From North To South

[Special Correspondence.l New York, April 25.- It was a bitter cold December night, and the wind whistled and howled through Nassau street and Park row and across City Hall park in a way that chilled one to the very marrow. The mercury in Huduut's thermometer was down within half a degree of zero, the hands of the city hall cloek pointed to 12:53. City Hall square was almost deserted, and at the bridge entrance the solitary poüceman stood shivering in a proteeting angïe of the wall. Past the sleepy ticket seller, past the collector, I hurried to catch the last cable car for Brooklyn, which leaves at 1 o'clock. On the platform stood the uigbt policeman and the waiting passengera shivering with the cold. I could see the platform of the city hall "L" station, even at this hour crowded with waitng passengers; beyond it was the City Hall parle, with half a dozen belated citizens burrying across the open space swept by the bleak winter wind. Beyond that again was Broadway, silent and deserted save for the lonely policeman and the clumsy mail wagons hurrying to and f rom the postofñce. The train from Brooklyn rolled into the station on the other track, and its crowd of passengers hurried from the cars and down the stairs. The little engine puffed up to tbe train and switched it noisily to the Brooklyn track. The crowd pushed forward to secure seats, and the poiicemen shouted "AU aboard" to those hurrying up the stairs. There were but few seats unoccupied when the "starter" sounded the gong. The whirring and grinding underneath the car told us that the grip had caught tbe cable and we began to move. The guard helped the inevitable last passenger into the car, slammed the gate, gave the grip wheel a last turn, and we had startod over the bridge. What a queer lot I had for fellow passengere on my short journey ! Here sat a young couple evidently not yet married, and just as evidently hoping to be some day. There an older pair who had passed a dozen years of their lives together. Next myself sat three typos, men who had been setting up the news of this little planet of ours for the readers of the moming. An odd job is this, to-day making the types chronicle the marriage, and to-morrow setting the same bits of lead into the death notices of the world. That man with the staring eyes is the petty cashier of an always open "beanery." He has an odd point of view from which to survey life, sizing mankind up by the lunches it eats. What a irotley assemblage is brought together in the bridge cars. What an odd asBortment of humanity gathered from all quarters of the great city and hurrying now toward their homes in Brooklyn. What stories the care could teil of their queer consignments of passengere. The rlch man going to his luxurious home from the theatre, the banquet, the ball ; the poor laborer returning to his two rooms in a crowded tenement; the young man just starting his life"s work, with his hopes and ambitions, his possibilities, as he thinks, his certainties of wealth, honor and position. Vhe young women just as confident of their own futures in the care of the young men by their sides. The feeble, gray haired oldman, whose life is all behind him, whose hopes and dreams are all goneblasted- broken one af ter theother. The party of young bloods going home from a night's "racket" in New York; the sisters of charity on their errands of mercy; tbe stranger doing the town and seeing the sighte. "All these and more, too, I take over the bridge," says the car. "Day after day I swing back and forth, like tbe giant pendulmn of a giant clock, bearing the dwarf like bodies of a lilliputian race. The fare, the accommodations are the same for alL First come, first served, I cry to alL There aren't half enough seats to go round, I stop for no one, I go taster for no one. All day, all night, ever swinging back and forth between the two cities, carrying my precious freight of human lives over the waters of the river, over the busy wbarves, looking out over the bay, through the 'Narrows' to the ocean, watching up the river toward Heil Gate and the Sound, over the elevated, past the tall buildings and at last into the station again ; elways the same endless journey, never the same passengere. Oh, yes, I see and taear and think strange things," says the car. I glanced at the newspaper myneighbor was reading, and this is the paragraph I saw: "The twelve short cars which have been in use on the bridge have been sold because they were no longer suitable for the needs of the rapidly increasing trafflc. Tbey have been bought by some Florida railroad; To-day they make their last trip over the bridge." Wondering what the future life of the cars would be I stepped out on to tbe platform. Cold? I was stiffened and benumbed the first minuto after I closed the door. It n in. tensely cold ; the icy wind hoveling through the wire cables seemed to pierce one to the veryheart; the moon, the stars, the electric lights, seemed to make the air colder by their icy glitter. Each wave of the river was holding a glass to thefull moon overhead, making its surfaca glisten like hammered silver. Close down by the Brooklyn shore a light oyster sloop was taking advantage of the tide to slip away. Par up the river glistened the colored Iight3 of the Williamsburg ferry slips. We had