Evening Star Newspaper, November 6, 1897, Page 14

THE EVENING STAR, Written for The Evening Star. “The bone solo,” remarked an old minstrel performer te a Star reporter, “though once very popular, is regarded as a hoodoo in the burnt cork profession and is never al- Jowed any more urder any circumstances. It is feared as much as the yellow ciarionet, which, according to the superstitions of the show business, 1s one of the most fatal things that exist. The yellow clarionet not only induces bad—that !s, poor busi- ness—but in addition to this it causes trouble among performers, produces rail- road accide , it winds per- There was a 's when it was 21e in the minstrel b just as natural to have ne solo played | by some performer during the evening as it to hav ng, and the public *K as kindly to one as it did the other. arcely any difference between They all sounded about the me and the imi sre always stere- | st went through nance, and used a chair in| the center of the stage to heighten the ef- fect. Who of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands who have heard a bone solo played can the imitations of the starting a1 = of a railroad train; the battle, t and repulse; sawing wood, and 0 yually familiar. Every bone soloist thought it necessary to an imitation of a two-forty horse go- nd especially to imitate r erossing a bridge. ban on bone solos, tt vas that they would aumstances while they ‘were in his employ, either in private or pub- y mpt a bone solo. No minstrel per- n explain where the hoodoo comes in, but they fear it worse than any of the other omens of bad luck.” fe £54 “The general impression that exists and has existed for so long a time that the teeth of the negro—man, woman and child— ‘Were harder than and superior to those of the white man,” volunteered a leading den- tist to a Star reporter, “never had much foundation in fact, and has less now than ever. Though the teeth of the colored race look very white and strong, it is a fact that there are today more bad teeth in propor- tion to numbers among them than the whites. Feeling that they were specially biessed in this regard, the colored people have never been as careful with their teeth as the whites. Another thing not generally known is that if it was not for the work of drawing teeth of colored per- sons many of the country dentists could not exist. The colored man or woman takes no chances in the matter of his or her teeth. If the teeth give them pain they insist on having them drawn, and nothing else will satisfy them. It is no use to say to them that by the proper treatment— filling. bridging and other work—their teeth can be saved for years, if not permanently. ‘They in: sg their aching teeth 3 up their food without them. a very rare thing for colored people, except among the more intelligent, te ve any false teeth put in. There was a time, no doubt, when the col- ored race had stronger teeth than the whit but that was years ago, and the conditions which then favored the negro are now against him. The moment the colored man gave up eating corn bread two and three times a day, that moment his teeth began to go through the same ex- periences as those of the whites.” x * * + * “If the late Jerry Rusk had been Secre- tary of Agriculture two or three months longer than he was he would have issued a beok on ‘The Trotting Horse,’ which would have been in as much demand as his other book, “Diseases of the Horse,’ the circula- tion of which has been phenomenally large,” said a prominent horse raiser to a Star reporter. “He had had prepared nearly all the matter for the book and had the work €ivided up among experts, in the same way as he had ‘Diseases of the Horse’ written, each chapter being propared by a person Specially competent to write it. The work ‘was to be handsomely and generously illus- trated by photogravures. The late Senators Stockbridge, Stanford and others who were interested in horse raising, and especially raising the speed horse, had secured for » work photographs of all the best fami- lies of trotting horses bred in this coun- and besides, had furnished a great deal of infermation on the subject. The | article on . the famous Mich- igan sire prepared by Senator Stockbr: while that on Elec- | trotting sires, would | nator Stanford. | lemen was, and | neurred heartily, | to raise a fine- In | ted to y $75 could be expe the horse, and seldom le in the other, the care- there did not’ appear to € eo nator Stock- where he sold gave some at- his prices rose t ae price of ssador colts being over $700. Senator e latter being the price se- >w owned by J. Malcolm rion was foaled while Stanford's farm in and originally was named by Harrison. who was asked to give the colt a nam ‘aby McKee. Mr. Forbes n becoming the own- s has been over $200,000, or could be secured by raising 2,000 common-bred hor Sceretary Rusk had no t in seeing that the big money in * raising was in horses of fashionable breeding, or those which, in turf parlance, bred on, that is, became faster and f: in cach generation. As I Say, the book almost ready to go to — when Secretary Rusk got enthusias- t ally interested in President Harrison's aign for re-election. He temporarily the book until the campaign was the result being the opposite of > gave it up for his essor to finish, and that seems to have the end of the matter.” xR ee “Though the Chinaman laundry,” explained a color 4s fully posted on the subject, “‘and is sup- posed to ° “wai Washee,’ the average Ctinaman seidom, if ever, washes an ar- ticle that comes into his laundry. It is mot because he cannot wash, for the Chinaman can wash if he wants