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 hyperaesthesia. 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., painted
all over the ends of houses, that deface the railway approaches to
Paris; nor is it so flagrant and aggressive as the illuminated
advertisements of whisky and California wines that vulgarise the august
spectacle of the Thames by night.
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