Life — July 29, 1897 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Life’s Personally Conducted Tours. BAR HARBOR. HEN an abandoned farm has lost its savor, when even a loan cannot be raised upon its stubborn soil, it becomes time to advertise its health-giving qualities, to praise its scenery, and saw it up into building lots; and then it is ripe fora New England summer resort. Bar Harbor is still in the transitional stage, between hay and grass, and has all the picturesque beauty of South Chicago, It was dis- covered years ago by a band of wandering impressionists, who were regarded by the natives as harmless imbeciles. Returning to civilization, they exhausted their lungs in singing its praises; when this inexpensive advertising had ripened the fruit of the golden boom tree, certain guileless philan- thropists slipped down the coast and bought up a job lot of farms, beaches, crags and mountains, which they retailed by the inch to insane cottagers. The artless hotel man camped upon their trail, and built papier- maché caravansaries, where frugal fare with French names was served to hunger-mad- dened creatures, jocularly termed guests. Under such benign auspices the place grew in spasms; first families, who were kept VIEW AT BAR HARBOR. off the grass in Newport, rushed in to build up a new reservation for a new nobility. Politicians of the reform and chloroform school landed on the coast and inaugurated booms. Naval secretaries ordered fleets down there to guard the deserted summer girl and gladden the lard shark; and the argosies of yacht clubs sailed in with great e/an, only to be discouraged by the sparkling {usel oils of Neal Dow's State. . * * T was in Bar Harbor that the original summer girl was hatched; she of the numberless engagements; she who has be- come the staple summer jeu d esprit of the syndicate humorist. Bar Harbor has its drawbacks; it lacks good male facilities ; it is too far distant for the fascinating youth of bank and broker's office who creates a Sunday sensation in girl-congested watering places; it must content itself with young fellows in the forties and d/asé college men, who ex- pect to be worshipped, and have to put on their hats with shoe-horns, Its favorite diversion is canoeing—birch bark accommo- dation for two, one to languish, one to pad- dle; and out on the summer sea the dreamy hours float by; and anon the thick, moist Fundy fog obscures the chaperon on the rocks, and convention is thrown to the sea- dogs. The Bar Harbor fog would be missed. Buckboards with narrow seats are popular; passengers must sit snugly. Alpine exercises onthe mountain, requiring much handling and frequent secluded rests, are much in vogue by young people. But the fatal British dog and village-carts are comiog in, driving out the simple, unholy joys of the gum-chew- ing period, for the brand newly-rich must exhibit their superior manners in some way, and Luckboards and free osculation are very vulgar. * . * HE grand old New England grocery still blooms at Bar Harbor, serene and confident amid the garish vivacity of eccen- tric cottages and mortuary bath-houses, Men and women, whose clothes and menials cow and abash the lower orders in Boston and Brooklyn, congregate there, furgetting their acquired austerity and renewing their youth amid the grateful odors of salt cod and mo- lasses, recalling the halcyon days of yore when gum boots and blue overalls, with the perfume of kine and fertilizers, gave no prom- ise of an age of red-plush upholstery and damaged livers. Flanking the ancient grocery and its soiled majordomo are the picturesque Oriental booths where beaus and belles in tennis suits wander, admiring the bizarre products of China, India and Japan—made in distant Connecticut, The fairest daughters of Skowhegan and Bucksport sell these dainty wares, and engage in coy badinage with the beach masher in the silvery patois of Maine. Anon the excitement of the daily mail stirs Bar Harbor to its depths; the merry revel at the Pool raises the fluttering hopes of the summer g rl; and all go downto the snorting steamer to see the ill-starred tourist led away by the hotel man to the purchase of gold bricks. Indian maidens clad in vociferous garments camp under the eye of the constable in oil- skins, and perchance glide stealthily through the merry throngs, retailing moccasins and baskets made for the summer trade by the bloodthirsty warriors of Attleboro’, Mass. As these simple, unbathed and travel-stained