The St. Johns herald., 1892-04-28
PADS OF THE PRESENT.
All Classes and Ages Busy Over
 Their Collections.
From the King on His Throno to the Urchin on the Street All Are Eagerly Intent Upon Some ParSicu-
 lar Craze.


 when the mania for collecting usclca things afflicted more persons t.aa does to-day. All classes and ages or making collections of some sort. News boys are collecting cigarette picture and other people are collecting spoon knives and forks, postage stamps, stones, shells, pipes, coins, autographs and buttons. The czar of all tho Rus sias, says the Chicago Herald, divide his time between hanging nililistj and collecting postage stamps and the eggs of birds of prey. William of Ger many, like the kings of ROumania and Sweden, has a passion for collecting autographs. The remarkable vitalitg of Queen Victoria has given her son. the prince of Wales, ample leisure in which to make a fine collection of pipcc and to smoke them somewhat. Tn queen of Italy is gathering in all the shoes and gloves she can that have GOV cred the feet and hands of royal person ages past and present. She is literally waiting for dead mems shoes. She h2; in her collection of superannuated foot gear the shoes of Marie Antoinette, of Mary Stuart, the Empress Josephine, Queen Anne and the Empress Catherine of Russia. The latter were the presen; of her son, the prince of Naples, who brought them last year from St. Petersburg. Her collection will not be complete without q pair of shoes that have been worn by a Chicago girl just to show by their dininutive pro- portions to what an extent the young ladies of the worlds fair city have been slandered. A New England spinstcr has made collection of thimbles used by famous women. She has inherit ed, purchased, begged or received as gifts over thirty gold, silver, brass or steel thimbles worn by actresses artists, philanthropists, abolitionists. poets, etc. Another eastern woma has made vast collection of teapot having made a journey to Japan anu China for the purpose of securing rare specimens of that article. Some men are making collections of more pre- tentiouS nature. Robert Bonner is col lecting equines that can trot a mile in less than 2:10, while Jay Gould's ac-
  all the trunk lines of railroad, and the Standard Oil Company is gratifying it's passion for possessing all of the petro- leum springs in America.
 Lovers and sweethearts are collect ing locks of hair, photographs, neck ties, gloves and other bric-a-brac that breathe of love and moonlight and is redolent with romance. Girls arc col lecting dolls and boys are collecting marbles, while misers are adding to their just as useless, to them, collec- tions of shiny gold pieces. Women are collecting pearls, diamonds and other precious stones. All the world is mall- ing collections that death or the auctioneer's hammer will scatter to the four winds. When the craze for mak- ing a collection of any particular kint strikes person that person at once be- comes slave to it's influence. Nothin but the article sought to be collectec possesses any charm. The rest of th. earth becomes dull and commonplace and the thoughts by day and dreams by night all run in one direction. This is a peculiarity of human nature, but it is not a new one. The craze for making collections is as old as the history of men. A Leicestershire clergyman, when he died in 1776, left behind him thirty gowns and cassocls, one hun dred pair of brooches, one hundred pair of boots, four hundred pair of shoes, eighty wigs (although he never hid his own hair with one), eighty wagons and carts, fifty saddles, thirty wheel6arrows, fifty dogs, two hundred and forty razors, and so many walking sticks that a toy man paid his eX- ecutors eight pounds sterling for tho lot. An old man died in an attic in Paris who left little behind him save heap of corlls, sou enirs of happy times he had spent in more prosperous days. It had been lifelong custom with him to preserve every cork drawn for the delectation of himself and friends and inscribe upon it the date of drawing and the particular occasion upon which the bottle was opened, so that the cup board of corks was actually Q record of his life. The fad of making collec- tions will go on as long as there is life among men. Even death is busy col lecting men into the graveyards of the land.