Coney

“ It does seem too bad that one so young and—pardon me again—so beautiful should be robbed of life. But what brought you to Coney Island? What brought you here into this predicament? If your life is of value to others, what right had you to risk your neck in a captive balloon merely to experience the sensations of soaring? ”

“ The Coney is really a pretty child with pathetic eyes and a grateful smile; but she was long in learning to walk, and felt aggrieved when we remonstrated. Her feet, she considered, were created to be ornamental rather than useful, and no amount of coaxing backed up with massage could persuade her otherwise. So she was left behind in the march; and when her contemporaries departed for the middle-aged babies' nursery, she stayed behind with the infants. ”

“ Ramshackle booths, tents, shooting-galleries, carousels, acrobats, fortune-tellers, snake-charmers, lion tamers, ventriloquists, fat ladies, magicians, vendors of every imaginable cheap and tawdry thing—the old Coney Island multiplied by ten and invested with a Gallic lightness and sparkle in place of its own dull vulgarity. ”

“ Always, if she was not very careful, he made her see exactly as he saw. It was so at Jacques’; it was so at Coney. But her whole life was at stake now. If she made a mistake, one way or the other, she must live it out––in New York. She must be by herself when she reached her decision. ”

“ Nowhere on earth, perhaps, is to be found a more eloquent illustration of the doctrine that when we regard as martyrdom when it come to us as an enforced duty, we hail hilariously as a privilege when it is no longer a question of anything but free will. How lugubriously should we bemoan our fate had we to undergo, as a matter of necessity, the physical discomforts which, elevated to the dignity of recreations, Coney Island put within our eager reach at a trifling sum per jolt! ”

“ Immediately recreation becomes less a question of search than of selection. One has simply to decide in what manner he prefers to be made uncomfortable, for it is Coney Island’s claim to celebrity that she is prepared to make you so in a variety of ways approaching infinity, and, if you are of the majority, you are there for that express purpose. If you are not of the majority, your wisest course is to return without delay by the way you came, and leave to more appreciative mortals your place on the Scenic Railway, and the Sliding Staircase, and the Loops, and the Chutes, and the Camel. ”

“ Coney Island is not a resort of the kind which is said to grow upon the visitor. Rather she plunges at him, and, before he has time for reflection, proceeds to engulf him in a veritable maelstrom of tumultuous recreation. Hers are not the soothing methods of the nerve cure specialist, but the heroic measure of the life saver who administers a knock out blow between the eyes of a drowning man, and either rescues him thereby or puts a finishing touch to the mischief Father Ocean has begun.
The Americans have been called a nervous people. ”

“ See how it sparkles! It is the little old man of the forest who has thus rewarded you for your goodness. Now, thanks to him, we are rich; but we will never forget the poor and the sick in their sorrow."
WONDERS OF CONEY ISLAND. BY A. W. ROBERTS.
Fig. 1.—Sertularia.
If grown-up folks and young people who are desirous of becoming acquainted with the marine wonder-land of Coney Island will take a stroll along the beach, starting from the Iron Tower and proceeding a mile toward Norton's Point, I'll promise them that their constant exclamations will be, "I wonder what it is!" ”

“ For Coney Island, unlike other resorts of its type, loses rather than gains by the fall of night. The pace has been so swift, the excitement of the long hot day so intense, that a more than mortal energy would be required to maintain the original level of enthusiasm. ”

“ CONEY, JOHN (1786–1833) , draughtsman and engraver, was born in Ratcliff Highway, London, in 1786. He was apprenticed to an architect, but never followed the profession. Among his early studies were pencil drawings of the interior of Westminster Abbey; these he sold principally to dealers. In 1806 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a 'Perspective View of Lambeth Palace,' and resided at 39 Craven Street, Strand. ”

“ SURF-BATHING AT CONEY ISLAND. Coney Island, about eight miles from the city of New York, is four and a half miles long and about half a mile in width. It is quite a resort in summer for those who want to breathe the briny air of the ocean.
Charles and Laura had long been promised a visit to this famous bathing-place, and one warm day in June their father drove them down to the island; for there is a bridge connecting it with the main land.
As they drove along the beach, they saw the bathers in [14] the water, and Charles was very desirous of having a dip in the salt sea himself ”

