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Show Friendship Marred by Distance in New York In New York city it is possible to know an Infinite variety of good citi-tens. citi-tens. You may scrape up an ac-pialntance ac-pialntance with showgirls, protestors protes-tors of applied therapeutics, novelists, novel-ists, pugilists, Hindu swamis, tabloid reporters, toe dancers and captains of South American banana boats. You may even become warm friends of a bibliomaniac or a Hoboken bartender. bar-tender. But what good will they do you? If you live in the Bronx, your best friends Invariably live in Flatbush, and if you live on City island, the boon companions you are just dying to see always reside in Jamaica or Jersey City. So that if yon are projecting an hour's friendly call, yon have to travel on the subways two hours ; you are mauled by the theater crowd, and manhandled by the downtown warehouse watchmen going go-ing uptown to sleep and the uptown swells going downtown to play. And when yon arrive at your friend's house at 10:00 p. m., limp and shopworn, you find, of course, that he has quit waiting for you and has gone to a Rumanian fish house three blocks from your home which yon left two hours ago. Friendship in New York becomes too often a terrific chore. It is far easier to be content with the casual folk you rub against where your business or your thirst takes you. As a rule, therefore, the "people to your taste" are not to your taste In any deeper, spiritual sense, but they simply frequent the same resort or restaurant you do and are tolerable only because they can speak your Jargon of art or business and do not attempt to assault you with beer mugs. Ernest L. Meyer in the Forum For-um and Century. |