to, but because he does not want to, and will not if he can avoid it. He is perfectly willing to do the ironing and polishing, and does it. The reason why a Chinaman cannot do washing ts becavse he insists on wear- ing long finger na‘ls, some of them from a Quarter to a half inch in length. These are his pride, and a heavy day's washing would wear them away. Therefore, in- stead of doing tne washing himself, he hires others to do his laundry work proper. They prefer to employ men to do the washing, but as there are not many men, coiored or white, who know how to wash, they are forced to employ women. They do not like to have women about their a and get rid of them the me eir washing is done. Some time ego the Chinamen paid as high as seventy- EARD EEN five cents a day to men and women who eid their washing, er four dollars per week, the washers providing their own meals. Since the Chinamen cut their own rate in consequence of the competition among the two factions of Chinese who are es- tablished in this city, they pay but sixty cents per day for washing, or three dollars per week, where they hire help by the week. As a rule, they prefer to have their work done by the day.” myn * * “Economy and stinginess are two differ- ent things,” observed a gentleman to a Star reporter. “I have had considerable ex- perience in collecting money for a univers- ity and other religious ard educational work, and I have always found that my largest contributions came from the men and women who were mest economical. The free and easy, the spendthrift and the people who have their purse at their fin- ger’s end, seldom give any large sums for universities or other great work. They con- tent themselves with letting their money &o out as readily and as easily as it comes in, but in small packages. When I start out for a subscription from those who have secured wealth by economy, I feel that I am more likely to succeed and succeed handscmely than I do when I lay siege on these who got their mony easily. Some time ago I had occasion to visit New York and the offices of two or three very promi- nent men to get them interested in a Washington university. It happened that the day I called at the office of one of them, another gentleman I wanted to see iso there. As I entered the room I found them complaining to the office mes- er because he had cut the cord from a vndle rather than untie the knots in it. hese men were economical in everything that related to their business, and it was but natural that they should resent any waste. They both subscribed handsomely to the work I presented to them, though many that I met spoke of them as being stingy. I had a similar experience in this city. As I was entering the house of a well-known gentleman I met a lady coming out. I knew the lady, and spoke to her and asked if the gentleman I wanted to see was in his house. She told me that he was, and that she had just had an experience with him that convinced her that he was the stingiest man in the city. She explained to me that she had just settled up a finan- cial matter with him, released a mortgage for a rather large sum, and that in the cal- culation for the interest it was found that there were a certain number of dollars due and twenty-five cents; that she had asked him to strike off the twenty-five cents, so that she could draw an even check, and that he had declined to do so, insisting on every penny due, whieh she had paid. Though she thought this prejudiced me <gainst him, it had the opposite effect, and it was not many minutes afterward when without very much solicitation from me he gave me the entire check he had received from her, for the university. It was his habits of economy and strict business trans- actions, not stinginess, that made him de- mand up to the last cent that what was due him. He gave it all over to me with much easier grace than she gave up her check for the odd twenty-five cents. The lady, I may mention, has no idea of what economy is, for she or none of her family has ever practiced i ————— SIDEWALK PHILOSOPHY. Way of Determining the Beauty of 2 Woman. A Star reporter was walking down Penn- A Sure sylvania avenwe the other afternoon with a friend. an all-around philosopher and logician. He is something of a Conan Doyle in the way with which he reasons out his deductions. The latter was’a close observer, It is very seldom, too, that he fails to land on the solar plexus In this respect. A fine-looking lady was walking down the avenue in front of the two pedestrians. The lady had a good figure, was well dress- ed, and from the distance of probably fifty feet which intervened between the two men and the supposedly beautiful lady she might have been taken for a Diana. “I'll wager the mysterious female is as beautiful as Venus and as lovely as Aphro- dite,” said the newspaper man to the other. “Make it a half dozen choice cigars and I'll go you,” said the other. ‘Far from be- ing pretty, I am positive that she ts abso- lutely homely. “That's a go,” said the reporter, and beth increased their speed so as to over- take the lady, who nad been walking ahead of them for probably a block. As she was passed the plotters turned and looked at her; in such a manner, however, as not to disconcert her, and then passed on. The reporter acknowledged that he had lost, without atiempting in the least to save his bet. There was no use, for the lady was really ugly, there was no doubt about that. She was terribly plain, and the difference between the appearance of her face and what might have been expected from her figure and general make-up was surprising. “If you'll give me the secret by