The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-12-23


prepared lunches were devoured in the
big rotunda; how many telegraph mes
sages telling Of good times and good
health winged their way over the con-
tinent from the little pigeonhole in the
corridor
. And here It was, too, that the Centen.
nial news gatherers-howm many of them
have now passed into the great beyondl
women as well as men (for womans
share in journalism is not, as a good
many people imagine, an incident of
comparatively recent development), and
who represented the leading publications
and press associations of three conti-
nents, came together with each recur-
ring sunset 10 exchange gleanings. COM
pare facts and elaborate fiction.
But all this is reminiscence. One bu-
reau of public comfort was sufficient for
the Centennial; a half dozen or more
will be required to take care of Chicagos
visitors next year. In 1875 the enter
pRjse was a private one, in the nature OF
q concession, but the coming fair viii
be so vast in scope that the directorate
has made the comfort and convenience
of its guests part Of its own business
and proposes to conduct it under its own
direction.
The success of the Centennial bureau
in all its details was so phenomenal that
the directory went TO considerable trou-
BILE to locate the whereabouts of its orig
inator and manager. He was finally
discovered away up in the mountains OF
Colorado prospecting for silver and
finding sufficient, as he puts it. TO keep
the camp in rations. 1t needed some
little persuasion to bring him 20 the
Windy City, but he is here, and 50 II
happens that the same old grizzled vet
eran of Centennial recollections, Major
Marsh w. KassOn, is for the second time
chief of the public comfort department
of an American Worlds fair.
AS the result of his experience, COM
bined with new ideas. an elaborate
scheme has been devised. The enormous
terminal building, through which every
visitor reaching the grounds by steam
car must enter, has been selected as the
main bureau, and numerous others viii
be scattered over the ground, as well ne
located in the larger structures devoted
to manufactures, mining and probably
fisheries.
In all of these there viii be provision
for what may be termed everyday neces-
sites, big resting rooms with comfort
able easy chairs. ladies parlOrs. writing
rooms, lavatories, bootblacIs and news
paper stands, and commodious eating
rooms, where those who bring their
lunches in preference to patronizing the
expensive menus Of the restaurants may
eat at their leisure and get cup Of cof-
fee to wash down the solids. There will
be registers upon which the visitors
may inscribe their names, where they
came from, where they are stopping.
when they propose TO return, 30 that
their friends and neighbors may round
them up, as 1t were, and have a reunion
away from home.
Polite attendants will be on hand
primed with information on about every
subject under the sun. Telegraphic dis
patches will be received and sent, tick
els reserved for places Of amusement
sleeping accommodations secured for
visitors homeward bound and hand bag
gage and parcels taken care OF. And in
relation TO the latter convenience II is
interesting to recall the fact that OF
nearly a quarter Of a million articles
handled by the Centennial bureau 80
perfect was Major Kasson's system that
but single piece, and that IA lady's par
asol, failed 70 reach its owner, and the
latter, womanlike, very readily accepted
five dollar bill as an equivalent
Last, but not least, the Columbian
bureau has perfected plan by which 10
expects TO be able 10 provide comfort
able sleeping place for every prospective
visitor that may seek its good Offices TO
that end, even If they were TO swoop
down upon it half million strong. But
that's another story.
HrNRv NJ HINT