Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1885-07-24
FREE LUNCHES.
A City Where the Business Is Run
Into the Ground.
The Premiums offered to Beer Drinkers In
the Exposition City. According to
Veracious Correspondent OF .
Metropolitan Newspaper.
NO. Cor. NY snn1

n. o. Cor. ". Y. Sun.l
This city Is the paradise of free lunches.
Probably nowhere else on earth are the
wants of the men who eat in the bar
rooms so literally and so thoughtfully
looked after. 1t has grown to be so neces-
sary part Of the business of q saloon
Keeper that the smaller places have free
lunches of size and a quality that are al
ways surprising to visitors from other
cities.
"The feature of the business" said a
gray-haired bartender yes terday, refer
ring to the free lunches, ''has grown be-
yond all limits, and many saloons here
find that they viii have to retrench. Look
at us, for instance. We served a lunch
vest srday that cost $17.5o net. This
stands for the price Of nearly $50 drinks at
ten or fifteen cents apiece. Well, you can
gamble on the fact that that lunch never
drew $50 drinks into this place during the
hour it was served. But we've got to do
n0
"Why?"
Because every one else does It."
A great many of the saloons here are
owned by arissocratic Southerners who
would consider it disgrace to have ther
names associated with the business. They
take the money that accrues from the ven-
ture, however, and pay their bartenders
moderate salaries. No one knows that
they are interested, ami the bartender
himself can not tell whether he is waiting
on a casual customer or his employer.
There is a little man with bead-like eyes
and brisk and wideawake manner who
acts as tho GO between or the middleman
in the business affairs of such saloons. He
has proved hims elf very reticsnt and t-ust-
worthy, and is making a very good thing
OF it.
"You mustn't mind II I talk business
with you," he said briskly when the writer
met him yesterday. "It's habit 1 never
drop down here. I've been in New Or
leans ten years trying to accumulate
enough money to move away in com fort
able circumstances. In that time / have
reTrcsente1 n number of aris ocratic
Sou hern gentlemen in this business, and
1 fiatter myself my services have been
satisfactory. The aristocratic residents
of New Orleans are very tender about
having it known that they are behind
liquor stores, and am discretion ITSELF"
The restaurant keepers complain of the
free lunches. They have given up prepar-
ing much for the monday meal, and their
tables are lonely, while the crowds surge
around the bar-rooms. The most striking
thing about it all is to sec the sort OF men
who patronize the free lunch. Dignifed
and well-dressed men, gray-haired and
bald, walk in and wait patiently uutil the
luncheon is announced at noon. Then
tsey tuck napkins under their chins and
go to work There is nothing diffideut or
retiring about the New Orleans free lunch
er. He doesn't walk in with a careless
and nonchalant air and look with a cesual
interest at the pictures over the lunch
while he dallies with the bologna sausage
with the near hand. He doesn't assume
the free, easy and jovial mein that is
sometimes affected; and the conscientious
man, very rarely met with in the North,
who tax s drink before attacking the
lunch, is never found here Workmen in
their sairt sleeves stanl side by side with
oflics boys gamblers, and local swells,
and there is no conversation, but SIM
pie, steadfast aad brisk cndeavor TO put
away as much luncheon as possi-
-ble in given length of time. 1t is on rec
ord in the bar-room of the st. Charles Ho-
tel that q large, portly, and prosperous
adorned with several gold chains, walked
in about noon and put big bowl of green
turtle soup under the watch chains. Then
he took some veal stew, two slices of rare
roast beef with mashed potatoes and
pickles, plate OF macaroni and some
cheese and crackers. Then he looked at
one of the hard-working attendants and
growled:
"Say, niger, Lring me a cup of black
coffee"
Then the large man leaned AGAINST pil-
lar and ate plate of olives while he watt
cd for his coffee. As it did not appear he
walked over to the bartender, after
spreading a sandwich with mustard to
carry i'm through, and repeated the de.
mand. The man behind the bar said they
didn't serve coffee with the lunch.
"You don't?" said the large man, speak,
ing thickly through heavy emotion and
the. sandwich; "well, I'm blessed il that
don't knock me silly. No coffeey What
kind of place is this, any way?"
Then he called down the wrath of all his
ancestors on the house, and Indignantly
departed without spending a cent for
drink.
"Before long" said the idle barkeeper,
o. HO 6oScN ~ ehO CTOhu III front
of him, ''we'll have to give away billiard
tables and pianos with the beer to get peo-
pie to drink"
Nearly all the saloons have regular bills
Of fare for every day in the week, with a
specially elaborate one for Sunday.
A sample of what the free lunchers get
is furnished by the following list of dishes
in saloon by no means pretentious, and
not particularly prosperous in appearance.
Monday-Gumbo soup, roast beef, beef
stewed with potatoes, stewed kidney,
baked macaroni, corn, tomatoes, lettuce,
green onions, sweet potatoes, beets, cold
slaw.
Tuesday-Pea soup, dry hash, roast
beef, stewed liver, fish ckowder, boiled
shrimps, baked beans, boiled rice.
Yet, though the native of New Orleans,
for hamboyant and cheerful alacrity IN
king the free lunch, elicits the admira-
tion of all the visitors, the New Workers,
after their first attempts, succeed in hold
ing their own.