which you found that out I will throw in another half dozen cigars,” is what the newspaper man told his friend. “That's the easiest thing in the world, if you just tumble to the fact once,” said the other. “If you had noticed, as I did, that although several men passed the lady, com- ing in our direction, not one of them took the trouble to more than glance at her. Some of them did not look at her at all. If she had been good-looking these men would have given her more than a glance. If she had been pretty they would have let their es rest upon her at least until she had gotten past them. If she had been as beau- tiful as you imagined they would have turned their heads to look at her. I noted this, and I made my bet on this conclusion. Just try it yourself, and you will see that I am correct.” The experiment was tried during a fur- ther walk down the avenue, and it was found that the idea panned out exactly. eee Literary Value of Wickedness. From the Literary Digest. That the villain of a play or a story is generally the most interesting character in it has been discovered by most readers at an early period of life. Charles Leonard Moore, in commenting upon literary values in general, after references to the literary value of style, of invention, of observation, and of enthusiasm in one’s own creations, turns aside for a moment to mark the im- portant part assigned in fiction to wicked- ness—a subject, one may remark in pass- ing, that would afford ample material for much more than the incidental treatment which he gives it. We quote from his arti- cle in the Dial: “The fact that an author has enjoyed a character is one test of its reality. Jane Austen evidently delighted in her curates, whereas Charlotte Bronte half hated and wholly despised hers. The difference is felt. There is hardly any one in Shakes- peare’s world—villains, criminals or fools included—whom he did not evidently love, hardly any one- against whom he would have been willing to draw an indictment. “It is curious, indeed, that wickedness and weakness force themselves to the front as the protagonists of almost every drama. Great literature is the biography of criminals and fools. Average morality and average intelligence are not the stuff out of which to create characters that will interest. Evil, indeed, seems to be the en- ergetic force of the universe, and is the cause of the obstacles and collisions from which events spring. Every great creative beet is a Manichean. In spite of himself, Milton was forced to make the devil his hero; and Richardson was shocked to dis- cover that his Lovelace was a most at- tractive monster. The populace are willing to pay for crime. Nothing sells a news- paper like a murder. Even in the natural world, those lurid villains of nature's melodrama, the lightning and the storm, get infinitely more spectators than the milder and beneficent agencies of sunlight and dew. Goethe said that he had learned from Polygnotus that our business on this earth was to enact hell. Except Poe and Hawthorne, no American writer has ever had any suspicion of this fact. Ever since that adventure in Boston harbor, there has been a flavor of tea in all New literature.” re ‘SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1897-24 PAGES, a ae by ae oes FOR SILENCE WAS GOLDEN The Philosopher said he wanted to talk about marriage, and then he talked after this fashion, although with the Philosopher quotations are not allowable: _ This is all about marriage, and I have not been married in the past few weeks, either. I have been married so long that my wife never thinks of calling me mister even before my sixth cousin. She calls me mister when talking to the milkman, and I suppose that is honor enough. One of my main reasons for getting married was to have some one to elevate me to the al- titude of mister, and, lo and behold, I was unable to breathe the rarified air for more than six months, when I dropped back into the valley of Jims and Jacks. Speaking of this matter, I once knew an old lady up north who made herself awfully unpopular with a young couple just on this line. Sam Green had only been married a short time when Aunt Debby called on the bride, whom, as well as the groom, she had known since their teething stage. “Come right in, Aunt Deb,” said the young wife, when the old lady appeared at the gate. “Come right in and set down; Mr. Green has just run down to the post office, but” ‘Mister who?” said Aunt Debbie. “Mr. Green—Sam—my husband,” with a blush. “Land sakes alive,” ejaculated Aunt Deb- bie, “has that good-for-nothing, shiftless, sawed-off Sam Green actually got some one to call him mister?” All this, however, is straying from the point I started to reach, which, now I come to think about it, wasn’t marriage, either. I started out to relate a little in eldent connected with marriage, which may serve as an example to other husbands. In Cairo, Egypt, not many years since, the American consul general was a young man from Kansas, without any acquaint- ance whatever with khedives and poten- tates, but with a fair knowledge of kings and queens and spades and an intimate knowledge of fun, whether found among the aristocratic denizens of Shepheard’s or in the picturesque Arab quarter. Up to the time of his arrival in Cairo our consul gen- eral’s' idea of dress for the male portion of humanity had been confined to long frock Coats or dress coats, with turn-down col- lars and black string ties. The presence, therefore, on constant guard in front of the coasulate of two dark-skinned Arabs in flowing white and gold robes and curved and sparkling scimeters, was a matter of constant