OF THE BUILDING OF CITIES 2

Category: Of The Building Of Cities

I have taken two photographs, one to the right and one to the left of
this agreeable place. I may perhaps adopt a kind of guide-book style in
reviewing its principal features: I begin at the railway station. I have
made a rather nearer and larger photograph of the railway station, which
presents a diversified and entertaining scene to the incoming visitor.
Porters (out of a box of porters) career here and there with the trucks
and light baggage. Quite a number of our all-too-rare civilians parade
the platform: two gentlemen, a lady, and a small but evil-looking child
are particularly noticeable; and there is a wooden sailor with jointed
legs, in a state of intoxication as reprehensible as it is nowadays
happily rare. Two virtuous dogs regard his abandon with quiet scorn. The
seat on which he sprawls is a broken piece of some toy whose nature I
have long forgotten, the station clock is a similar fragment, and so is
the metallic pillar which bears the name of the station. So many toys,
we find, only become serviceable with a little smashing. There is an
allegory in this--as Hawthorne used to write in his diary.

("What is he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river?")

The fences at the ends of the platforms are pieces of wood belonging to
the game of Matador--that splendid and very educational construction
game, hailing, I believe, from Hungary. There is also, I regret to say,
a blatant advertisement of Jab's "Hair Color," showing the hair. (In the
photograph the hair does not come out very plainly.) This is by G. P.
W., who seems marked out by destiny to be the advertisement-writer of
the next generation. He spends much of his scanty leisure inventing and
drawing advertisements of imaginary commodities. Oblivious to many
happy, beautiful, and noble things in life, he goes about studying and
imitating the literature of the billboards. He and his brother write
newspapers almost entirely devoted to these annoying appeals. You will
note, too, the placard at the mouth of the railway tunnel urging the
existence of Jinks' Soap upon the passing traveller. The oblong object
on the placard represents, no doubt, a cake of this offensive and
aggressive commodity. The zoological garden flaunts a placard, "Zoo, two
cents pay," and the grocer's picture of a cabbage with "Get Them" is not
to be ignored. F. R. W. is more like the London County Council in this
respect, and prefers bare walls.

"Returning from the station," as the guide-books say, and "giving one
more glance" at the passengers who are waiting for the privilege of
going round the circle in open cars and returning in a prostrated
condition to the station again, and "observing" what admirable platforms
are made by our 9 x 4-1/2 pieces, we pass out to the left into the
village street. A motor omnibus (a one-horse hospital cart in less
progressive days) stands waiting for passengers; and, on our way to the
Cherry Tree Inn, we remark two nurses, one in charge of a child with a
plasticine head. The landlord of the inn is a small grotesque figure of
plaster; his sign is fastened on by a pin. No doubt the refreshment
supplied here has an enviable reputation, to judge by the alacrity with
which a number of riflemen move to-wards the door. The inn, by the by,
like the station and some private houses, is roofed with stiff paper.

These stiff-paper roofs are one of our great inventions. We get After
the game is over, we put these roofs inside one another and stick them
into the bookshelves. The roof one folds and puts away will live to roof
another day.


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