THE TWO KANSAS CITIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43089, 7 May 1907, Page 1

THE TWO KANSAS CITIES.

Much confusion is created in the minds of English readers, and even of many intelligent Americans, by the fact that there are two cities of the same name— the famous Kansas City in the state of Kansas, and the equally important and celebrated Kansas City, in the state of Missouri. Now this unfortunate confusion in * nomenclature is easily to be explained, but it is to be regretted all the same. It is productive not only of mental bewilderment, but also of political chaos. I have-often felt when travelling in the United States a considerable degree of difficulty in disting* ushing where I was exactly while rambling about, the borders of two States. It is easy enough to feel at Phillipsburg that; you are in New Jersey, and that at Easlon you have passed from New Jersey suddenly into Pennsylvania, because the magnificent River Deleware roll \ between the two cities > and divides the two States. Also when I have from Cincinnati gone over the fine bridge spanning the Ohio River aud entered Covington, L' have felt definitely'that. Jt had left Ohio and was in Kentucky. But it must be recollected that, when you make any such transit, you instantly placed yourself under the operation of new daws. I have been in an automobile iu New York Stale,'•"-but after ' we had rolled across the Hudson River into New Jersey my host remarked, u Now in this State we must miud what we are doing, for we shall be.far more closely watched by the police' and nfbre heavily fined if we trangress any of the New J ersey regulatious.” I have gone into these little - details because they illustrate very vividly the difficulty that > has arisen in the Temperance situation in the two Kansas and Missouri. Tffise two fine aud rapidly growing cities are divided only by an imaginary line. They are not separated as are London and Southwark, or Liverpool and Birkenhead or Rochester and Chatham. And as, without the slightest physical line of demarcation, the two great towns are in two different States, yet in reality form one vast city, the inevitable j umbling of legislative conditions may be imagined. A family on one side of a street, or at one end of a street,may be in Kansas, while a family on the other side or a‘t the other end will be in > Missouri. We in England can scarcely comprehend what this means, For each State of the Union is in reality auindependent country, so far as its inte;n.l politios are concerned.

be Continued.)