awe and admiration to him. These two individuals served the United States at a joint salary amounting to al- mcst $15 per month, but they were beauti- ful in grave faces, spotless turbans, pic- turesque robes and gaudy weapons. *In themselves they were well worth the price of admission, but one of them, and he the gtaver and more graceful of the pair, had a wife. Like so many wives, this wife refused to be awed by the imposing get-up. She utterly disclaimed any intention of calling her liege lord mister, and on frequent oc- casions would drop around and hold ani- mated conversations with him on the street in front of the consulate, during which af- fairs she would express her opinions of him and his sex in earnest Arabic. This sort of thing was too much for even the easy-going nature of the gentleman from Kansas, and one day, after a more than usually exciting family affair on the side- walk, he called the dignified husband to his presence. {Suloman, who is that woman?” She is my wife, oh, guardian of the stars.” “Well, Iam a man of few words and lib- eral ideas. I am from Kansas, and have associated with Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Lease. I don’t expect the impossible, and therefore I don’t tell you to keep your wife from talking, but understand that you have got to stop her from doing her talk- irg around this consulate, and that's straight, see.” “Oh, child of the sun and brother of the moon, it shall be as you say,” and Suloman departed with a profund salaam. After that the peace and quiet around the house could be cut with a knife. The hot sun glistened on the turbans of the sentinels, the little donkeys went scurry- ing by, now and then a jong, ungainly camel passed with noiseless footsteps, but ho woman, wife or maid broke the calm of the square. Several days later the cons:1l general, entranced at the eace after the storm, felt called upon to compliment Sulo- man upon his success, “You have done nobly, my boy, and I intend to raise your salary §.11 per month, if the government will stand it.” “It is nothing, most high; she will come no more.” hoe I felt real sure of that I would make “It is certain, oh, glory of the world ruler of the winds; I have divorced her." “What!! Great heavens, man, I didn’t Mean anything of that kind.” “Calm yourself, lord of the west, it is nothing. You are my master. Your word is law. You pay well and I do nothing but stand in the sun. Not one nor 500 wives could come between me and such ease. Be- sides, I have married her already three years. It is done, I have divorced her, and today, if your smile light upon me and give me the afternoon, I marry a woman dumb since her birth. ‘The Philosopher said the only moral to his story was the information that Cairo can be reached in about fifteen days. —— Cake Walk Once a Wedding. From the New Orleans Times-Democrat. The cake walk proper had its origin among the French negroes of Louisiaaa more than a century ago. There is little doubt that ft Is an offshoot of some of the old French country dances. It resembles several of them in form. From New Or- leans it spread over the entire south, and thence north. It was found of convenience to the plantation negroes. They were not wedded by license, and it was seldom that the services of a preacher were called in. At a cake walk a man might legitimately show his preference for a woman, and thus publicly cl: her for a wife. In effect the cake walk was not different from the old Scotch marriage, which required only public acknowledgment from the contra-t- ing parties. So this festival became in some sense a wooing, an acceptance or rejection and a ceremory. This explains its popularity with the blacks, outside of its beauties, with the accompaniment of music, which {s competent at all times to command negro support. Cake walking has improved, as do most things that are constantly practiced. It has lost its old significarce in the south. Negroes now zat married in white folks’ fashion. It has be- come, however, a pantomime dance. Prop- erly performed it is a beautiful one. The cake is not much of a prize, though the regro has a sweet tooth. Golf Datt. From Life. Between fifty and fifty thousand con- temporary Americans are golf-mad. There is no dcubt about the prevalence of the mania, but the number of the afflicted is hard to estimate. It is a case like that of the three little pigs, who jumped about so much that the child could not count them. ‘Phe golfiacs, who are far gone in their delusion, straggle about so and enjoy such a vast publicity that they seem an army, whereas it may be they are only @ squad. Golf can’t last at the pace it is going now. It ought to be squelched in the interest of its own permanency. ——_<e-__ ° Family Records. From Punch Bc IN A YEAR'S READING “How many volumes can a man read in the course of a year? was the question recently put by a Star rter to a gentie- man whose }ime is largely employed as a book reviewer on zines. 