The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-09-09

Kenny goods speciality is one of
the largest signs on Canal Street. 1t is
over candy store The proprietor an
swered the question, "What kind of
penny goods are there in the candy
trade?'' with the reply: There's more
a million of 'em." An examination of
his stock showed him to be in a measure
accurate, suppOsing that his shelves
showed all the kinds in existence. He
said, however, that no fashions are so
ephemeral as fashions in candy penny
goods; he could scarcely keep run of
them himself. The manufacturers are
in all the big cities, and those who sup.
ply New York are in Portland, Boston,
Philadelphia and New York. They have
immense factories, employ armies of
hands, and make, so he thought mint
of money. He instanced the case of a
firm in Portland, Maine. They are al
most monopolists in the manufacture of
chewing gum. They make the white
gum that the city boys and girls fancy
and the spruce gum that always sells
better in the country There is never
any change of the popular taste for
chewing gum. 1t is as much staple
with children as tobacco with men. Its
form changes once in a while, but not
so greatly or so often as is the case with
candies. City children take most kindly
to the white, clear gum, which is simply
paraffine wax. The spruce gum that
country children like is supposed to be
made of the gum of the spruce tree, but
a New York dealer, by the use of rosin
and one or two other ingredients, imi-
tates it closely. There is New Yorker,
also, who has a patented gum that is
very popular. 1t comes in sticks, looks
like a pressed paste of cigar ashes, and
when chewed assumes the appearance
of putty. 1t is sometimes called rubber
gum and sometimes swapping gum, be-
cause it stretches, and when stretched
too much it snaps.
Chewing gum has as conspicuous
place in the miscellany of penny goods
as it appears to have in the hearts of
children. 1t is the basis of innumerable
prize packages. The Canal Street man
exhibited box after box of prizes to be
drawn by numbers enclosed in penny
packets of chewing gum. There were
the blliard-ball prize box, the sunhower
package, the rOller-skate package, the
kaleidoscope package, and the prize
chewing gum package. The boxes 90
with the gum. Each piece of gum is
wrapped up in a paper bearing num-
Der, |, ., 3, or 4. Some of the boxes
have four trays. The first tray in the
billiard-ball box has big balls Of candy.
the second and third smaller balls of
candy, with elastic cords and rings al
fixed in imitation of returning balls, the
fourth still smaller candy globes without
elastic cords. Penny Kaleidoscope are
the chief prizes in another box and chill
dren's roller skates in another, the boxes
being filled with cheap jewelry, sheets
of shelf paper, Sunday school notices.
scrap-book pictures, dolls toys, and all
sorts of things that can be given away
with stick of chewing gum for one
cent.
1.-The run Just now" said the dealer,
''is on imitation marshmallow. 1t is
mostly covered with chocolate. 1t is so
light and unsubstantial and so cheap
that bigger cakes of it can be sold for a
cent than of anything else. That makes
it popular with the children. Candies
the same size made of other materials
would cost the maker cent. These
cost him a quarter of a cent. That
why it is popular with the manufac-
turerS.'
The reporter saw jujube paste in forms
so numerous as to lead him to believe il
also must be cheap. There were iuube
Holsters, boxes of fresh shad" of iuiube,
iuiube shaped like loaves of bread, ''em.
igrants'' made of iuiube, and iuiube in
twenty other shapes. With these in the
II,
long strips of porous candy with holes
through the centres; "assorted Jaw
breakers" hard balls of sugar candy,
six or ten for cent, according to theil
size; ''licorice jawbreakers, similar
things made of licOrice and sugar; match
boxes of tin filled with candies the size
of bird shot; Saratoga kisses,n which
were squares of cOcoanut candy; ''ic6
cream SETS" which consisted of a tiny
tin plate of cream-like candy, a tiny tin
spoon and the smallest imaginable
crackers; "French tlats,h which were
flat pieces of gum candy, and so on
The dealer said there was as much in the
names of these candies as in the pat
terms.
There were penny candy goods, also
| WIlCIl WtIC lluCllllCl w lllllltlIC vi SllS
gest to the juvenile purchasers transac
tons like those of their parents in the
adult world of commerce. There were
dishes of licorice candies bearing the
words Zone cent a measure" or O
other sweetmeats branded Zone cent {
cup" and the little cups or measures o
shining tin rested temptingly on the
heaps of goods. There We're strawber
ries, cherries, smoking-pipes of sugar
and innumerable other devices, for, a
the dealer said, ''thev are all made il
moulds, and it does not cost much tC
change the moulds."
Popcorn was also the basis of lottery
games, the same as chewing gum, bu
, the popcorn and the prizes were Away
sealed up together in red envelopes; ant
the law was not delied with numbers ant
cards as in the system based on chcwin!
, gum and the similar games that are man
/ aged in Kentucky.
The most triumphant stroke ofgenius
and the thing newest in the juvenile
market, is the candy whistle, a Ion!
glass tube, open at one end, shut at tn,
, other, and pnched and punctured nea
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