“ At this moment Captain Dodge approached.
“We’ve got to anchor, boys,” he said. “The wind is dead ahead of us here in the narrows and I think I’ll wait till it shifts.”
“We might all go to Coney Island then,” exclaimed Fred Button eagerly.
“And the wind might change almost any minute and we’d sail off and leave you behind,” laughed Captain Dodge. “Coney Island is just around that point, though, and you could row there in a little while.”
“I guess we’ll stay aboard if you’re thinking of leaving us,” said Fred. “I’d rather go to Buenos Aires than Coney Island.” ”

“ George was wild after poor Ellin.”
“Positive of it,” affirmed Tod.
“And he can’t bear the place now she’s gone out of it,” continued Tom Coney. “Report says that he means to throw up his post and his prospects, and run away for good.”
“Not likely,” dissented Tod, tossing his head. “A strong man like St. George does not die of love nowadays, or put himself out of good things, either. You have been reading romances, Coney.”
But Tom Coney was right. When the summer was on the wane St. George bade a final adieu to Timberdale. ”

“ I remained in the last evening to rest, while Coonskin and Barley took a trip to Burlington Beach, a famous local watering place.
"Wese taught, yuse see," said my little courier, in the morning, "dat it was something like Coney Island; so it's bein' only ten cents round trip dare, wese takes de trolley an' goes down.
"Well, yuse oughter seen de place. Before wese gets dare it begins to smell—why, Coney Island ain't in it fer smells. ”

“ Little Coney Arm, at sea, and Bear Cove.—Sailed from Little Coney Arm at four o'clock A.M., wind light, but fair for crossing the bay, and we accordingly passed over to Bear Cove. We found that all the inhabitants (four families) were at home, or on their fishing-grounds, and all professed members of the Church of England, and greatly desirous to be admitted, by baptism or reception as the case might require; and two couples, who had been united by a fisherman, expressed a wish to be duly married. ”

“ The Rabbit (Fig. 406) , or, as it is more frequently termed heraldically, the Coney, appears more frequently in heraldry than the hare, being the canting charge on the arms of Coningsby, Cunliffe ["Sable, three conies courant argent"] , and figuring also as the supporters of Montgomery Cunningham ["Two conies proper"] .
The Squirrel (Fig. 407) occurs in many English coats of arms. It is always sejant, and very frequently cracking a nut. ”

“ But when I heard that Coney Island was like a kind of glorified Margate (which I've never been to, but only heard about) with switchbacks and all sorts of shows, I said that Mother would consider it a chapter in the liberal education of a respectable British tourist; and it was decided that we should dine there. ”

“ Dickenson found the keys and handed them to me. I unlocked the drawer, being obliged to bend over the dead to do so, and young Coney stepped forward to receive the bag.
But the bag was not there.
[75]
CHAPTER IV. LEAH'S STORY.
OUR dismayed faces might have formed a study for a painter, as we stood in my room in Essex Street: the doctor, George Coney, Lennard and myself. On the floor, between the hearthrug and the desk, lay the dead man, the blaze of the fire and the gaslights playing on his features. Mr. Brightman was dead. In my mental pain and emotion I could not realize the fact ”

“ CONEY ISLAND’S CODE OF ETIQUETTE.
Therefore let us “loop the loop,” “shoot the chutes,” and do whatever other alliterative and acrobatic things the Isle of Idiocy provides—if there be no interference on the part of the police, those vigilant custodians of New York’s health and morals, who have of late demonstrated an unaccountable interest in some of the island’s most popular amusements. If there be girls on the front seats of our convulsively careering car, so much the better for them. They have something to fall back upon. ”

“ Coney Island is indeed an institution.
Along the sea front of the bank for some three or four miles there has been constructed an esplanade lined 126 with seats, and defended from the sea by a stone wall. Outside there is a belt of shingle on which the surf breaks, but not violently, unless in bad weather. Large bathing establishments, with every appliance, are placed at convenient intervals along the shore. Here in the season tens of thousands of people may be seen, all properly and decently attired, disporting in the waves. ”

