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Show WINTER IX NEW Y0I?K. . Jacob Riis Tells How He Came to America. Jacob A. Riis. author of "How- th-j Other Half laves," etc.. writing of winter win-ter in New York, in the February Century, Cen-tury, gives an amusing account of his i notions of the American metropolis licforo '' he left his home in Peiiniark: The very earliest impression I received of America's metropolis was through a. print in my child's picture-book that was entitled "Winter in New- York." Il showed a sleighing party, or half a dozen such, muffled to the ears in furs, and racing rac-ing with gri.n determination for s'im place or another that lay beyond the page, wrappe-d in the mystery which so tickles the childish fancy. For it was cb-ar to me that it wa not accident that they were all going the same way. There was evidently some prize away off there in the waste of snow that beckoned them on. Tiie text gave me no clue to what if. was. It only confirmed the impression, which was strengthened by the introduction introduc-tion of a halt-n.LKe.d savage who shivered most woefully in the foreground, that New York was somewhere within the arctic arc-tic circle, and a perfect paradise; for a 'healthy boy, who takes to snow as naturally na-turally as a duck takes to water. 1 do not know how the discovery that they were probably makiui? for tkil- i',i?' it and his bottle of champagne, which always al-ways awaited the first sleigh on the road, would have struck me in tnose days. Most likely as a grievous disappointment; for my fancy, busy ever with I'neas and C'hingaehook and Natty Bumppo, had certainly a buffalo hunt, or an ambush, or. at the very least, a big fire, ready at the end of the road. 'But such is life. Its most cherished hopes have to be surrendered sur-rendered one by one to the prosy faots of everyday existence. I recall distinctly how it cut me to the heart when I first j walked up Proadway, with an immense I navy pistol strapped around my waist, to J lin it a paved street, actually paved. I with no buffaloes in sight and not a red man or a beaver hut. However, life has its compensations, also. At ot I am as willing to surrender the arctic circle as I was hopeful of it at lrt. with the price of coal in the chronic plight of my little boy when he has a troublesome hitch in his trousers: "oh, dear me! my pants hang up and rlon't hang down." Ami t;abe Case's is a most welcome exchange t- me for the ambush, since I have left out th" pistol an 1 the rest of the armament, f listen to the stories of the oldest inha.bita.ru. of th winters when "the snow lay to the ond-story windows in the Uowery." with the fervent wish that they may never come back, and secretly gloat over his wail that the seasons have cnangwi and are not what they were. The man who exuberantly proclaims that New York is getting to have the finest winter-resort climate in the world is my friend, and I do not care if I never see another snowball. snow-ball. Alas, yes! though Deerslayer and I are still on the old terrD". I fear the evidence evi-dence is that I am growing old. In the midst of the rejoicing comes old Boreas, as last winter, for instance, and blows clown my house of cards. Just when we thought ourselves safe in referring refer-ring to the great blizzard as a monstrous, unheard-of thing, and were dwelling securely se-curely in the memory of how we gathered violets in the woods out in Queens and killed mosqui-tos in the house in Christmas Christ-mas week, comes grim winter and locks th.9 rivers and buries us up to the neck in snow, before the Thanksgiving dinner fs cold. Thn the seasons when (Jabe's much-coveted bottle stood unclaimed on the shelf in its bravery of fine ribbons rill far into the new year, and was won then literally by a scratch on a road hardly downy with white, seem lik a tal that is told, and we realize that latitude does not unaided make temperature. It is only in exceptional winters, after all, that we class for a brief spell with Naples. Na-ples. Greenland and the polar streams are never long in asserting their claim and Santa Chi us' to unchecked progress prog-ress to our hearths. |