Consequently, when I issue
forth on this broad, beautiful thoroughfare at six A. M., I cannot
help thinking that I am, to a certain extent, desecrating its
traditional customs.
I have more than once detected the milkman winking at the maid with
a diabolical suggestion that I was returning from a carouse, and
Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed me a block or two with
the evident impression that I was a burglar returning from a
successful evening out. Nevertheless, these various indiscretions
have brought me into contact with a kind of character and phenomena
whose existence I might otherwise have doubted.
First, let me speak of a large class of working-people whose
presence is, I think, unknown to many of those gentlemen who are in
the habit of legislating or writing about them. A majority of
these early risers in the neighborhood of which I may call my
"beat" carry with them unmistakable evidences of the American type.
I have seen so little of that foreign element that is popularly
supposed to be the real working class of the great metropolis, that
I have often been inclined to doubt statistics.
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