passed tbe center of the bridge, and were on the descent toward Brooklyn, when suddenly, from away down on the other side of the river close by tbe Roosevelt streel; ferry, carne a shriek, a woman's sharp cry of terror, followed by a splash in the water. Both the guard aud I leaned over, watching and listeoing. Then carne a shrill whistle, and the long pólice boat, shooting across the entrance to the slips, disappeared in the dark shadow by the pier. A rumble and roar, an instant of darkness, and the Brooklyn tower had shut out everything from our sight. "Stranee things we see and hear up here some nighu]" said the guard. I nodded, and both of 3 were silent, wondering what was the tale of the city's crime or woe whose sequel we had just beard. But now we were on the solid work of the Brooklyn approach; those inside began to fold their newspapers and to move up toward the doors. The guard loosened the grip, we dropped. tbe cable and began to move faster down the inclina into the Brooklyn station. The passengere hurried out and away, the engine puffed consequentially up to the cars and dragged them away into the yard. Their last trip over the bridge was done. JacksonviUe! It was a welcome sound to me after my long journey. For two days and nights I bad been hurrying away from the chilliiig winds of a northern March, and, in Bpite of the strangeness of my surroundings, I was more than glad at the prospect of spending a month in Florida. A week carne and went, and I found myself longing for a change, so I determined to visit one of the numerous httle resorts near the city. The day was warm and bright; the sun's rays, Just aining forcé enough to make us nble, gave promise of greater ardor by nd by. As I looked at the train which stood waiting for us, a strange, "I hare seen this before" sort of feeling came over me. There was nothing familiar in the name painted on the cars, but nevertheless I feit eertain that I had ridden in them before. I looked closer, and there, under the coat of fresh paint, blistered by the Florida sun, I read that familiar legend, "New York and Brooklyn Bridge." Coulditbe possible that I was going to take a ride again in the old bridge cars, and amid sueh surroundings ? It was with queer sensations that I ontered the well knoffn doorway and seated myself on the cool cañe seats. I smiled grimly to myself as I thought how often I had shivered on them on a ride over the bridge. Familiar though the cars were, how strange was everything else. In place of the busy crowd of New Yorkers, intent only on business, was the motley crowd of idlers, of black hackmen and porters, and some few tourists and invalids. Tho little low wooden depot was a strange substituto for the big bridge station. Beyond it were the dirty, unpaved streets of Jacksonville, and beyond them a few spires and roofs of business blocks. But the train was ready to start; the conductor yelled "All aboard." That at least was familiar, and we pulled away from the station. "How different everything is," thought I. How fantastically unreal to look out on sucU scènes from q Brooklyn bridge cari How strange to look out on wild masses of semitropical vegetation on broad Btretches of country without house or human being in sight, or the slugglish river, its surface unbroken by the ripple of anything larger than a river steamer; tosee the flamingo and stork rise lazily from their perches beside some still pool; to note the ripple where an alligator just slid into the stream ; to see all these through the sams Windows that had watched so long the busy harbor of New York. To look out here on nature in her wildest, most luxuriant moods and think that once the same car hung poised above all the wealth and artificial life of a human bee hive of 2,000,000 souls. To have tbe window open and feel the warm, balmy air of the southern winter blowing fresh on your cheek, and to think that but a few months before the same window protected you from the piercing cold and driving sleet and snow of a northern winter. It was strange indeed to think of all those things. But unfamiliar as were the surroundings, the difference in its passengere must have impressed the car and furnished it endless subjects for refleetion. Here was a rich northerner come down to visit his orange grove, face already beginning to lose some of its Unes of business care and preoocupation, under the softening influence of the milder climate. Half a dozen invalids were in the car, hoping to draw in new life and strength from the balmy air about us. Tourists and winter residente from the north made up the bulk of the passengere; gay butterflies of fashion who flit from Newport to Saratoga and from Long Branch to Lenox, stop at Cape May, and then away to Florida for the winter. Two young beauties come hither because it is fashionable, and because one can rest here and still be fashionable. A pair of elderly ones come here to repair the ravages of last season's campaign, nd to make ready for the dissipations of the next. Across the way sat an old man, the numerous wrinkles in his face telling of age and feebleness. He was a man worth millions, but palsied and strickenby; age his gold availed him nothing, and he had come hither to seek a month, a day, or even an hour more of life in Florida when üfe in New York was no longer possible.