Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/36

 lend, as it were, a peculiar texture to the scene; to say nothing of the opportunities they afford for the display of multifarious shreds and patches of colour. Then the houses themselves are often brightly, not to say loudly, painted; so that in the clear, sparkling atmosphere characteristic of New York, the most squalid slum puts on a many-coloured Southern aspect, which suggests Naples or Marseilles rather than the back streets of any English city. Add to this that the inhabitants are largely of southern origin, and are apt, whenever the temperature will permit, to carry on the main part of their daily lives out of doors; and you can understand that, appalling as poverty may be in New York, the average slum is not so dank, dismal, and suicidally monotonous as a street of a similar status in London.

"The whole city," says Mr. Steevens, "is plastered, and papered, and painted with advertisements"; and he instances the huge "H-O" (whatever that may mean) which confronts one as one sails up the harbour, and the omnipresent "Castoria" placards. Here Mr. Steevens shows symptoms of the note-taker's hyperæsthesia. The facts he states are undeniable, but the implication that advertisement is carried to greater excess in New York than in London and other European cities seems to me utterly groundless. The "H-O" advertisement is not one whit more monstrous than, for instance, the huge announcements of cheap clothing-shops, &c.,