TRAILING MRS. TROLLOPE
The Mountaineer has lent us a copy of "Domestic Manners of the Americans," in which Mrs. Trollope, the mother of Anthony, recorded her numerous chagrins during a three-year tour among the barbarians in 1827-30.
She visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1830, and remarks as follows upon some scenes familiar to us:
"The State House has nothing externally to recommend it . . . there is a very pretty inclosure before the Walnut street entrance, with good, well-kept gravel walks... . Near this inclosure is another of much the same description, called Washington Square. Here there was an excellent crop of clover; but as the trees are numerous, and highly beautiful, and several commodious seats are placed beneath their shade, it is, in spite of the long grass, a very agreeable retreat from heat and dust. It was rarely, however, that I saw any of these seats occupied; the Americans have either no leisure or no inclination for those moments of délassement that all other people, I believe, indulge in. Even their drams, so universally taken by rich and poor, are swallowed standing, and, excepting at church, they never have the air of leisure or repose. This pretty Washington Square is surrounded by houses on three sides, but (lasso!) has a prison on the fourth; it is, nevertheless, the nearest approach to a London square that is to be found in Philadelphia."
Even after nearly ninety years there is a certain pang in learning that while Madam Trollope found nothing comely about the exterior of Independence Hall, she proclaimed New York's City Hall as "noble."
Trying to imagine that we were Mrs. Trollope, we took a stroll up Ninth street in the bright April sun. It was chilly and the burly sandwich-man of Market street, the long-haired, hatless philosopher so well known by sight, was leaning shivering in his shirt-sleeves against an arc light standard trying to wrap his advertising boards around him like an overcoat. "Why don't you walk up and down a bit?" we asked him, after he had rebuked the thermometer with a robust adjective which would have caused Mrs. Trollope to call for hartshorn and ammonia.
"Can't do it," he said. "I've got a bum job today. Got to stand on this corner, advertising a new drug store; 7:30 to 12:30 and 1:30 to 5:30. It's a long day, I'll say so."
Ninth street above Market is a delightful and varied world in itself. At the corner of Filbert we found the following chalked on a modest blackboard:
Irish Stew
Pot Roast
2 Vegatables
15c
Within, a number of citizens were taking those standing drams Mrs. Trollope deprecated. We were reminded by these social phenomena that we had not lunched. In a neighboring beanery we dealt with a delightful rhubarb pie, admiring the perfection of the waitress's demeanor. Neither too condescending nor too friendly, she laid the units of our repast upon the marble table with a firm clank which seemed to imply that our eating there meant nothing to her; yet she hoped we might find nourishment enough not to die on her hands.
The assorted attractions of North Ninth street never fail the affectionate stroller. Novelty shops where mysterious electric buzzers vibrate and rattle on the plate-glass panes, and safety razors reach bottomless prices that would tempt even a Russian statesman to unbush. Picture shops, where such really delightful sentimental engravings as "The End of the Skein" cause soft-hearted bystanders to fly home and write to dear old grandmother; wine shops where electric bulbs shimmer all day long within pyramids of gin bottles. "Stock Up Before July First!" cries the vintner. "There's a Bad Time Coming!" And he adds:
We know a man who sells a
quart of water with a little
cheap whisky in it
VERY CHEAP
Morale!
If you really want a highball
buy our, etc.
The animal shops always attract the passers-by. One window was crowded with new-hatched chicks, tender yellow balls of fluff that cause grizzled bums to moralize droopingly on the sweetness of youth and innocence. They (the chicks) were swarming around their feeding pans like diplomats at the Hotel Crillon in Paris.
These feeding pans are made like circular mouse-traps, with small holes just large enough for the chicks to thrust in their heads. One ambitious infant, however, a very Trotzky among chicks, had got quite inside the pan, and three purple-nosed Falstaffs on the pavement were waiting with painful agitation to see whether he would emerge safely. In a goldfish bowl above, spotted newts were swimming, advertised at fifteen cents each as desirable "scavengas." Baby turtles the size of a dollar piece were crawling over one another in a damp tray. Bright-eyed rabbits twitched their small noses along the pane.
Then came Louis Guanissno, the famous balloon man, moving along in a blaze of color, his red and blue and yellow balloons tugging and gleaming in the sunny air. Louis is a poem to watch, a polychrome joy to behold. And such graceful suavity! "Here's health and prosperity, and God bless you," he says, his kindly rugged face looking down at you; "and when you want any little balloons"—
On a sunny afternoon there are sure to be many browsers picking over the dusty volumes in the pavement boxes of that little bookshop near the old archway above Filbert street. Down the dark alley that runs under the archway horses stand munching their nosebags, while a big yellow coal wagon, lost in the cul-de-sac, tries desperately to turn around. The three big horses clatter and crash on the narrow paving. A first edition of "Rudder Grange" for fifteen cents wasn't a bad find. (I saw it listed in a recent bookseller's catalogue for $2.50.) By prying up a flyleaf that had been pasted down I learned that "Uncle George" had given it to Helen L. Coates for "Xmas, 1880."
Up at the Arch street corner is the famous Dumont's Minstrels, once the old Dime Museum, where Frank Dumont's picture stands in the lobby draped in black. Inside, in the quaint old auditorium, the interlocutor sits on his throne and tosses the traditional jest back and forth with the end men, Bennie Franklin and Alf Gibson, clad in their glaring scarlet frock-coats. The old quips about Camden are still doing brave service. Then Eddie Cassady comes on in his cream-colored duds and sings a ditty about Ireland and freedom while he waves the banner with the harp. Beneath the japes on prohibition there is an undertone of profound sadness. Joe Hamilton sings a song which professes to explain that July 1st will be harder on the ladies than any one else. "Good-by, Wild Women, Good-by," it is demurely called. Joe Hortiz gets "Come Back to the Farm" over the footlights, a plaintive tenor appeal, in which the church steeple chimes 3 (a. m.) and all the audience can hear the cows lowing out in Manayunk and Marcus Hook. We are all nigh to tears for the little sister gone astray in the bad mad city; but here come Burke and Walsh in a merry little duo about whistle-wetting. "We took this country from the Indians," sings Burke. "We'll give it back after the 1st of July," replies Walsh in his dulcet barytone. Then, to show they really don't care so much, they wind up with a jovial bit of dancing.
Dumont's famous "timely burlesques" still keep pace with the humors of the town. The "Drug Store Telephone Fight" reduces the audience to cheery hysteria. Joe Hamilton or some body gets Saint Peter on the wire; the rival demonstrator gets connected with "the other place." The problem is whether the Jazzbo Phone Company or its rival can locate the whereabouts of Mr. William Goat, who (it appears) is the father of the interlocutor, the dignified interlocutor in his purple dress suit, who is writhing in embarrassed distress on his throne. And then, as we are already trespassing on the preserve of the dramatic editor, comes what the program calls "intermission of several minutes, to enable the ladies to powder their noses."