Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1886-09-16
MEDIEVAL BOSTON INSTITUTIONS.
Certain Ancient Customs Which Boston
Refuses to Abandon.

Certain Ancient Customs Which Boston
Refuses to Abandon.
Especial CorrespoNlencel
Boston, Aug 23-The Boston Lancers es.
corted the governor the other day out to
Harvard college commencement. The Ian
GERS wear red coats, fiat topped helmets, a
long white dropping feather, besides their
trousers and other corporeal appurtenances
They are armed with poles On each pole is
red flag. Every lancer is packed about on
the street by horse. 1t is a very old mill
tary organization. Boston is proud of them
They look pretty and are as useless as they
are pretty. In modern warfare they might
get within 100 yards of the enemy's line be-
fore the last lancer was surgically operated
ON and tunneled through by ball from re-
peating rifles. Their principal use is to pro-
tect the governor when he is hauled through
the streets on college commencement days
They fill the bill in Boston that the lord
mayors coach does in London Here that
coach would readily pass for circus chariot,
and the newly elected mayor, in his purple
robe, as one of the principal performers.
Another medieval Boston institution are
the fire alarm bells. Thev ring simulta-
neously, though miles apart, whenever a
hysterical woman smells so.nethin' burnin' {"
and turns on the fire alarm. To live near a
Boston fire bell is to be woke up from one to
three times per night from taree to five times
a week. This both tries and develops an
evangelical patience and resignation. A
mania prevails here for bell ringing. In
many of the suburban towns within fifteen
miles Of Boston they start the church bell
regularly at . o'clock at night, as they have
done for the last 200 years. There is no
reason for their doing it, except that they
have always done it. tits necessity, Gus
tom has made it so. In one village through
the exertions of certain progressives, this
bedtime ringing was stopped. They were
obliged to resume it, The conservatives
couldn't sleep without their O'Clock peal
The chimney sweep is another medieval
feature here. He can be found and hired
from certain dingy cellar in Brattle street.
He can be seen after operating on some old,
aristocratic, blue blooded chimney. like a pur-
gative, to clear it of SCOT, returning to his
hole with his long brush, his short brush, his
scrapers and himself, q walking mass of SCOT
and dinginess and a terror to light summer
dresses and the wearers inside of them as he is
wormed toward them by the convolutions of
the midday crowd on fremont street.
know here in Boston large business
house whose head did all he could to discour-
age stranger from engaging i'll an enter
prise requiring a certain service from that
house. The stranger was assured that there
was no money in it, that scores of others had
in the same way tried and failed. The stran-
ger by his peIsistency carried his point and
the result is AN increase of business to said
firm.
The head of the firm in this instance did
not know that the stranger was the agent of
a company with half million of capital, and
that the proposition made him was but one of
several entering wedges, and that the afore-
sad company, for good reasons, desired as
little publicity as possible in their transac-
tions
The head of that firm imagined at the time
that he was the dog and the stranger the
tail He has since found out, from finan-
clal standpoint, that he is the tail and the
stranger the dog. Still, as there is money in
it, lie swallows his conceit and allows himself
to be wagged when the dog, by virtue of su-
per1or power, IS pleased to send an agitation
to the caudal machinery. And this is the me-
dieval Boston business man.
When You are very sharp" to outwit q
bulldog, look sharp that you don't run plump
on bull.
There's great deal of damaging conceit
here as well as elsewhere, on the part of bust
ness men. You will be told here i'll various
ways that you don't know anything about
business unless you are strictly i'll the lines
of the business world, and this before that
business world has had any chance of testing
your capacity or incapacity. know of one
very strict business man here who is always
talking of having things done in strict brsi-
ness fashion, who Will show by his answer to
anothers business letter that he has forgotten
what was written him, if, indeed, he ever
really got hold of it. l know of great cor
having scores of branch offices here,
whose employees, in self-protection, are
Obliged at times to protest against the care
less method of sendlli; unknown and I'M
authorized persons to collect moneys daily
due, without written or, crs from headquar-
terA Pl.NTICE MILFORD.