A pretty sequel to the historic attack on the Sixth Massachusetts occurred when the same regiment passed through Baltimore in 1898, on its way to the Spanish War.  On this occasion it was “attacked” again in the streets of the city, but the missiles thrown, instead of paving-stones and bricks, were flowers.

Continuing the category of contrasts, one may observe that while the general appearance of Baltimore suggests a northern city rather than a southern one—­Philadelphia, for instance, rather than Richmond—­Baltimore society is strongly flavored with the tradition and the soft pronunciation of the South; particularly of Virginia and the “Eastern Shore.”

So, too, the city’s position on the border line is reflected in its handling of the negro.  Of American cities, Washington has the largest negro population, 94,446, New York and New Orleans follow with almost as many, and Baltimore comes fourth with 84,749, according to the last census.  New York has one negro to every fifty-one whites, Philadelphia one to every seventeen whites, Baltimore one to every six, Washington a negro to every two and a half whites, and Richmond not quite two whites to every negro.  But, although Baltimore follows southern practice in maintaining separate schools for negro children, and in segregating negro residences to certain blocks, she follows northern practice in casting a considerable negro vote at elections, and also in not providing separate seats for negroes in her street cars.

Have you ever noticed how cities sometimes seem to have their own especial colors?  Paris is white and green—­even more so, I think, than Washington.  Chicago is gray; so is London usually, though I have seen it buff at the beginning of a heavy fog.  New York used to be a brown sandstone city, but is now turning to one of cream-colored brick and tile; Naples is brilliant with pink and blue and green and white and yellow; while as for Baltimore, her old houses and her new are, as Baedeker puts it, of “cheerful red brick”—­not always, of course, but often enough to establish the color of red brick as the city’s predominating hue.  And with the red-brick houses—­particularly the older ones—­go clean white marble steps, on the bottom one of which, at the side, may usually be found an old-fashioned iron “scraper,” doubtless left over from the time (not very long ago) when the city pavements had not reached their present excellence.

The color of red brick is not confined to the center of the city, but spreads to the suburbs, fashionable and unfashionable.  At one margin of the town I was shown solid blocks of pleasant red-brick houses which, I was told, were occupied by workmen and their families, and were to be had at a rental of from ten to twenty dollars a month.  For though Baltimore has a lower East Side which, like the lower East Side of New York, encompasses the Ghetto and Italian quarter, she has not tenements in the New York sense; one sees