, 1886-09-21
MANUFACTURE OF DUMMY INDIANS.
How savaGes In War Paint Are Cut .s
Signs of Our Cignr stores.

-1C"
Signs of Our Cigar Stores.
Few objects, policemen and lampposts
excepted, are more familiar to the public
than the cigar store wooden Indian.
This austere but u~noffending savage can
be found holding silent vigil on the side
walk in nearly every block. Yet. prob
ably not n person in 1000 has any
idea where he comes from. In New
York there are but three places where
the only red man known to civilization
that doesn't want whisky. a scalp and an
appropriation is manufactured
A reporter discovered this fact and
some other interesting points about the
cigar store aboriginal a few days ago
Two of the places where he is created
are in Canal street. The only other
place in this city is in Goerck street. In
one of the Canal street places the re
porter found a jolly-faced, middle-aged
man, armed with paint pot and brush,
industriously rejuvenating an aged
warrior, whose face wore a deep scowl
and a long crack down the middle of his
nose. Around the place were other saw
ages of various ages and in different
stages of preservation.
Yes. this is the hospital" said the
man with the jolly face, replying to the
reporters question. And we have a
good many patients in the course of a
year. The long-suffering cigar store red
man gets some pretty hard usage from
small boys and other idiots. In at work
on a 16-year-old veteran, and he's neve
been in hospital before. When l get
through with him he'll be good for
another sixteen years. That old fellow
IL outlive me. if he has good luck"
With this philosophic observation the
artist neatly plugged the crack in the
old braves nose, and put some deep car
mini war paint on his cheeks.
Learn the trade n continued the
artist in reply to another question. Yes,
indeed; I've been at it since l was IL
pears old. There are very few in the
business. A good man can make 81,
sometimes s. a day, chopping out
wooden Indians. Sculpturingf No, we
don't call it that; just plain chopping,
that's all there is to it. We get pine logs
from five TO seven feet long, according
to the size of the image to be made. You
thh STE bOInt VI int iORb through
h door in the back room.
Then the first thing is to hew the
log roughly to the outlines OF the pro-
posed figure. A mar with a long chisel
and a mallet then takes the work in
hand aad rapidly cuts the block down.
The finishing touches are put in with
finer chisels and require a little more
delicate handling, but nothing about the
job is particularly difficult. Care must
of course be taken to follow the grain Of
the wood. The trunk of the figure is all
one piece, but the arms have to be put
on with the grain. 1t is the same with
any sharply-curved position"
In the cock-loft above two able-bodies
men were making chips and indians as
fast as they knew how. Both brand
ished long, n-bladed chisels, and were
whacking away, apparently without the
slightest regard for consequences. Three
savages ready to graduate to the paint
ing department were standing in one
corner, and showed that the chopping
by the two men was not so reckless as it
seemed. The nose of n young buck grew
III of one block on the bench, and the
graceful ankles Of an Indian maiden out
of the block before the other wood sculp-
tor while the reporter looked on.-N. y
Mail and Express.