3 e of the leading maga- “Weil,” mntleman, pointing to a row of boo! e is a collected edition of the Englis “The work only comes comprises twentyggne volumes royal Svo, down to Cowper, @vho died in 1800, but it doudle eoiu ce il type. Each volume averages ‘This gives a total of 14,700 pages¢: or $9,400 columns. Now it havg ma@e the experiment—four minutes to fead azcolumn of such matter with fair attention: Here, then, is a good year’s work in. reading over, only once, carefully, a selection from the English poets. “The amount of reading, however, which a@ student can get through in a given time hardly admits of being measured. The rate of reading varies with the interest one takes in the subject matter of a book. In other words, a page of Kaut’s Oritique of Pure Reason requires proportionally more thorough attention than the latest work of fiction. -Still, just to have something to go by, it will be found pretty accurate to make a calculation like this: Suppose a raan to be able to read eight hours a-day. No one can really give his receptive or critical at- tention to printed matter for eight hours regularly every day. But take eight hours as the outside possibility. Thirty pages 8vo is an average hour’s read, taking ore book with another. This would make 240 pages per day, 1,680 per week and 87,260 pages in the year. Taking the average thickness of an 8vo volume as 400 pages only, the quantity of reading matter wbich an intelligent student can get over in a year is no more than an amount equal to about 220 volumes Svo. Of course, this is merely a mechanical computation by which I would not pretend to gauge the reading capacity of the average student. But it may be interesting to know that the merely mechanical limit of study is some 220 vol- umes 8vo per annum.” =e FOOLSCAP PAPER. Was First Made by Order of the Rump Parliament. “Nearly everybody knows what ‘foolscap’ Paper is, but there are probably few peo- ple who know just how it came to bear that name,” said a large wholesale station- er in New York to the writer yesterday. “In order to increase his revenues Charles I of England granted certain privileges amounting to monopolies, and among these was the manufacture of writing paper, the exclusive right of which was sold to cer- tain parties, who grew wealthy and en- riched the government at the expense of those who were obliged to use such paper. At that time all English paper bore the royal coat-of-arms in water marks. But when the parliament under Cromwell came into power it made sport of this law in every possible manner, and among other indignities to the memory of Charles it was ordered that the royal arms be removed from the paper, and that a fool’s cap and bells should be used as a substitute. When the Rump parliament was prorogued these were also removed; but paper of the size of the parliamentary journals, which is usually seventeen by fourteen inches, still bears the namd of foolscap in England. “In this country foolscap was used large- ly by lawyers, writers and other profession- al men for copying purposes until a few years after the civil war, when a smaller single sheet af paper, known as legal cap, was introduced. . Qhen came the typewrit- ing machines, requiring the manufacture of a paper of suitable size for copying, and today there iS’ very little demand for fools- cap outside of:a few school rooms. i—+—>—_— BROTHERLY SARCASM. ent SE One Lawyer Suggests to Another the Mistake He Hade. Down in a Virginia, town there lives a lawyer, one Major Blank, who ts powerful- ly disliked by,all the other lawyers in the place. So strong is,this.antagonism to the major {hat the other lawyers. will not even have en offite inthe same. building with him. In the*same town fs“d former judge, who is so godt-hatured-that he will even be on terms with the unpopular major, Recently it happened that the judge gave up his offices: just across‘the hall from a law firm, and, the major hearing of it slipped in and rented them before anyhody else had a chance at them. When the firm across the hall heard of it they showed their appreciation of the major by giving him $50 not to move in as their neighbor. Of course, they didn’t put it exactly that way, but that. was exactly what they meant. Then the judge met the major. “I got fifty dollars for my bargain, judge,” said the major, who didn’t see the point at all. “So I heard, so I heard,” responded the judge, as if he were not pleased to death with the major’s luck, “and I’m sorry to hear it. I always knew you had a great head for fine financial transactions, major, but you missed {it badly this time. “Missed it?” exclaimed the major, in much aurpris?. ‘How do you mean?” “You gold out too cheap, major; too cheap. You could have got twice as much if you had held out for it,” and as the judge rubbed bis hands unctuously the major began to regret that he had put his figures so lew, but he never suspected the judge. ——.—__. Joke on the Dogs. From the Detroit Free Press, The man who was doing the talking has endured a good many hard knocks while making a successful way through the world, and, like most persons who have survived such experience, has very de- cided opinions of his own. “I've always regarded women as the weaker vessel,” he said, “but want to say right here that Mrs. Slims is a very remarkable person. I don’t believe she could tell a Perzheron from a Kentucky thoroughbred, yet I saw her start a balky horse the other day after twenty men and boys had been beat- ing, kicking and cursing the poor brute for half an hour. The persuasien she used was a couple of lumps of sugar and a few kind words. “But it was just yesterday that she con- vinced me of her great superiority. You can gauge her knowledge of dogs from the fact that she paid $ for a long-haired mongrel puppy under the impression that she was buying an dristocratic pug. Slims has a bull terrie> that’s a. professional fighter, and Torton, who lives next door, owns a big St. Bernard. The two dogs began an argument through the fence, and the larger one simplified matters by crashing through a board into Slims’ yard. The whole neighborhood was soon engaged in an effort to part them. -Strong hands tugged at tails, legs and ears. Clubs were freely used, water was dashed upon the belligerents dfid thé'stern orders for them