THE STORY OF MANHATTANKIND
HERE were six million stand. It made the game altogether too easy. people within the bounds of One of the great issues was the McAvoy report. the Greater City, three mil- Nobody, it seems, read this report, but everybody lion of whom operated taxi- claimed that he was acquainted with its gist. Un- cabs. This accounts for the doubtedly the report had a gist and they had probably saying that one half the peo- seen its picture in the illustrated News. It made a ple didn't know where the dandy issue, at any rate, for a political campaign and other half lived. What is Mayor Hylan's address to the Board of Estimate, upon more, it did no good to tell his return from Palm Beach, became incorporated in them. The driver charged the literature of the period under the caption of fifteen cents for the first quarter of a mile, and five "Spartacus to the Gladiators." cents for each subsequent sortie in the wrong direc- “Ye Craigs and Piques!” he began, "I am with tion. Eventually the passenger got out and took an- you once again." Accounts differ as to what hap- other taxi, but it was too late by this time to go home; pened next; but they heard the noise out in Patchogue, so he had himself taken to whatever bootlegger the Long Island, and thought it was the end of the man happened to be hustling for. world. It was more than a riot; it was a revolution.
The bootleggers were cautious. They always sus- Millions who had been following the Green Line to pected a customer of being a prohibition agent unless Times Square now decided to follow the Cloud to some taxi driver was willing to youch for him. The Hollywood. Others left their taxicabs in midstream customers were equally cagey, always demanding posi- and began to walk a mile for a camel, singing as tive assurance from the taxi man that the stuff was they went that nothing could take the place of leather. genuine. "Now is the time," wrote John D. Rockefeller,
The extreme secrecy of these proceedings made Jr., to Bishop Manning, "for all good men to come complete enforcement difficult, but unless a stranger to the aid of the grand old party." And the bishop could find a taxicab, he was often unable to get a replied with those memorable words: "If garters were drink. Not that New York meant to be mean, but worn around the neck, you'd change them fre- if he was unable to find a taxicab, it was generally quently.” It was thus 'that democracy once more as- agreed that he had had enough. serted itself, and "Abie's Irish Rose” became the Prohibition never became an issue in the politics of Fourth Leading Industry. "Abie's Irish Rose" was a the time. The people understood prohibition, and they play. The theory that it was written by Henry Ford never made an issue of anything they could under- is now thoroughly discarded.-Sawdust.
METROPOLITAN MONOTYPES
T takes all kinds To make a town like ours. There is, for instance, The Woman Who Is Here on a Bat. She puts in every possible moment at the theatre, And laments bitterly having ordered all her tickets in advance, Because “The Guardsman" wasn't half as good As Amy Smithers had led her to believe, And nobody in Boston had mentioned The necessity of seeing Al Jolson. About the third day of her sojourn It dawns on her that her hat is All Wrong, So she replaces the little bow at the back With a fiat French rose, or what-you-will. She is having the time of her life And feels like a perfect devil — Dining out with a beau of her debutante days, Puffing awkwardly at cigarettes Through the longest holder in the world, And getting a bit giddy from an unaccustomed cock- Imbibed in the middle of the day. She wants to go to the Algonquin for luncheon, And is convinced that every taxi driver she draws Has been out of Sing Sing about twenty minutes. She is always cashing a check for fifty dollars And wondering where on earth her money goes. She calls her husband on long distance To find out if he and the children are still alive And whether or not Katie cleaned the silver. Four or five days bring her to bicarbonate of soda And a bewilderment as to how New Yorkers keep it up. She leaves twenty-four hours ahead of her schedule, After telephoning the dressmaking shop That she will get along without a final fitting. A sudden and explicable reversion to type Just a good wife and mother! It takes all kinds To make a town like ours. tail --Baird Leonard Digitized by Google
