Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-09-01
MEDIEVAL BOSTON INSTITUTIONS.
Certain Ancient Customs Which Boston
Refuses to Abandon.

SPNN'' correspondence. b.
BOSTON, Aug. 23.-The Boston Lancers es.
corted the governor the other dav out to
Harvard college commencement The Ian
GERS wear red coats, flat topped helmets. a
long white dropping feather, besides the ?
trousers and other corporal ap-purtenances.
They are armed with poles. On each pole is
a red flag. Every lancer is packed about on
the street by a 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 tlnneled through by a ball from re-
peatlng 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 III Boston that the lord
mayors coach does in London. Here that
coach would readily pass for a 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. They ring simplta-
neously, though miles apart. whenever a
hysteilcal woman smells somethin' 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 three to five times
a week, Inns 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 8 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. 1t is a necessity, Gus
tom has Iratie 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 8 O'Clock peal.
The chimney sweep is another medieval
feature here. He can be found and hired
from a certain dingy cellar in Brattle street.
lie 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, u walking mass of SCOT
and dinglness and a terror to light summer
dresses and the wearers inside of them as lie is
wormed toward them by the convolutions of
the midday crowd on fremont street.
know here in Boston a large business
house whose head did all he could to discour-
agea stranger from engaging in 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 persistency carried his point and
the result is an increase of business to said
firm.
Thu head of the firm in this instance did
not know that the stranger was the agent of
a company with half a million of capital, and
that the proposition made him was but one of
several entering wedges, and that the afore-
Il said rp,1ponv fp,, frOnI 100 n.;.,. -
little publicity as possible in their transac.
lions.
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 a finan-
clal standpoint, that he is the tail and the
stranger the dog. Still, as there is money in
1t, he swallows his conceit and allows himself
to be Wagged when TIE dog, by virtue of SUI
perlor power, is pleased to send an agitation
Ea the caudal machinery. And this is the me-
disva1 Boston business man.
When you are very sharp to outwit a
bulldog, look sharp that you don't run plump
on q bnEL
There's q great deal of damaging conceit
here as well Us elsewhere, on the part of bust
ness men, Yot will be told here in various
ways that you don't know anything about
business unless yea are strictly in the lines
OF the business world, and this before that
business world has had any chance of testing
your capacity or incapacSty. L know OF one
very strict business man here who is always
talking of having things dohe$in strict bust
ness fashion, who Will show BY his answer to
another's business letter that he has forgotten
what was written him, if, indeed, he ever
really got hold OF it. know of q grpat cor
poration, having scores of branch Offices here,
whose employees, in self-protcetior, are
obliged at times to protest against the care
less method of sending unknown and IN.
authorized persons to collect moneys daily
due, without written orders from headauar-
ters PRENTICE MuLFQnp.
tH