Life — July 16, 1896 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

574 *LIFE: topples over in the morning a new one, twice as tall with foundations exactly as good is erected in the afternoon, We see now a city, risen from the marshes, malaria and microbes of the original Mosesville filled with beautiful and transcendent works of art, graced with statues of the most prominent barbers, hack- writers, chiropodists, saloon-keepers, vivisectionists, nd, other great men who have gone before. As we walk along our public streets, filled also, as a rule, we view with pride our magnificent theatres—those superb works of art, made possible only by the genius of a Hammerstein or a Frohman, and scarcely touched by even some of our most elaborate saloons. With feelings of the deepest veneration we gaze upon our modern places of worship, The New Puck BUILDING. where politics are taught with the Bible asa text-book, the art of dressmaking is transmitted from woman to woman, where children learn to do others in secret as their parents have done before them, and where the salary of the preacher is governed by Divine Providence and his business ability. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. Strolling through the residence portions of the town, with their individual expenditure accounts stretching out in the distance beyond their incomes, we are struck by the air of quiet discontentment that prevails, and as we pass along the principal boulevards and note the bicycle faces of those who ride in carriages, we marvel at the greatness of a city that makes so much unhappi- ness possible. All this, however, is the bright side of the metropolis. The intending visitor, in order to get a good idea of the misery, the depths of degradation which are always an inherent part of any great civiliza- tion, should pass down into the slums in the lower part of the town and visit the World office. And now with the Greater New York at hand, what must be the future of our city? With Jamaica, New Dorp, Mount Vernon and Brooklyn stretching out their arms to receive us, what possi S are there in store! With countless loon sites crying from the wilder- ness to be opened up; with streets and avenues, now lying waste and sterile, to be filled later on with our actors and actresses, honoring the atmosphere with their presence; with some of our best reportorial talent blazing out on the primitive oaks of Long Island, new sources to criminality; with new statues on every stump, Raines inspectors with burglars’ kits, cable - cars mowing their way through the best blood in fields and pastures new, and every builder his own architect, what vast and hitherto unimagined IN THE WAKE OF A CABLE CARA SCENE ON BROADWAY AT THE PRESENT TIME, blessings await us ! 7. M. comicbooks.com