VAGABOND IMPRESSIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2622, 2 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

VAGABOND IMPRESSIONS.

LONDON OR NEW YORK

(By Frank Fox, in the “Daily Mail.”) Mr. Frank Fox, who is recording his “Vagabond Impressions” of Great Britain, in the “Daily ...mil,” has been described by an ex-Pirime Minister of the Commonwealth as “the man who, of his age, has had most influence in shaping Australian notional opinion." At eighteen Mr. Fox was editor of tlie “Australian Workman,” and did much to keep the nascent Labor party in the path of reasonable pregressiveness. Later, as editor of the “National Advocate,” an important provincial daily, he largely aided the Federal movement. For the last seven years Mr. Fox has been on the editoral staff of the “Sydney Bulletin,” and founded for that paper “The Lone Hand,” a monthly review and magazine with a strong national. but noir-partisan policy.

“London, the suburb of the uni

verse!” sneered Maldonado in Sir Arthur Pinero’s “Iris.” I have not yet been able to discover any foundation of truth for the sneer. But a very brief acquaintance with Nexv York convinced me that here was the “province” of the universe. In its absolutely self-centred self-satisfaction : in its pitying scorn of all who cud not live in New York; in the hard-fixed conventions of its social life, the capital city of the United States is the tvpical provincial town.

The true Nexv Yorker herds thickly in New York to the painful congestion of its small area, the millionaire in ornate flats, the proletariat in sordid tenement houses, because to live out of Nexv York is to be lost to Nexv York. To cross the River to Jersey City, where gardens are possible, is to be a strange faddist, something foreign and alien. To cross tlio river to Brooklyn is to be socially damned. “I tell you that to live out of sight of Broadxvay is just camping out,” said the cook in a dining car to me one night, when the skill of his grilling had thaxved away the barrier between chef and passenger. That is the sentiment of the New York worker. “Must be on the Riverside Drive or Central Park Avenue,” says the millionaire, xvhen ordering a flat. Both boxv to the one idea, that New York is xvhat Greece was to the Athenian of the days of Pericles; and the rest of the world is the "outer barbarism. Yet New York, except to the very rich, is not a pleasant place to lix-e in. The very many little squares and the parks which make up one fulltenth of London’s area and which make pleasant so many quiet cheap houses are almost altogether lacking. NEW YORK RUDENESS.

Tlie Nexv Yorker, of course, may travel; in fact, it is fashionable for him to natronise Europe and other places at intervals, to avoid the rigors of his curious climate, which is impossibly hot in summer and impossibly cold in winter. But he must consider those as periods of ■axile. Tjbe loathing contempt ‘xvitli which the New Yorker looks xipon his fellow-citizen xvho comes to live permanently in London or elsewhere is more than a mere expression of civic patriotism. It has its root in a profound conviction of something being radically wrong with the other felloxv’s character or mental equipment. “He has a diseased taste for servility. Must have servants crawling on all-fours around him. Lacks the Republican character.” Such is the gist of the explanation usually found.

There is certainly no gratification for a “diseased taste for servility” in Now York; nor even for a liking for common politeness. Rudeness, deliberate and sometimes quite savage rudeness. is the prevailing note of social intercourse between strangers of different classes. The poor man is rude so as to fly the flag of his democratic independance. The rich man is rude because that is part of the joy of his riches: and perhaps from a feeling that he may be a poor man again to-morroxv and must not get out of his old. habits. Abox*e all, the public servant is rude. I never in my life experienced such deliberate and systematic rudeness as that shown by the Central Park (New York) rangers and some of the petty railway servants. The deepening of the prevailing not of rudeness when the servants of the public come to bo considered is one of the symptoms of the disquieting cynicism of the New Yorker towards his gox’-ernment system. He believes, or affects to believe, that every public, servant, high or low, has bought his place or owes it to some corruption. He talks that way. It is not an encouragement to manU self-respect on the part of the servants of the public; and xvithout self-respect civility is impossible. Now. in London, as I have before noted, there is a general urbanity which shows far more real democracy than the- rudeness of New York. On the whole, the Republic, taking ■‘Republic” in the sense of our great English word “Commonwealth,” is not much of a reality in Nexv York. The cult of individualism is carried to such an extent that the public good seems to be considered by very few. Every man is for himself, and none for the State. This individualism, savage in its intensity, does not make for real liberty, the foundation of xvhich must be respect for the rights of others. The New Yorker is fond of affirming that he is a free man. But he really hankers for some sort of rule; this shoxvs itself in his designing all kinds of utterly foolish conventions. A BITTER CLASS WAR.

Withal, the individual Nexv Yorker, xvhen you meet him socially or in business, can be very charming. He is more easily accessible than tlie Englishman in the same xvalk of life. Especially is this noticeable among businessmen, xvho are xvilling to see and hear almost everybody. It does not require the sacramental “introduction” that Emerson speaks of in his notes on England to secure an audience. In this, at least, there is a genuine Republicanism. Also, I should think there is “good business.” The bitterness of the class war in New York is, however, the very antagonism of all that Republicanism should mean. The average rich man seems to have a stronger desire- to “rub it in” to the other felloxv who is not so- rich. His ostentatious extravagances offend not only the social ideal, but also the canons of good taste. He seems to seek out means of squandering his money xvhich do not add to his comfort but only to his reputation for riches. At the opposite end of the pole the poor look across the fold at the rich with savage hatred. They have a doubt, perhaps quite reasonable, as to xvhether- these people have anr better right to be rich than they, and they are not, as in England, conciliated by ia generally xvise use”of riches for social amelioration.