Venders of fruit, shoe-strings, collar-buttons, and other light
merchandise were scattered along the sidewalks and gutters, trying to
earn a living by the sale of their wares, while beggars occasionally
stopped the more fortunate members of society with pathetic
importunities for money to buy bread.
Cabmen and horses were wasting the public power by standing idly about
waiting for engagements, or else driving aimlessly in all directions,
searching for patronage.
Wagons of every description were rushing about hither and thither in a
wretchedly unsystematic method of retail delivery, utilizing in many
cases the labor of two men and a team of horses to carry a small package
several miles distant.
Countless little retail merchants, with an incalculable force of
managers, clerks, book-keepers, errand boys, etc., were fairly throwing
away the public power in enormous quantities through the brainless
struggle of competitive trade.
All these imperfections could be extirpated by the abolition of the
money system, thought I, as the carriage came to a standstill in front
of a great brown stone edifice, and the driver announced that we had
reached our destination. The door of the carriage was swung open by a
uniformed employee, and, alighting therefrom, I was immediately ushered
into the main office of the leading institution of its kind in the
World--the Waldoria Hotel.
It was quite a new sensation for me to enter this great hostelry as a
guest, having spent the fore part of my life as a rough adventurer who
had never known the meaning of luxury or refinement.
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