Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1880 — The Hackmen and Other Fiends of Niagara. [ARTICLE]

The Hackmen and Other Fiends of Niagara.

I ax on my way to see the falls from the Canadian side. lam not alone. I am never alone in the streets of Niagara village. ▲ young man who has not hitherto seen me and takes me for a newly-arrived guest accompanies mo to the new suspension bridge. He Is very chatty ana companionable. But he dwells overmuch on one topic. The burden of his conversation is that he “ will take me all around the falls for one dollar and a half and show me everything." The majority of the other haekmen now know me for a confirmed pedestrian and despise me accordingly. Human legs are held in low estimation at Niagara. Walking here is positively disreputable. That a visitor should walk to the falls is taken by every hackman as a personal affront. Legs at Niagara are deemed an unnecessary prolongation of the human anatomy. Of course, this is natural when the employment of one's legs instead of four pairs of rackabone horse’s legs involves a loss of several dollars to somebody. Could *lhe Niagara haekmen and stable-keepers have their own way in the further anatomical development of the race all visitors would be bom without legs, or at least have these members amputated previous to their pilgrimage to the falls. 1 cross to the Canadian side. I am under the English flag. It gives no more protection against haekmen than the Stan and Stripes. From the new suspension bridge to the falls it may be three-quarten of a mile. Pestered by haekmen every step. of the way—by haekmen on wheels and on foot; by haekmen stationary and movable; by a photograph fiend, who darts from his lair with two specimen pictnres and offered to take me and the falls for fifty cents; by toe second hackman on his beat, who relieves the first, and from his box keeps up a running fire of offers to “ride me all around for ten cents;” by another tormentor, who desires me to step into the museum and behold the usual dreary round of museumistic monstrosities, involving stuffed monkeys; by the third hackman relieving the second, who wants to drive me to Cedar Island, Clark’s Island and the Burning Spring; tells me I ought not to leave without seeing the Burning Spring; I don’t want to see the Burning Spring; I find enough of burning spring all over Niagara—by a man who wants me to go under Table Rock, dress in a rubber suit and be drenched under the Mis for one dollar; by the fourth hackman, who relieves the third aud wants to carry me somewhere for fifty cents, I endeavor to “contemplate" the falls from the spot where Table Rock cracked off yeah ago.

Bat a Niagara showman hovers about me, I feel him in my rear. I can't fix my mind on the falls at all. I know I am to be assailed by this human Niagara gadfly. The gadfly walks to and fro, and at every turn approaches nearer. He is beside me. He wants me to see Niagara from somewhere for twenty-five cents. I move away. I am disappointed in Niagara. Civilization has not improved it. I envy the untutored Indian who could see it two hundred years ago, with the primeval forest all about him and no hackmen, showmen, guides or jftotograph hucksters to annoy him. Niagara, without a saw mill, a paper mill, a grist mill, a beer mill, or a toll mill, was something which could be “contemplated.” Niagara then tumbled in all its native grandeur, and the Indian who beheld it enjoyed also the luxury of burying his tomahawk in the brains of any hackman or photographer who wanted to take his picture for fifty cents. 1 turn mournfully away. I retrace my steps. The fifth hackmaa now relieves the fourth on guard and desires to carry me back to America for fifty cents. There’s no getting away from him, for the road along the brink of thp river is a straight road, a barred path, and admits of no side escapes. It runs straight into the arms of the third hackman, who will relieve the fourth as I return, and wish to drive me to the “Whirlpool” for a dollar. He does so, and accompanies me. for some distance, ever renewing this proposition. The photograph fiend again . rushes at me from his lair and renews his offer to take me, with the American Fails in the background. The museum fiend again advises me not to leave without seeing /the stuffed monkeys. Another own wants me to go to the top of a hotel to see the falls. He adds that it is -free, but I scent a fee somewhere. The very air here is permeated with fees. The museum fiend renews his earnest supplications that l do not leave the Canada side without seeing the stuffed monkeys. What so fitting after Niagara as a course of stuffed owl and monkey? After the sublime, of course, the ridiculous, and it's only a step from the falls to the stuffed monkey. —Prentice Mulford in the N. T. Graphic. i i The workmen who bored the St Gothard tunneT were mostly Italians, paid at 'the rate'of five and six dollars adpnjgfa their limbs or lives aad Germans* For sqeh enterprises they are classed next to tba Chinese.