The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-11-17
The Wooden TOOthpick.

Wooden toothpicks are an American
invention, and their use is confined &c
America still. They are manufactured
by machinery in New England, and put
up in boxes of one thousand each, re-
tail at ten cents thousand. and whole.
sale at five cents. Five cents for one
thousand clean, serviceable toothpicks
is so trivial a cost that the picks arc &C
longer considered luxury. On the
contrary, they are given away at every
hotel, restaurant and free lunch counter
in 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-
auire box about every two days, OF
five hundred day. Some of the larger
restaurants use over n box day. In
deed. any establishment that sets out
five 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 cat
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 a popular restaurant al
the dinner holr and he will soon be
undeceived. He will see the well-fed
customers sauntering out, each with
his tootkpick, 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
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 lis
favorite exercise. This secondary, and
most popular, use of the tOOthpick is
said 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
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.
Within another decade we may be calm
ly 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
boarding house keepers. but to warn
the American toothpick- chewing public
of what is probably in store for them il
they persist in their pine-wood mastica-
tions.-Sk Louis Rost-Dispotca.