Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-09-15

NEW York, September III have lately
noticed, while taking my customary walks
through the city, that my old friends the
school teachers, are back in great force. 1 dis
tinguish them by their spectacles, the books
they carry and their calm and learned express
sions They all look bright and CHEEKY now,
for they have just returned, like the oyster
from summer watering places. But, Heaven
knows, there is hard winters work before
theml The schoolroom and the library are
the musty elements in which these plodding,
ilpaid people chiefly exist, 1 have often
heard patient old pedagogues complain Of the
poorness of our city libraries, and I used, In
my simplicity, to pity their unhappy lot. But
as q matter Of fact there is no end of books in
New York. We have no less than
seventeen public libraries. 1 fancy
that the detractors of our literary
institutions direct their attacks against the
absence OF one really great library in this city.
Surely they can find no fault with the wide
dissemination and circulation of such books
as we have New York, to be snre, cannot
boast such collections as those of the library
of Congress- the Boston Public or the library
OF Harvard. But the Mercantile. the Astor
the Lenox and the Apprentices are eminently
respectable institutions, and the ratio of circu-
satisfactory. The clientele of the different
libraries is highly interesting study At the
Mercantile, for example, you see the varied,
shifting, cosmopolitan mass of omnivorous
readers, who devour every new book that
comes out, from the deepest scientific treatise
to the trashiest and most sensational
Seaside" The APPRENTICES Library, as
the name implies, was founded
for the use of mechanics apprentices. 1t is
now very largely patronized by public school
teachers. The most motley and shabby set Of
dnFo fA hn M 81
room OF the Cooper Union the most aristo-
cratic and dainty at the Lenox and the Society.
But believe the greatest amount of genuine
study and literary labor is accomplished with
In the alcoves of the Astor Library on Lafayette
place. This institution is very rich in standard
works, in rare old prints literary bric-a- brac
and early editions The New York writers for
our magazines and newspapers make constant
use Of its treasures, and it is here that one
may most certainly get peep at contempo-
rary celebrities. New York never has plumed
itself upon its literary Importance, like Boston
Tor instance. We are not fortunate in
the possession of.aILongfellow. a Lowell and
Holmes all at once. But it must be conceded
tnat, so far as publishing is concerned, and
multifarious variety of literary interests, New
York takes the first rank. 1t ought not to be
forgotten that New York was once the home
OF Irving, N: p. Willis, Bryant and Bayard
Taylor, and that even now we have Stoddard,
Stedman, Winter, Fawcett and other of the
younger men.
But to make a gentle depression and proceed
IFOm d IedSG OL reason TO now OF Soul. Last
week occurred the death of Lorenzo Delmoni-
co, the head OF the famous family Of restaura-
teurs. This is genuine loss to great many
old New Workers. for, although his brother
Siro and his nephew Charles are amply COM
petent to continue the business, they can
not fill the place. socially of the genial and
amiable old gentleman. Lorenzo Delmonico
came to this country in 1881, at a time when
French cooking, its mysteries and its wonders,
we're all but unknown. He was a pioneer in
the field of elegant gastronomY in America;
and his fifty years of labor and industry have
witnessed truly mighty revolution in the
cook-books. One cannot say that the French
system Of cooking has extended far and wide,
by a sort of Epicurean propagandism, as it
were. The provincialism of the greater part
Of the country is most marked in this re-
spect. The sections are highly and patrioti-
cally conservative. The negro cooks of
the South give the same turn to their
waffies their waters, their fried
chicken and their potato-pone as their grand
mothers did when General Jackson won the
battle of New Orleans; and verify believe
that the cold and unsavory character of the
Puritans is still to be detected in plate of
Boston pork and beans. Be this as it may, the
traveller in the United States, in the absence of
all other indications, would find it easy to dis
cover his whereabouts from the character of
the bill of fare placed before him. Can there
ever be Capitalization in the department of
cooking Is there to be a standard of culinary
truth. just as we have a standard of weights
and measuresi Certain it is that Delmonico
and his army OF disciples have car
RED the sword or reform far into
| the enemy's country. A dinner in
New York. q To- DelDlOnic0 has grown to be
a thing of beauty, and doubt not, in the
same connection, there are many habitual
diners out who, like Philoxenus, wish their
thrOats were long as a cranes, or even longer,
| that the savory morsels might be joy for
| ever. A French cook who is able to prepare
his dainties Ia mode is great man in the
community. l remember in my day at Har-
ward it used to be common hearsay that the
| chef at Parker's received the same salary as
| the President of the university. Dehnonico's
head man gets six thousand dollars year.
| New Workers are not greater eaters than peo-
| pie in other cities. They do not dine oftener
| nor more heartily; but they assuredly
| have discovered that there are de-
grees of excellence in this line as in
| all others-they have learned to discriminate.
Gentlemen are beginning TO see that dining is
indeed fine art, that it has its amenities, its
| formulas and its traditions. That the natural
evolution of all this will engender an extra
epicureanism, a fastidious daintiness beyond
| all limits of human endur 4nce, reed hardly be
| feared. For the present, and especially after
we have partaken of one of Delmonico's best
| banquets we may join the rosy Bacchus who
cries, with Dion Boucicault, "a health to New
York. for she has the prettiest " omen and the
best restaurants in the world" HORACE.