“ I work, always work, and give, always give, to those whom I can. This trip to Coney Island was a trip to fairyland for me. I couldn’t afford it before. I’m a bookkeeper in a commission house, and it was a day off and—and—”
She broke down and threatened to whimper; but once more bravely controlled herself, while he continued to watch. She stood up in the cagelike car and strained her eyes out into the silent mist that still hung round them in a cloud. She was not certain that she should have told this quiet stranger so much of her affairs. ”

“ XIX THE Coney Island that they landed on is gone now. It was a shouting gypsy fair of side shows, beer gardens, dance halls, chowder tents, shooting galleries and unsavory “joints.” It was not a sweet resort, but “Shine” walked through it, like an old graduate through the corridors of his college, fondly reminiscent. He laughed at the “ballyhoo man” drawing the crowd to a booth with his sword-swallowing and his fire-eating. He listened appreciatively to the art of a “spieler” praising a “performance inside;” ”

“ But however that may be, its wonderful development as a summer resort has only come since the Civil War. It has a hard and gently-sloping beach facing the Atlantic, and can be so easily and cheaply reached, by so many routes on land and water, that it is no wonder, on hot afternoons and holidays, the people of New York and Brooklyn go down there by the hundreds of thousands. Coney Island is about five miles long, and from a quarter-mile to a mile in width, being separated from the adjacent low-lying mainland only by a little crooked creek and some lagoons. ”

“ If Coney Island, with its noise and manufactured stimulations, is representative of the city, White's "Natural History of Selborne" is a characteristic product of the wealth of the country to the mind gifted with penetrating skill. ”

“ It’s been bigger an’ better’n Coney Island, an’ me old man’s got a lame wrist shovellin’ out de celebrated Bull Dog Tea.” She went off in great good humour to lower the window blind in the face of a disappointed group of loungers and whisk the children off to prepare them for speedy departure. ”

“ I'm not so far short of being a regular king. Coney's just as big as some of those kingdoms you read about on the other side; and, from what you see in the papers about the goings-on there, it looks to me that, having a whole week on the throne like I'm going to have, amounts to a pretty steady job as kings go.'
AT GEISENHEIMER'S
As I walked to Geisenheimer's that night I was feeling blue and restless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything. Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by. ”

“ Why, I wuz told and believe, that sometimes 266 a million folks go to Coney Island on a holiday. And I wuz knowin’ myself to over three thousand orphan children goin’ there at one time to spend a happy day, the treat bein’ gin ’em by some big-hearted men. Plenty to eat and drink, and a hull day of enjoyment, candy, pop corn, circus, etc., bright day, happy hearts, how that day will stand out aginst the dull gray background of their lives! And them men ort to hug themselves thinkin’ the thought, over three thousand happinesses wuz set down to their credit in the books of the Recordin’ Angel. ”

“ Shootin' the chutes—say, that Coney stunt seems tame compared to this!
In no time at all we've made a circle around the yacht and are comin' up behind her once more. We could see the people pilin' out on deck to rubber at us. In a minute more we'd be even with 'em. And how was I goin' to deliver that message to Vee? Just then I looks in my lap, where I was grippin' my straw lid between my knees, and discovers that I've lugged along one of them muskmelons in a paper bag. ”

“ You can’t recall your exact thoughts at such a time, yet I have a ricellection of thinkin’—Josiah is small boneded, and two quarts of water might put him out if he had jest got afire. But where wuz the idol of my soul? I spoze every woman on Coney Island thought them thoughts whether she remembers it or not. Where is he? Will he escape? And men wuz thinkin’, Where is she? Is she safe? Love puts the question, and Fear and Horrer answers it.
As I rushed along cryin’ Fire! winders wuz throwed up, doors opened, and in less time than I can tell on’t, Surf Avenue wuz full of people. ”

“ She had impressed upon Connie that, although the country might be nice in many respects, it was not a desirable place in which to stay, or to visit very often, and Connie was about equally divided between her love for the city and country. She had had a “jam up good time,” she said, remembering Harry’s letter, but before she could get farther, her aunt stopped her.
“You have learned a great deal of slang,” she said; “more than you will forget in a year. You have spoiled your blue cloak and two pairs of boots, besides romping quite too much with the cats and the dog and Kenneth. ”