--LONGFELLOW.
Before I went to Baltimore I had but two definite impressions connected
with the place: the first was of a tunnel, filled with coal gas, through
which trains pass beneath the city; the second was that when a
southbound train left Baltimore the time had come to think of cleaning
up, preparatory to reaching Washington.
Arriving at Baltimore after dark, one gathers an impression of an
adequate though not impressive Union Station from which one emerges to a
district of good asphalted streets, the main ones wide and well lighted.
The Baltimore street lamps are large and very brilliant single globes,
mounted upon the tops of substantial metal columns. I do not remember
having seen lamps of the same pattern in any other city. It is a good
pattern, but there is one thing about it which is not good at all, and
that is the way the street names are lettered upon the sides of the
globes. Though the lettering is not large, it is large enough to be
read easily in the daytime against the globe's white surface, but to try
to read it at night is like trying to read some little legend printed
upon a blinding noon-day sun. I noticed this particularly because I
spent my first evening in wandering alone about the streets of
Baltimore, and wished to keep track of my route in order that I might
the more readily find my way back to the hotel.
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