The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-08-01
MARKET OF ALL NATIONS.
COSMOPOLITAN SCENE ON LUDLOW
STREET, NEW YORK.

A Picturesque Gathering OF Curious People.
How the Orthodox Hebrews Select Their
Sabbath Food-The Rabble That Always
Follows a Crowd.
Have you ever been in the vicinity OF
the Ludlow Street market on a Friday
morning? Well. if you have not you
have missed sight. Ludlow Street
market comprises that portion of the
city bounded by Hester and Canal and
by Essex and Orchard streets Every
Friday, from sunrise to sunset. it is the
iveliest neighborhood in this city.
The yells and whoops of an army OF
Comanches or Donnybrook fair itself
never furnished the noise found here
every market day, as Friday is called.
The sons and daughters of Israel flock
from all portions of the city, and mingle
tricts Hoboken and Jersey City send
their delegations ready for bargains, and
before noon the street is impossible.
Ragged jackets and scant wraps mingle
with sealskins and silks. while white
bearded patriarchs jostle elbows with
the bright eyed and red Tipped Jewish
maidens and their swarthy, stalwart
brothers and fathers, all keen for bar
gain and totally unconscious of the pict-
uresque feature they make in the middle
of Gotham.
THE UNLEAvENED BREAD.
Every man, woman and child bears a
basket, and they are out for material for
their Sunday dinner, the "Kosher" food
for the 'Shabes' table, killed and cured
according to rites prescribed when the
race was young. Notwithstanding the
semi-religious errands of the marketers,
the traditional shrewdness of the race is
the chief feature of the bargaining.
The first places visited by every one of
the market men and women are the
stands where the barches, or unleavened
bread, is sold. The loaves are first given
thorough inspection, and then the
price is asked. This is followed by an
offer of cent or two lower, and, after
udSSlluS al lew hluuuCS, 10
made. There is reason for the haggling
and the close inspection.
The barches loaves, like other pro-
auctions, are subjected to rejuvenating
treatment before being offered for sale,
when they are stale, and knowing ones
can tell this by looking them over care
fully. When not fresh the loaves are
squeezed and handled so as to make
them soft, then scented to prevent the
sourness from being detected, and then
put on the stands.
The purchaser feels of the loaf, smells
it, and then balances it in his hand to
see that it is not under weight. Then it
is turned over, as though it were some
precious metal instead of a five cent
loaf, and then the driving commences.
The dealer is told that he is nothing
short of highwayman-that the same
article could be purchased somewhere
else for half the money.
The fish stands are highly important,
for every orthodox Hebrew must have
fish with his meat on SHADES. Here,
also, the bargains are tightly driven and
the inspection thorough and searching.
Like the bread, the fish, too, are some
times doctored. They are perfumed, the
gills painted red and plenty of sailed ice
water thrown over them to make them
fresh and firm, and it takes good judge
to detect the deception.
SELLING TRINKETS AND PRAYER BOOKS.
These, with most stands and notion
stands and the thousand and one fakirs,
take up every available inch of ground,
sidewalks and even the middle of the
street. Vendors wagons are strung along
the cutters and display vegetables, sal
ads, potatoes and all other articles of
food, including garlic sausage, that meat
so dear to the Kosher palate Not alone
do the vendors confine themselves to eat
ables. Everything from turtle back
comb to dishpan is on sale, and its
merits are hawked in half a dozen
languages; for this is a cosmopolitan
gathering. There are Polish and Ger
man Hebrews, Germans, Hungarians.
French and Italian housewives out for
bargain, besides the keen but dirty rab-
BILE that always gather from no one
knows where. wherever there is a crowd.
Small boys, with tattered trousers and
torn coats, but eyes keen as a hawks.
dodge in and out selling collar buttons
and matches. lettering old fellows vend
second hand clothes, old cloaks and an
Gent hats; altogether forming a scene of
understandable confusion.
One of the old time characters is an
ancient and wretched looking woman.
who usually sits on an old ash barrel and
in cracked tones invites the shoppers to
buy some "Shabes lights" the wax can
dies used in their religious observances.
Another character is a venerable old
man, who parades Essex street on a
market day with never more than four
brooms on his shoulder, family crying
out his goods.
But there is another class of wares on
sale. They are supposed to furnish sus-
tenance for the spiritual nature, as the
other does for the physical. On every
side on small stands are prayer books,
to gellim, or prayer belts; cloaks or tails
for the rabbis; prayer ribbons, misrachs.
channaka lights, Talmuds, etc. One
thing in particular is noticeable SO far
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