[Illustration]
Climbing aboard car No. 13--ominously labelled "Mt. Moriah"--I voyaged
toward West Philadelphia. It was a keen day, the first snow of winter
had fallen, and sparkling gushes of chill swept inward every time the
side doors opened. The conductor, who gets the full benefit of this
ventilation, was feeling cynical, and seeing his blue hands I didn't
blame him. Long lines of ladies, fumbling with their little bags and
waiting for change, stepped off one by one into the windy eddies of the
street corners. One came up to pay her fare ten blocks or so before her
destination, and then retired to her seat again. This puzzled the
conductor and he rebuked her. The argument grew busy. To the amazement
of the passengers this richly dressed female brandished lusty epithets.
"You Irish mick!" she said. (One would not have believed it possible if
he had not heard it.) "That's what I am, and proud of it," said he. The
shopping solstice is not all fur coats and pink cheeks. If you watch the
conductors in the blizzard season, and see the slings and arrows they
have to bear, you will coin a new maxim. The conductor is always right.
It is always entertaining to move for a little in a college atmosphere.
I stopped at College Hall at the University and seriously contemplated
slipping in to a lecture. The hallways were crowded with earnest youths
of both sexes--I was a bit surprised at the number of co-eds,
particularly the number with red hair--discussing the tribulations of
their lot. "Think of it," said one man, "I'm a senior, and carrying
twenty-three hours. Got a thesis to do, 20,000 words." On a bulletin
board I observed the results of a "General Intelligence Exam." It
appears that 1,770 students took part. They were listed by numbers, not
by names. It was not stated what the perfect mark would have been; the
highest grade attained was 159, by Mr. (or Miss?) 735. The lowest mark
was 23. I saw that both 440 and 1124 got the mark of 149. If these
gentlemen (or ladies) are eager to play off the tie, it would be a
pleasure to arrange a deciding competition for them. The elaborate care
with which the boys and girls ignore one another as they pass in the
halls was highly delightful, and reminded me of exactly the same thing
at Oxford. But I saw the possible beginning of true romance in the
following notice on one of the boards:
WANTED: Names and addresses of ten nice American university
students who must remain in Philadelphia over Christmas, away
from home, to be invited to a Christmas Eve party to help
entertain some Bryn Mawr College girls in one of the nicest homes
in a suburb of Philadelphia.
Certainly there is the stage set for a short story. Perhaps not such a
short one, either.
Naturally I could not resist a visit to the library, where most of the
readers seemed wholly absorbed, though one student was gaping forlornly
over a volume of Tennyson. I found an intensely amusing book, "Who's Who
in Japan," a copy of which would be a valuable standby to a newspaper
paragrapher in his bad moments. For instance:
SASAKI, TETSUTARO: One of the highest taxpayers of Fukushima-ken,
President of the Hongu Reeling Partnership, Director of the Dai
Nippon Radium Water Co.; brewer, reeler; born Aug., 1860.
SAKURAI, ICHISAKU: Member of the Niigata City Council; Director
of the Niigata Gas Co., Niigata Savings Bank. Born June, 1872,
Studied Japanese and Chinese classics and arithmetic. At present
also he connects with the Niigata Orphanage and various other
philanthropic bodies. Was imprisoned by acting contrary to the
act of explosive compound for seven years. Recreations: reading,
Western wine.
Relying on my apparent similarity to the average undergrad, I
plunged into the sancta of Houston Hall and bought a copy of the
_Punch Bowl_. What that sprightly journal calls "A little group
of Syria's thinkers" was shooting pool. The big fireplaces, like
most fireplaces in American colleges, don't seem to be used. They
don't even show any traces of ever having been used, a curious
contrast to the always blazing hearths of English colleges. The
latter, however, are more necessary, as in England there is
usually no other source of warmth. A bitter skirmish of winds,
carrying powdered snow dust, nipped round the gateways of the
dormitories and Tait McKenzie's fine statue of Whitefield stood
sharply outlined against a cold blue sky. I lunched at a varsity
hash counter on Spruce Street and bought tobacco in a varsity
drug store, where a New York tailor, over for the day, was
cajoling students into buying his "snappy styles" in time for
Christmas. There is no more interesting game than watching a lot
of college men, trying to pick out those who may be of some value
to the community in future--the scientists, poets, and teachers
of the next generation. The well-dressed youths one sees in the
varsity drug stores are not generally of this type.
The Evans School of Dentistry at Fortieth and Spruce is a
surprising place. Its grotesque gargoyles, showing (with true
medieval humour) the sufferings of tooth patients, are the first
thing one notices. Then one finds the museum, in which is housed
Doctor Thomas W. Evans's collection of paintings and curios
brought back from France. Unfortunately there seems to be no
catalogue of the items, so that there is no way of knowing what
interesting associations belong to them. But most surprising of
all is to find the travelling carriage of the Empress Eugenie in
which she fled from France in the fatal September days of 1870.
She spent her last night in France at the home of Doctor Evans,
and there is a spirited painting by Dupray showing her leaving
his house the next morning, ushered into the carriage by the
courtly doctor. The old black barouche, or whatever one calls it,
seems in perfect condition still, with the empress's monogram on
the door panel. Only the other day we read in the papers that the
remarkable old lady (now in her ninety-fourth year) has been
walking about Paris, revisiting well-known scenes. How it would
surprise her to see her carriage again here in this University
building in West Philadelphia. The whole museum is delightfully
French in flavour; as soon as one enters one seems to step back
into the curiously bizarre and tragic extravagance of the Second
Empire.
One passes into the dignified and placid residence section of
Spruce and Pine streets, with its distinctly academic air. Behind
those quiet walls one suspects bookcases and studious professors
and all the delightful passions of the mind. On Baltimore Avenue
the wintry sun shone white and cold; in Clark Park, Charles
Dickens wore a little cap of snow, and Little Nell looked more
pathetic than ever. There is a breath of mystery about Baltimore
Avenue. What does that large sign mean, in front of a house near
Clark Park--THE EASTERN TRAVELLERS? Then one comes to the famous
shop of S. F. Hiram, the Dodoneaean Shoemaker he calls himself.
This wise coloured man has learned the advertising advantages of
the unusual. His placard reads:
Originator of that famous Dobrupolyi System of repairing.
When one enters and asks to know more about this system, he
points to another placard, which says:
It assumes the nature and character of an appellative noun, and
carries the article The System.
His shop contains odd curios as well as the usual traffic of a
cobbler. "The public loves to be hood-winked," he adds sagely.