Stephen Crane

Philadelphia Press/July 12, 1887

“I think you had better move.”

It was Superintendent Snedeker’s mild but firm voice, and a beach entertainment was rudely broken up with a cloud of blushes and abashed looks.

Nearly everybody on the beach near the bathing ground had been amused during the half hour preceding the superintendent’s unwelcome appearance by a pair of those tender seaside doves who have been so numerous at Asbury Park. They were partly protected from the sun’s rays by a very loud, striped parasol, but shielded from the gaze of the beach throng by nothing. There they sat, or rather reclined, upon the half-dry sand, and the whole world was but a myth to them. She gazed fondly down upon him. One of her hands lay by her side and he, a young creature with very fluffy side beards and nice hair that fell from beneath a little straw hat with a white band, covered it with sand and then tenderly brushed it off. They were very close together and no doubt thoroughly understood each other, for at each repetition of the covering and brushing process she would smile right merrily and look into his eyes, while he gazed up unutterable things to the face half hidden by a big white straw hat full of huge lilac ostrich tips.

The Superintendent’s voice was a rude awakening. “Take my advice,” he said, “and let these scenes be left for your home.”

If you have ever been here you’ll recognize that scene. It has been common for a good while at Asbury Park, and the beach has come to be quite famous as a big free entertainment ground, where great numbers may be amused any afternoon about sundown. Superintendent Snedeker has determined to break it up.

Really, though, the breaking up of these demonstrations of the nilly-noddles in loud costumes will be a wonderful relief. The Superintendent declares that he will do it. The young people say he is hardhearted, but he will go ahead with his project all the same and receive the plaudits of sensible folks everywhere.