San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1894-06-14
And Dealers in Exchange.
ON THE LoITER.
AMONG THE FRUIT STANDS.

AMONG THE FRUIT STANDS.
Did you ever stroll through this
quaint old town of ours, note book
in hand, and make a check mark
for every fruit stand that you en-
countered? If you had, your note
book, after faithful and thorough
investigation, would show just fifty
such check marks. Every stand,
might it be admitted right here,
would hardly appeal to you as
worthy of the name, yet they re-
quire as much, aye more so, the
visit of the fruit inspector, as do
the more pretentious institutions.
You have Just left the neat, in
viting fruit stalls of Houston and
Commerce streets, Of Alamo and
Military plazas. That murky,
sluggish flow of shiny liquid over
which you are crossing is our IA
nous San Pedro and you are now
among the west side fruit stands.
The stores all about you are not
large, bright and clean; the mer-
chants who are the west side fruit
mans neighbors, are not affable
Americans, the mild, phlegmatic
German, nor the scrupulously clean
Frenchman; nor is the fruit dealer
himself the monkey pranked Ital-
ian whom you find on the east side,
but a greasy, smutty, black, curly
haired Sclav. His store is musty and
his fruit appears mOuldy, speckled,
and generally sadly contaminated
by the general squalor and pesti-
lence breeding fOulness that per-
vades the atmosphere hereabouts.
You go on, leaving the queer,
smutty stand and it's hooked nose,
fabby bellied, outlandish attend
ant behind. Then, turn that cor
ner and the very first thing to
meet your gaze, is small assort-
ment of dwarf melons that block
the street door of some little cot
tage. On chair near by, are few
spotted lemons, a dozen dried and
shriveled oranges, a dusty box
with several handfuls of plums.
An ink marked pasteboard sign
over the door assures you that the
institution is fruit stand. A few
yards away stands woman, whose
gown, by it's fabric, tells you that
the owner is far from well-to-do
and by it's smut and dirt, that its
wearer is far from being tidy and
clean. She is one of those women,
it makes you shudder to think,
who would not hesitate to dry her
face or blow her nose on her skirt,
and then wipe off the fruit that
you have just purchased, the dust
and specks, with that Identical
skirt, in fearful, utter disregard Of
your inner sensibilities, commonly
called appetite. And as you go
from street to street, and ward to
ward, the whole town over, you will
stumble upon just some such fruit
stand. 1t does happen that there
are neat and more pretentious ones
than the one described, just as 1t
happens that some are even more
scantily stocked and more lOathing-
ly conducted. Sometimes the smut
ty woman is missing and squalid
children and fiea-ridden dogs tum-
BILE over the melons or finger the
plums, just as it sometimes hap
pens that some of the stands are
the pink of neatness and cleanli.
ness.
How these stands thrive, no one
can tell, for they could sell out
completely twice a daV, and the
profits that they would get would
not pay the rent, unless, as is no
doubt the case, some of them are
run as blinds to shield more ne
farious work, like the cigarette
stands in the French quarters of
the slums, and some Others run as
an auxiliary to the more mental
occupation of ironing and wash
ing. LoITERER.