall, and I may say hopelessly so, in the fierce competition which exists. Of one thing I am quite sure — namely, that tlse proportionate co&t of living comfortably to the rate of wages is very much to the favour of New Zealand. ■ The hours of labour are much longer, and the intense heat of summer and cold of winter must render continuous employment in outdoor work at the least improbable. That there is a large and flourishing artisan population is true, but this is the cape in all big cities. That amongst this same class there is much distress, and many failures to secure a permanent position, is also beyond question, j In regard to factory hands, as noted above, excessive competition has had the natural result of necessitating cheap production of articles inferior in quality ; hence the very large extent to which women and boys are now employed. '