Wichita eagle., 1888-05-11
REALM OF THE DIME.
THE sBOWERY As SEEN DURING
AN AFTERNOON STROLL.

what ysu Can Buy for Ten Cents-Get.
| ting Over Spfee-F1otsam and Jetsam
| Of the Human Tide - Peeps at the
SHOWS
The Bowery is the realm of the dime. For
dime, having first made your viii, you can
get one of Fred's dinners, consisting of soup
meat, potatoes, vegetables and coffee. You
can get, after buying an accident policy, two
uncleau shaves for ten cents or one shave
with bay rum and clean towel. You can
buy a lot of chestnuts, fresh roasted at the
stands or old and mossgrown in the gaudy
temples of Momus You can buy shoestrings
suspenders or handkerchief from Samuels
of Posen of all ages, colors and previous con-
ditions of servitude. You can get a mill,
punch with an egg in it, provided you do not
exact cows milk and hens eggs in your
purchase. You will be foolish If you exact
them. To enjoy the Bowery you must take
it as it is, believe in all its shams, accept its
mermaid give credence to its living statue,
gaze in wonder at its lobster man and in awe
at its fat ladies. There is no particular fun
to be found in looking behind the cards In
any walk in life, and this is truer of the
Bowery than Of most other places.
Your first dime will go to a young man
who approaches you shivering.. His hat is
wrecked and stained, his shirt very dirty and
his clothing is in rags. He has just got over
an incipient attack of ''the shakes" their
dismal horrors having made more hideous
! the gutter in which ne reposed while the ele-
| waited trains thundered over his head through
| the long hours Of the night. His face is red
and his nose shines. II say, mister" he will
say, ''give me dime TO get sonethin' to eat
/ with, will yers I'm an educated man. Just
| gettin' over Spree l believe in being Ia
comic Brevity is the soul of wit What do
you think about tn he nervously rattles of.
'Do you want a drinks"
eyes"
You give him the dime. He goes for his
drink. The white angel of philanthropy.
lowering over the Young Mems Christian
association opposite, frowns at this encour-
agement Of vice Nevertheless, you feel that
! the Recording Angel viii look at the matter
differently,
A "chippie" stares at him IN scorn as he
reels away. The Bowery is the roosting
| place and feeding ground of the little "chip-
hotsam and jetsam in the human tide that
Gibbs and flows constantly in this great canal
! ir the center of great city. They are not
necessarily disreputable, though they would
like to be successfully 3d. They skip along
the pavements in their sailor hats-fashion-
able sailor hats for they live in country in
which highland low, rich and poor and all
the other tritenesses that describe the social
extremes, dress according to the same
set fashions. The ''chippie's" complexion is
dull. Her veins are full of the beer that she
drank over night in some smoke filed saloon
with sawdust on the floor. The ''chippie''
knows little happiness. Her brown
nisgerhead sacque is in perpetual state of
age, and the pockets are giving way from
tho constant weight of her hands.
The fat lady gets your second dime She
is in a museum whose outside is atlaze with
paint-red, blue and yellow On its front
are blazoned monstrosities of all kinds
human and animal. As you enter the door a
British museum of scents and CeSnola col
lection of smells come trooping at you with
tho profusion of cherubs in Vatican fres-
coe The bouquet Of the balmy raccoon, and
the essence of the confiding little monkey
mingle democratically with the cheap cologne
OF the Circassian person, and the odor Of
newly dispensed paint. The fat lady is at
her post, OF rather Oh her four posts. She is
o handsome fat lady. She has brown eyes, a
small mouth and pretty teeth She has
square, yards of arm and billows of bust
There are feathers in her hair and a circus
tent Of brown silk dress about her sylphide
figure. She confesses to 10 summers, though
you inwardly doubt that tho most indus
trious vitality could have reared this struc$
ure in twice the time She is from Ohio she
says, and that explains it. She is unmarried
There were twenty-eight fat ladies in the
show when she got her medal, she continues,
and of them all only three are unmarried
She chats familiarly with the Circassian
lady in red dress and frizzled hair, recently
from the Ural mountains Of Pennsylvania
Most Of the Circassian ladies come from
Pennsylvania At other times she calls on
the tattoed girl across the way, who is rather
. pitiful sight. She was q pretty little girl
before they jabbed needles in her white skin
and marked her indelibly on legs and arms
with blurred and uncouth drawings in red
and blue. She has nice eyes and modest
manner She must have been fair to look at
before they made her perpetual monstros-
tkJ. Ou0 HdS q pIctty ucCk, Win Luo SfIIl-
metrical curve of young womanhood, but the
neck now wears a necklace of hideous blue
leaves that no autumn ever will alter and
only one winter-the enduring one-ever re-
move. It cost $3.50, she says. Her father
made her do it. Did it hurt? Yes. 1t hurt
Q good deal, and she was sick for two weeks
once while it was going on. She takes no
pride in it. She endures it, perhaps, to buy
her fathers gin.
Galatea gets your next dime. She comes
TO life in another museum. The Snowman
darkens the hall, goes to a small platform
with black screen above it. In the center
of the screen is a square hole, and into this
you gaze while he says:
"You've all heard, ladies and genelm'n, of
the story of Pygmalion and the Galatee
Pygmalion was an artist, or a sculptur,
rather, an him bein' pretty eccentric souldnt
find no woman what he wanted for to marry,
SO he up an chisels bust, an the bust was
tho Galatee. This here is the bust, gem
eln'n."
A white light shines in the box and q
white bust appears. It is painted life size,
in white, on a slide of black, and looks quite
statuesque While you stare at its chalky
features and closed eyes the Snowman con-
tinues:
"Pygmahon got stuck on the bust an set
all day q lookin' at it till he got little loose
in the upper story an prayed to the gods to
change the Galatee into a woman The Gal
atee viii now change into a woman, genel-
mn Watch the color sene in her cheeks
and the winkin' Of her eyes. There's no flies
on them eyes, genelm'n- Yer can see for
yourselves"
The white bust fades into a womans head
and neck, round and loving. She reddens
cosmetically, and opens and shuts pair of