Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-11-17
The Wooden Toothpick.

wooden toothpicks are an American
invention, and their use is confined to
america still. They are manufactured
oy machinery in New England, and put
up In boxes OF one thousand each, re-
tall at ten cents a thousand, and whole
sale at five cents. Five cents for one
thousand clean, serviceable toothpicks
Is so trivial cost that the picks are no
longer considered luxury. On the
contrary, they are given away at every
hotel, restaurant and free-lunch counter
III the city. Hotels keep boxes of them
constantly upon their Office counters.
and all may hep themselves as they
please. In ordinary times, hotels like
the Southern, Lindell and Laclede re-
quire a box about every two days, or
nve hundred day. Some of the larger
restaurants use over a box day. In
deed, any establishment that sets out
hve hundred meals day will require
one thousand picks for the same time,
as customers will average two apiece.
In such times as fair week the consump-
ton of the little wooden slivers is
trebled, of course. The reason why
men are accustomed to take several
picks after meal is because they have
found by experience that hunk of eat
ing-house beef. well wedged in between
two teeth, will require more than one to
dislodge it. The wooden picks are
only good for light use, and cannot be
made crow bars of
Primarily, toothpicks are for picking
the teeth. and careless observer might
conclude that they have no other use.
But let him stand for a few minutes
near the door Of popular restaurant at
the dinner hour and he will soon be
undeceived. He will see the well-fed
customers sauntering out, each with
his tOothpick, and for every one who is
picking his teeth he will see ten who
are chewing their toothpicks. The
reason for this may be that it affords
an easy way of bringing the Jaws
gradually to rest without the shock of
a sudden stoppage. The gentle masti-
cation of the yielding toothpick is a
pleasant decline from the furious mo-
ton of eating as practiced in our eat
ing houses. 1t also assists, as it were,
placid meditation. This may be seen
by any one who will observe the calm,
measured tread of the confirmed tooth
pick-chewer when he is engaged in his
fayorite exercise. This secondary, and
most popular, use of the toothpck is
sad to be peculiar only to America, and
it is this fact which makes the dealers in
gold and expensive toothpicks despair
of reintroducing their goods Fancy
toothpicks will never be. popular in this
country because they cannot be chewed.
There is third possible use to which
the toothpick may eventually come
Men who continually chew pine tooth
picks will sooner or later acquire a
fondness for the taste of pine, and keen
clearinghouse keepers may then take
advantage of this taste and introduce
picks into various articles of food.
With n another decade we NAV be calm
" eating toothpick soup, which will
strongly resemble vermicelli soup in
appearance. Boiling the slivers may
make them much more palatable than
when raw-and everybody eats them
raw. Cut up into shoe-peg length and
boiled, toothpicks may prove an agree
able substitute for rice; and slyly intro
duced into hash, they will certainly be
an Improvement upon the bones and
buttons Of the present day. These ideas
are not thrown out for the benefit of the
clearinghouse keepers. but to warn
the American toothpick- chewing public
of what is probably in store for them if
they persist in their pine-wood mastica-
! tlOnS.-St. Louis Post DISPATCH