Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1890-05-06
QUEER RESTAURANTS.
How Paris Provides for Ex-Convicts and
Absent-Minded Guests.

Absent-Minded Guests.
Talk about cheap restaurants" said
q New Yorker, who had just returned
from the French Exposition, 1--WE don't
seem to have any thing here to touch
one or two l saw in Paris wher ] was
there. know we can do pretty we'll in
that line down in Mott street, perhaps,
but am sure that these l speak OF take
the cake. They are in the poorest part
OF the city, OF course, and their custom
ers are Of the doubtful-well, no, not
doubtful at all, but, rather, decidedly
shady-class of tho population, who
gather in there after the theaters close
at night, and every body from whom they
can beg with any chance of profit has
gone home.
"The arrangements and the service
are quito simple. They consist of one
immense iron pot, filed with conglom-
crate stew of all sorts of odds and ends
of food picked up at the refuse-baskets
of the big hotels and restaurants, and a
long-handled iron fork. The hungry
customer advances to the pot and
pays one sou to the landlord, who hands
him the fork. Taking a long sniff OF tho
appetizing (?) steam which rises from
the caldron, he plunges the fork into
the mass and withdraws 1t once-no
more. II he stabs any thing with the
fork and brings 1T TO the surface tho
morsel is his; il he gets nothing-which
sometimes happens-he has no redress,
but must pay another sou for another
plunge or go hungry. The experiment
is always watched breathlessly by the
other customers, and il the lucky fisher
man brings up substantial piece OF
meat he is congratulated; IL he brings
up only potato or q piece af carrot,
which more frequently happens, the
stinginess OF the master of the cuisine
is freely commented on and doubts are
even expressed OF the existence Of any
more meat at all in the stew; but If o
luckless wight brings up nothing at all
he is greeted with a chorus of laughter
and derisive remarks and is advised to
fill himself up with a smell of the vapor.
"Another restaurant which | visited
there" continued the narrator, twas es-
tablished by charitable people for tho
express use of the outcasts of society,
and much more substantial meal Is
given there for n sou than at the place |
have just described. Therefore it is
more popular with those Of the criminal
classes who are not in danger of i'm
mediate arrest by the police and can
afford to come out of their hiding-places
long enough TO eat. II you did not know
the place to be the resort of thieves y au
would soon begin to suspect it. Moth
ing about the place is movable. The
tables and benches are screwed 10 tho
floor, the iron basins from which the
food is eaten are sunleen into the tables
and screwed down at the edges. The
spoons, knives, cups, and forks are
also secured by short chains to the
tables, and as the food is already
seasoned, no pepper or salt castors are
provided.
"The only one-sou dish, however, is q
thick broth or soup. A strapping big
woman carries it about the room to the
customers in q sort OF rubber bag,
which she holds under her arm and uses
for all the world like a Scotchman's bag
pipes. The bag is provided with a long
neck which ends in u nozzle. The woman
lowers the nozzle into the basin before
the customer, and when she g; =es the
bag under her arm squeeze with her
elbow out squirts the broth, and she
controls the quantity by gripping the
long neck, giving one-sou dish or
two-sou dish at will.
"While we were looking on the at
tendant got into dispute with one OF
her customers, q stranger to the place, q
truculent-looking ex-convict, about the
quantity OF broth she had placed before
him for two sous. lie asserted that II
was not worth more than one sou, and
nobody should mako him pay more for
1t. lie threw down his one sou with an
oath and took up his spoon to eat.
Quickly and quietly the attendant low
cred the long neck into his soup-basin,
withdrew the pressure of her olbow from
the bag under her arm, and, with an au-
dible suck, half the broth was siphoned
back into bag in a jiffy from under the
GROWERS very nose.
''The surprise of that ex-convlct was
only equaled by our OWN. Y. Trib,
une.