Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-10-05

especially attract the strangers attention
says the Kansas City Times. There's tn,
head of the family, prodigiously tall and
ungainly-quite interesting objects they
are, too, with their thousand-and-on,
mental and physical peculiarities. The
children also, always n dozen or fifteen OF
them, ragged, sorrowful-looking urchins
OF oil sizes and shapes. And the dogs
bless me, came near forgetting to men.
tion the dogs-great they are in numbers
and 80 thin and bony that it is little won
der the greater portion of their existence
is spent lying before the old fireplace,
never changing their position save when
\ compelled to do SO. a striking sense OF
willingness seems to overshadow the
whole group, as they squat about the
dingy room in all lima. enable attitudes,
each wrapped up in the narrow confines
Of his own little self and the quid of dog.
leaf tobacco. Tobacco is their only sol
ace--a home made article it is, too, mean.
est and vilest stuff to be found anywhere
in the land.
The men chew it, the women chew it,
the children chew it, and even the dogs
chew it. It's chew, chew, chew, spit,
spit, spit, squirt, squirt. from morning
till night and from night till morning,
and if you are not cautious enough to get
off at n safe distance you will be compel
led to dodge numberless missiles of am
ber-colored juice that nre shot about in
every conceivable direction irrespective
of persons or things. Sometimes their
jaws become weary after long time SER
vice in the art of mastication chewing
requires too much exercise for their indo-
lent natures to withstand. Something
must be done to relieve these overworked
members of the hmman organism, and
the characteristic pipe is at once brought
forth from its hiding place in the chimney.
And such pipes-great black, filthy
things, strong enough to wreck the con-
stitution of Fifth Ward politician. A
man who can stand before one of those
pipes when it is in full blast is proof
against anything. He would certainly
need no life insurance.
The diet of these people is n remarka-
BILE thing in its way, not only in quality,
but also in quantity. Corn bread and ba-
con constitute the bill of fare, and in the
meagre compass of its DEMONSTRATING
qualities it combines all-and the only
delicacies of the season, never out of sea-
son. It's corn bread and bacon for break
fast, corn bread and bacon for dinner,
corn bread and bacon for supper; that is
all the yecr round. To moralize upon the
ingredients of that corn bread would be
as hazardous MS to attempt to solve the
mysteries that cluster around that world
famous dish, boarding-house hash. l
know it is horrible mixture of corn
meal and water, but lam innocent of any
thing else it may contain-utterly devoid
of salt, saleratus, or soda. This is pour
ed into small, rusty iron pot, half bu-
ried in the ashes, where it bakes and
dries until it becomes hard enough to
knock n hole through brick wall, pro-
vided the aforesaid wall isn't more than
ten feet thick. While the baking process
is going on the family squat about the
fireplace in languid listlessness s.and fire
random shots of tobacco juice at the fire.
The bacon, too, is an article worthy of
comment, inasmuch as it imparts sort
OF flavor to the corn bread, and thereby
renders it the more palatable. You first
discover it in huge slabs of fat, with little
or no lean in its composition, and almost
completely encrusted in the :.accumulated
filth of weeks and months. One glance
at it would make health officer sick but
to eat it oh, horrors The corn bread,
being baked to the proper extent, is
placed upon stump outside the door to
cool, while the dogs form circle about,
lick their chops in silent hunger, and be-
stow wistful glances upon the, to them,
delicious morsel. Slices of bacon are
then placed in the great iron pot, where
they sizzle and splutter until finally re-
solved into number of little dried-up
chips floating about upon miniature sea
Of Shiny grease. This horrible mess
grease and all-in conjunction with the
corn bread, is eagerly devoured by these
rapacious natives, and on this meagre,
diet, strange to say, but nevertheless true,
they manage somehow to keep the sands
OF life in motion. Truly, one half the
world knows not how the other half
lives.