From The Gold Leaf, Thursday,
Sept. 7, 1905. I wondered about Girard College after reading the story below,
so I looked it up. It is still in existence, but unlike most colleges, it also
educates needy children through 12th grade. The wall surrounding the
college still exists. If you are also curious, see http://www.girardcollege.com/page.cfm?p=359.
Things Seen and
Heard…On a Trip by One Who Travels With His Eyes and Ears Open
After some weeks at home it gives quite a novelty to life to
go into other States and communities and notice how they do things. It is
wonderful too to see the spirit of braggadocio that exists everywhere. O matter
where one goes he can find “the best in the world,” “the largest in the world”
and things galore that are “unparalleled.”
I was walking along on Chestnut street in Philadelphia on
Tuesday when a patriotic Pennsylvanian said to me, “There is the largest store
in the world.” I saw that it indeed was a very great building and that people
passed in and out of its doors, and along the aisles and up the elevators,
story after story, and down into its basements in such crowds and with such
fervor, that to conclude that shopping must be done there or nowhere, was
almost inevitable. Still I could not exactly repress a little doubt about its
being the very largest in the world. I had not gone five squares from that
place before I was shown another building, “the tallest in the world,” the
famous Washing monument being just a little taller. The greatest of everything
was there. Wm. Penn’s old home, just as he left it; Liberty Bell, crack and
all; and the building where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The
house, made of poles for Gen. Grant to live in near Richmond during a winter
campaign in the Civil War, has been taken down and restored exactly, in that
famous city of liberty lovers to be viewed by all who come as worthy of their
most patriotic adoration! It is almost treasonable not to go to Willow Grove
and see for yourself Valley Forge, and hear again recounted stories of the
bravery of the Revolutionary Fathers.
Girard College and the Girard estates can be seen
everywhere, for as rich as he was it is richer now because he could not take it
with him into the grave. Stephen Girard was called a philanthropist because he
gave his money to buy him a reputation and yet he gave the college with the
condition that “no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatever is
permitted to hold or exercise any station or duty in the college, or to be
admitted as a visitor within the premises.” There it stands with his high walls
looking as forbidding as a penitentiary.
A short walk from the tallest building, I came to “the
finest theatre in the world,” and so on until I was about to decide that I was
in the superlative city; but I took a sleeper that night and slept across the
State and awoke in Pittsburg. I had scarcely arrived before I was informed that
a circle around that place with a radius of 25 miles would enclose “the richest
place in the world” of any size. Just a few squares away I was suddenly called
upon to stop and behold “the largest store in the world!” I was bound to call a
halt by saying to my informant, who wanted me to go in and see the wonders,
that I had been to New York and Philadelphia and to the big store in Henderson.
I suppose they all told the truth, but truth is very much like some good old
tunes I used to know. They are still played but they are played nowadays with
variations. Imagine my feelings after I had been tired of turning up my nose at
the bragging Yankees and had let it down again to its normal position after
getting in Vance county, before I could get home I saw in big letters “the best
on earth,” and said by a Southern man.
Lest what I shall not relate may seem to be personal, if it
should come under the observation of whom it concerns, I will say that, as I
passed through Kamschatka a very masculine looking woman came into the car. Her
eyes, in color and gleam were very much like highly polished knife-blades. Her
jaws hanging down beside her ears warned one of danger. Her mouth shut together
like a steel trap except that it seemed to be tilted up at the corners at an
angle of about 45 degrees. She seemed to be physically as cool as a cucumber,
but I dare say her disposition stood at 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit. I saw no
sorrow in her face or manner, though I am sure from the signs of mourning on
her that that her husband, poor man, had gone to a better country, though I know
nothing of his life here, nor would I change the expression if I knew he had
been a bad man. The word “better,” you know, represents no absolute quality but
is a relative or comparative word. The lady in question, as soon as she came
in, seated herself occupying an entire seat. A man and his wife and two
children came in at the same time and the four sat opposite our heroine in one
seat. With a great effort at commiseration, she finally suggested that one of
her little ones might sit with her. It was a very hot, sultry day and nearly
every window in the car was open, as the heat was almost unendurable. A
gentleman came in at the next station and took a seat in front of her and began
to raise his window; but she soon squelched him, much to the amusement of the
passengers. Finally she moved her seat and got in front of me and wanted my
window down, but I explained to her that I was suffering from asthma and that
fresh air was an absolute essential to my happiness, and she must excuse me; so
stabbing me with her knife-like eyes she yielded the point, but first inquired
with an insinuating tone if I had ever travelled much? I replied that my
opportunities in that particular had been somewhat limited. I fear there was
some sarcasm in the reply. In a few minutes we rolled into the great station at
---- let us say Cairo.
There coffee and sandwiches were brought in for sale. I
took a sandwich and coffee. She took a sandwich and coffee. As soon as the odor
of her sandwich penetrated her olfactory nerve her nose turned up like the
nether end of a wasp preparing for battle and she said to me, “Mister, may I
throw this out of your window?” I said, “Certainly, Madam, as far as I am
concerned; but I think it would be a violation of the law to.” By that time she
seemed to have warmed to 96.9 degrees and threw the whole thing through my
window diagonally, half her sandwich landing in my coffee. To be thus deprived,
when there was no chance of getting another, somewhat spoiled my very affable
disposition, and I could not help telling her of my travels in several states
of American, and some little in Canada; but I had never hoped to see as much as
I had seen that day—that my experience with her was a new one and that I was
glad of it. She left the train in Borneo, which helps America that much. The
last I saw of her she was striding along with an air of “I can take care of
myself, sir,” and I hope she will confine her efforts to that direction.
One thing I have learned: No matter where one is, it is the
best place. I am reminded too that “Truth is stranger than fiction.” I am
beginning to believe that in the multiplication of novels and novelettes, it is
becoming more and more a stranger.
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