The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1886-09-02
ABOUT ~DOOR-PLATES.
Those Which Wear and Look Well, aI
Those Which Do Not.

Those Which Wear and Look Well. and
Those Which Do Not.
''In this world of change there is n
thing which does not change" said a
dealer, ..and that is door-plates. The
plain plate OF silver has long been and
must long remain the most elegant and
tasteful thing in the market. 1 have a
theory that the inmates of a house a
be gagged in a measure by the style of
their door-plate. If they are shoddy OIL
solid, retiring or ostentatious, you will
find it there as plainly to be read as
the name which the plate bears. In
deed, 1 even go further, and fancy I
can tel a banker, a board of trade
man, a lawyer, or a minister by his
door-plate. There are some door-plates
that look very clerical. Of course, a
doctor labels his house us if it were
one of his own medicine bottles. l once
counted a doctors name painted in
seven different places upon his house.
1t was stenciled upon each side of his
bow-window; it was borne alo;t upon
the transom; the door had it on a sill
yer plate; a S On held it creaking from
the veranda, and it was painted upon
each side of the house. He who ran,
though he came at midnight, could
read. The best door-plate made is of
brass, close-plated with silver leaf, and
will stand the yea and tea of wind
and rain indefinitely without losing it's
plate. Nothing will quite take the place
of silver for house purposes. Brass is
too garish, gold too expensive and too
soft and bronze not easily enough
seen. The fashion of cutting
the name into a stone of the
house will hardly do in the city, where
people change their residences so often,
but is not in bad taste in a country man.
sion, where the family name has a sig
%nifcance. We have some very curious
names to engrave upon plates. 1t is a
perpetual mystery to me what circum-
stances could have given rise to some
Of the names. Others tell the tale of
their origin quite plainly. Money
penny, for instance, and Sharpneck,
Weatherwax, Merryweather, %Starbuck,
Juniper, Holloway and Halliday, Fow-
Ter, Forester and innumerable others
bear in them a suggestion of the Cir
cumstances or accidents which gave
rise to them. 1 had a plate for a man
on the West Side whose name was F.
Sharp. After it had been duly put up
some small boy with a grudge against
him scratched on it underneath the
name with a keen instrument, lis A
Flat" Next time l was ordered to put
the whole name upon the door. Some
people seem to be so inconsiderate about
naming their children. 1 really pity
some of the people who give me their
names. Fancy the state of a fathers
mind who was willing to make his son
the victim of an ineradicable joke by
naming him Paul Maui.
'.Think, too, of the ab~surdity of the
position of some insignificant and harm.
less son who is obliged, simply because
he chances to be a far-removed de.
scendant of a great man, to bear his
name. For instance. Washington
Irving, or Robert Burns, or Thoma.
Jefferson. Why, he must feel like pre-.
senting a continual apology to tn,
spent in futile attempts to live to hi
name. But, however bad his name
may be, almost every man wants to SET
it in print at least once, and if he can
get it there any other way he has hi.
door-plate. Not infrequently you viii
see a pretentious plate upon a mer'
shanty of a house. This will not be
remnant.o of past splendor, but simply
gratified ambition.
''There is one vexation to the osten
I ~tatious, and that is, try as they may
they can only have a plate which cost
about so much. They are not yer,
expensive, and that is sometimes a dis
advantage to the tradesmen Chicag
!, Tribune.