to ‘break away’ Co be heard blocks off. When Mrs. Slims ‘appeared on the scene she seemed to grasp the situation in one terrified glarite. She flew into the house, dashed out again, and inside of a minute had the savage fighters slinking away from each other.” ~~ ‘How did she do it?” “Bottle of ammonia. Surest thing on earth to break up a dog fight, and it’s original with her. iy, those two terrible beasts quit like pet@heep, and the joke of it is that each do thin! the other ad- ministered the awf¥j dose. They never see each other now that they do not curl their noses as though ing ammonia, and trot briskly in opposite directions.” Squenked ‘Ofce. Too Often. From Spare Moments, Maccabe, the vengriloquist, was a great practical joker. . WAITERS AND THEIR WAYS “Every man about town is familiar with the waiter, but it is only a superficial fa- miliarity at best,” remarked a commercial traveler to a Star reporter yesterday. “The noiseless and urbane figure in full dress flits across his gastronomic vision only for a moment, and gets no more than a passing glance, or a passing quarter. Now I, in tgaveling about from one city to another, have made a stury of the waiters and I ob- serve that he has an individuality of his own. There are many types of waiters, and class distinctions are as closely drawn as in ary other walk of life. All nationalities, creeds, and previous conditions of servitude are represented. “There is the French waiter. Perhaps he is a count, perhaps he isn’t; but whether or no, the grace and dexterity of his move- ments suffer not. His field of operations is the first-class hotel, restaurant or club, and he is always seen in faultless evening dress. His coat is of the blackest of black broad- cloth and fits him like a glove. His trous- ers are ditto, and an immaculate expanse of linen relieves the otherwise somberness of his attire. You sit down to dine. He ap- pears at the end of the table. You do not hear him coming, you Bod not noe a Sead he is at your elbow. ere is onl hinge in his body—at the waist. He bends it, and lays the menu under your nose. ope hinge straightens him up again, and he waits. You order; he disappears. Then you wait. It may be for a minute, it may be longer. = “He reappears with a pyramid of mk ing dishes, flecks imaginary crumbs fro! the table cloth, and without clatter or clash, a good dinner is before you. His Iden of Arithmetic. “Being an American, you gulp down your dinner as fast as your jaws will let you, and all the while the waiter’s eyes are upon you. Then, when you have finished, he is at your elbow again with the check. You give him a bank note. This is where his arithmetic comes in. No matter what the denomination of the note or the amount of the check, he will so fix the change that there is a quarter and a ten-cent piece in it. You give him either or nothing, as ycur generosity or principle dictates. He pockets the either or the nothing with the same air of imperturbable gravity, but if it is the nothing, you put on your topcoat yeurself. If it is the ten-cent piece he simply holds the coat for you; if the quar- ter, the coat is put on, your undercoat pull- ed down, and the collar neatly arranged. “Then there is the German. He may also be a count with a long name split in the middie with a ‘von.’ His methods are closely allied to his French brother's. He is equally noiseless, polite and deft and equal- ly on hand when the fees are to be given out. He is somewhat broader in figure, and broader in his manner of serving you, but he gets there just the same. Have him wait on you and you will soon recognize this. “The colored waiters’ dusky presence comes and goes like the seasons. He is here today and you miss kim tomorrow. Scme hotel autocrats, yclept clerks, declare that he is not so submissive as of yore, and entertains a high and mighty opinion of himself. This, however, may be an unjust color line drawn by the aforesaid autocrats, for the fact remains that the colored man and brother continues to handle dishes in n.any first-class hotels and restaurants in nearly every city of the United States with his ‘old-time’ dexterity and dispatch. On the Bowery. “But it is the ‘hash-handler’ of the coffee-and-cake saloons who stands forth in startling originality. He is a distinct specimen of the genus waiter. He may be tall or short, stout or lean, but is always pale and round-shouldered. He wears a collar and a necktie, or he doesn’t, accord- ing to his fancy or early training. His shoes are always too large for his feet and he never lifts them off the floor when he moves. His stock in trade is a semi- sarcastic, semi-blaze expression, and a long string of outlandish and original titles for the crdinary articles to be found on the bill of fare. Order a steak. He will call it ‘one slaughter house.” Eggs fried on one side are white wings with the sunny side up. ‘One with the light out’ is his yell for coffee without milk and beans minus pork is ‘a brass band without a leader.’ His chief hold on popularity is his dense ignorance of fees. He never thinks of one, never looks for one, and seldom, if ever, gets one. He will stand twenty feet from you, and shy your check at the table. Practice has made him perfect in this, and the piece of pasteboard will drop beside your plate. Sometimes it will fall into your soup, but if it does you have struck a new hand at the business. “Like other branches of labor the waiter has his union. Besides this he belongs to the Amity Club, the Columbian Club, the United Waiters’ Association, and the In- ternational Society. These are benevolent institutions and takes care of their mem- bers when illness or accident prevents them from taking care of themselves.” ee THE BETTER BARGAIN, Considering the Price of the Pulpit and of the Preacher. “I can remember very distinctly,” the minister was saying, “‘when I was in very truth passing through the wilderness of my calling, hoping every day, and never quite doubting that after awhile Canaan would gladden my eyes and give rest to my weary mind and body, for I think when a preach- er’s row is hard to hoe it is very hard in- deed. My salary was about $40 a year, and what I could pick up, and the picking wasn’t anything to boast of. The bulk of what salary I did get was paid by a most exemplary Christian women of our congre- gation, who also very largely met the other expenses of the church; tut as she was rich for the section in which she lived the bur- Gen was not tou heavy. “But the poor little church was nearly as badly dilapidated as its poor little pastor, and after a year or two of preaching in it, the pulpit became so unstable that I was efraid it would fall down with me, and in order to reduce the strein upon it to the minimum I restrained my emphasis to such an extent that the congregation complained of my lack of animation. Upon this I went to see the main prop and pillar of the chureh. I told her what was needed and what she already knew as well as I did, but she shook her head. “Well, I can’t preach in it unless some- thing is done,” id, with considerably mcre emphasis than I would have used in the pulpit. “ ‘How much will it cost?’ she asked. “ ‘About thirty-four dollars.’ “ "Thirty-four dollars?’ she nearly shriek- ed; then let her voice tall. ‘I guess,’ she said, ‘we'd better change preachers.’ And for the year or so I staid there I preached from the pulpit steps.” One View of the Jubilee Presents. Phil May in Sketeb. on board @ river: steamboat, and, having made friends with the engineer, was al- lowed the freedom of the engine room. Presently a certain part of the machinery began to creak. The engineer oiled it and went about his duties. In the course of a few minutes the creaking was heard again, and the wer rushed over, oil can in Dena, to fareate the tame cron Again ke : post, but i utes before the me ‘sid JOHNSON? * Written for The Evening Star. . The Lightning. Mistuh Lecturissity, way up in de cloud, Reckon you'd break loose an’ git me ef you was allowed! : Wonduh how de city-folks keeps livin’ dat- a-way, Pushin’ froo de week, like ebry day was mahket day? Wires ev'y whah to furnish him an easy road, Whiles he goes a-Tummagin’, all rea@y to explode! I'd rathuh live Way off some place an’ Watch "im in de sky, Whah Mistuh Lecturissity can’t ketch me ef he try. I knows I doesn’ stan’ out as a mahk o° Special note, But de eagie-hunter sometimes shoots de blackbird, jes’ foh spoht. An’ it’s as like as not dat he'll pick ou: Some no-count scamp An’ chase ’im wif a street-car or else burn "im wif a lamp. So, whah’s de use o° resks, cabin, day by day, T kin see de storms a-gatherin’ or kin watch Ge sun-beams play? A cabin whah no wires comes a-circulatin’ by, Whah Mistuh Lecturissity can’t ketch me ef he try! when f'um my I's hyuhd de white folks tellin’ dat he he'ps ‘em out a heap; But all de he’p he gibs ‘em dey is welcome foh ter keep. On peaceful, gentle faces I has seen de paleness spread De minute aftuh readin’ whut de telegraph done said. T’se seen de people tremblin’ like dey done took sudden-sick When de sheen’ry in de corner gun ter cough aroun’ an’ click. So, I's content to live wif nuffin’ but de wild-bires nigh, Whah Mistuh Lecturissity can't ketch me ef he try! * * * A Philosopher. The man who keeps a second-hand book store utterly failed to sympathize with the excitement of the customer who had been looking over his stock. “Did you see that woman?” inquired the customer. “Yes,” replied the book-seller, prepar- ing to light his pipe. “That well-dressed woman with the large cape?” “Yes “The one who glanced _ hurriedly around, and when she thought no one saw her shoved. a book under her cape and walked aw. with it?” ee “But you didn’t say anything.” “No. I never do.” “Do you mean to tell me that you permit yourself to be robbed without making any protest whatever?” “Yes. I feel that it is my duty not to in- terfere. You see, all the books outside there are of a wholly innocuous character. Some of them are instructive, and the ma. jority are calculated to exert a wholesome, moral influence. That's why we have to put them where the lowness of the price will attract attention. If that woman Wanted one of those books badly enough to purloin it, I wouldn't raise a hand or breathe a syllable to stop her. She may find something in it which will be the tur. ing point that leads her to a better life” * * * A Crop Failure. “Whut’s this here administration a-doin’ fur me?” inquired Farmer Corntossel. “Tell me that. Whur's ail that thur prosperity as was goin’ to come a-sailin’ in on me an’ make me git out from under fur fear o° gittin’ rich an’ haughty?” “Haven't you prospered?” relative from the city. “Prospered! All I’ve got t+ show fur the summer boarders we tuck in is two tennis blazers an’ a sea-grass hammock. Spent the money fur repairs long ago.” “But you surely have no cause to com- Plain of the money you are getting for your crops.”” “T ain't gittin’ no money fur no crops. “Why, my dear sir, wheat went up—". “I know all about . pe es that. But it didn’t do “You don't mean were a failure?” EThat about the size of it.” “There must have been some peculiar local condition to produce that there a drouth?” creel “Nope.” “Rain?” “Nope. “Insects?” “Nope.” ‘What could have been