The people went about in it, busy
and dirty, thickening their outside and inside linings of coal-tar,
asphalt, sulphurous acid, oil of vitriol, and the other familiar
things the men liked to breathe and to have upon their skins and
garments and upon their wives and babies and sweethearts. The growth
of the city was visible in the smoke and the noise and the rush.
There was more smoke than there had been this day of February a year
earlier; there was more noise; and the crowds were thicker--yet
quicker in spite of that. The traffic policeman had a hard time,
for the people were independent--they retained some habits of the old
market-town period, and would cross the street anywhere and anyhow,
which not only got them killed more frequently than if they clung
to the legal crossings, but kept the motormen, the chauffeurs, and
the truck-drivers in a stew of profane nervousness. So the traffic
policemen led harried lives; they themselves were killed, of course,
with a certain periodicity, but their main trouble was that they
could not make the citizens realize that it was actually and mortally
perilous to go about their city. It was strange, for there were
probably no citizens of any length of residence who had not personally
known either some one who had been killed or injured in an accident,
or some one who had accidentally killed or injured others.
Pages:
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413