ing passengers from one
point to another. And the methods, various as they are, keep pace with
the desires of the restless citizen, who may travel at what pace and
altitude he desires. He may burrow, like a rabbit, beneath the ground.
If he be more happily normal in his tastes he may ride in a surface car.
Or he may fly, like a bird through the air, on an overhead railway.
The constant rattle of cars and railways is indescribable. The overhead
lines pass close to the first-floor windows, bringing darkness and
noise wherever they are laid. There are offices in which a stranger can
neither hear nor be heard, and yet you are told that to the accustomed
ear of the native all is silent and reposeful. And I can easily believe
that a sudden cessation of din would bring an instant madness. Nor must
another and an indirect result of the trains and trams which encircle
New York be forgotten. The roads are so seldom used that they are
permitted to fall into a ruinous decay. Their surface is broken into
ruts and yawns in chasms. To drive "down-town" in a carriage is to
suffer a sensation akin to sea-sickness; and having once suffered, you
can understand that it is something else than the democratic love of
travelling in common that persuades the people of New York to clamber on
the overhead railway, or to take its chance in a tram-car.

Movement, then, noisy and incessant, is the passion of New York. Perhaps
it is the brisk air which drives men to this useless activity. Perhaps
it is no better than an ingrained and superstitious habit. But the
drowsiest foreigner is soon caught up in the whirl. He needs neither
rest nor sleep. He, too, must be chasing something which always eludes
him. He, too, finds himself leaving a quiet corner where he would like
to stay, that he may reach some place which he has no desire to see.
Even though he mount to the tenth or the twentieth story, the throb of
the restless city reaches him. Wall Street is "hustling" made concrete.
The Bowery is crowded with a cosmopolitan horde which is never still.
Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Ferry might be the cross-roads of the
world. There a vast mob is passing hither and thither, on foot, on
boats, on railroads. What are they doing, whither are they going,
these scurrying men and women? Have they no business to pursue, no
office-stool to sit upon, no typewriting machines to jostle? And when
you are weary of transportation, go into the hall of a big hotel and
you wi