the trouble?” “Well, to tell you the truth, S awe T didn’s plant inquired his to tell me that crops * Argument. Used to have some big debates, Settin’ “round the store; Both the men was heavyweights An’ Lad met before. Talked "bout politicians’ games. Wrath too great to smother, *Riz, an’ Jake called Joshua names An’ Josh says, “You're another.” Useter jes’ git middlin’ riled In their tariff talkin’. Silver found their tempers spilled; Left ‘em both a-balkin’. An’, while each the victory claims, Argyments seemed rutker Mixed, when Jake called Joshua names. An’ Josh says, “You're another.” Sometimes bigger men than they, ‘When campaigns is warmin’, Try to sum it up an’ say ‘Tuther needs reformin’. But, towards fact, though each one blames, They don’t git much fu'ther ambition strives honestly, and in which hepe laughs at failures; in which ideals of the imagination if not of substance abound; where comradeship is frank and unselfish, and where faults may be for- given because of the greater virtues linked about them. It was this kind of a Bohemia that Wil- lie pictured to himself. He resolved to en- ter it, if possible, and having heard that Bohemians Go not usually have much money at a time, he made a practice of having his friends introduce him to any- body they knew who looked especially im- pecunious. Having thus secured an exten- sive, seedy acquaintance, it was only neces- ‘ary to separate the frugal millionaires from the people who lived from hand to mouth. He gathered about him one man who said he was an actor, another who said he was an artist and others who described them- selves variously. “Ah, yes,” said the alleged actor to whom Willie had broached the subject of Bohemianism. “It is a hard thing to cul- tivate. A man must be born a Bohemian, you know. There are very few people fit- ted for 2 companionship in which sordid considerations count for naught. Very few Eave the temperament which enables them to get away from the mercantile realities of life, my boy. I have seen several peo- ple who tried to be Bohemians. But they were always counting the cost. They were constantly thinkng of dollars and cents when their minds ought to have been on the sublime, don’t you know?” “That's the trouble,” echoed the alleged artist. “I'm sure I shouldn't do anything like that,” exclaimed Willie. “Perhaps not. But you can’t tell. The ability to regard the possessions of cne as the common property of ali without envy or regret, is a gift of nature, the same 2s eny other form of genius.” “I really think I have it,” said Willie, earnestiy. “Well, you might try it for awhile. By the way, aren’t we a iittle thirsty was the response; “but we haven't any money.” This was Willie's opportunity and he met it. The opportunity was repeated several times. Tiey even received him into fellow- ship so far as to take dinner at his ex- pense. When ke had oceasion to do a little arithme: ck book that he might keep hi i, he wa into a retired co: a 2 think he was ccunting the cost. The friendsbip progressed for about two weeks. st found noth- s. It was > so many t them be- that was likely to be embarrassed by the d of a remittance. T is to say, he would have been emb 1 ith a Bohemian. But wit and a light heart, he ef had not been nt foot steps sought the haunts “Ah,” exclaimed the man of histrionic pretensions, “congratulate me!” “On what?” “P've got a job.” “You mcan an engagement, don’t you?” “Yes—of course.” “Are you going on the road?” Yes.” ‘With what company’ ‘Payster and Stickum. Liggest wall paper concerns in Philadel- phia. I have a stated s and a per- centage on everything I sell over a certain amount. They let me have a couple of weeks’ pay in advance too.” “That reminds me,” said Willie. “A de- lay occurred in some—er—some matters (his friend had glared in a way that re- minded him just in time that he was about to speak of something so vulgar as money), end I thought I would come around and take dinner with you—just in an informal Bohensian way, you know—that is, if you have the time. “Weill,” was the reply as the sneaker tilted back in his chair and put his hands in his pocket; “I'l tell you. Bohemianism is all well enovgh when a man is young and has years of life before him; but a time comes when he must realize that life has an object and that the minutes are precious. I made up my mind just before I came down town this morning that it was time for me to settle down and give up this wild and reckless way of livin; * + * His Heart Failed Him. “I reckon ye may think it strange,” said Meandering Mike, “but I'm in favor of not follerin’ this road any furder.” “Mike,” said Plodding Pete, reproach- fully, “I never tuck ye for a quitter.” “Dere’s some t’ings as’ll spoil de nerve of de bravest.” “But if we turn around an’ go back we'll pess all dem houses where dey turned us away.” “T_know it.” “We won't stand no better show dis time dan we did de fust. You know dey even lavghed at us when we asked ‘em for wel know it. It wus a dangerous bluff to make, but it seems like fclks is gettin’ to expect it.” We'll try jes de nex’ house.” “No, sir,” replied Mike. “Ye can’t drag me past de place, much less make me go in an’ have any talk.” “Did ye see any marks on de gate post dat scared ye?” “No. I'm almost ashamed to tell ye. ee a ee ae ee owned de place passed us a inute ago an’ went in de front gate. I heard a ‘woman call him by his fust name.” “Whut of it’ It skeered It's one of the “What name was it de woman Hiram.” 2 —_>__ Attractive. She—“So he married her for her money? He—“Yes.” She (thoughtfully)—“How awfully rick she must be!’ = ——_en——__ Im a Wrath. From Flegende Batter.