Evening star., 1895-03-08
IN HOTEL CORRIDORS


garding investments which are not abso-
lutely gilt edged, and safe-deposit boxes. as
Wen as regular banks, are full of the money
they are holding on to. A popular loan
would bring these funds out in a hurry.
l learn from other travelling men that the
same conditions exist in other sections of
the country. What do think of a revival
OF business? Well, the signs do not seem
the very near future. There is an improve
ment noticeable, but it Is very slight Con-
serVative commercial men seem to think
II VIII oe steady and that next fall 1t will
grew stronger. My customers are merely
puying what is absolutely necessary to
Keep up their stocks on something like
fair basis The proper way to sum up
the situation just now, 1 believe, would be
to say that the nation is passing through
period OF rigid economy of the most prac-
tical Sort"
Its wise man who knows when he Is
eating butter nowadays" said c. s. Hard
ing OF st. Louis at the Cochran yesterday.
The remarkable increase in the manufac-
ture of butterine accounts for this. Not a
scrap OF suet or fat is ever thrown away
now at any slaughter house or butcher
stand in this country. It is all gathered
up and put through the operation which
allows 1t to be sold as Philadelphia print
'hne creamery pride of the dairy or
otner attractive brands of golden yellow
STUN, put up In rolls and prints. So gen.
eral has become the use of butterine that
many dealers now advertise it openly, and
their patrons TO longer try to keep their
purchases of 1t quiet I reckon every hotel
ana big boarding house in Washington
uses 1t In their kitchens, at least, where
II takes the place Of butter in the cooking,
and numbers of them doubtless serve it on
their tables as well. 1t Is knocking the
spots out of the dairy business in the north
and west, but I think its use has become
too general for Its manufacture and sale
TO be injured by any laws that may be
passed for its government. 1t is cheap;
1t does everything that butter will do, and
1t doesn't spoil or get strong like the gen.
uine stuff. and the way 1t Is being made
now causes it to defy even the most deli
hen e1per. to % ten from shurned CHI butter
factories are springing up all over the
country. too, for there's big money In max
ing butterine."
''The poorest people as a community in
the world, probably, are the fishermen Of
Newfoundland-and, for goodness sake,
don't call 1t Newf-un-lan, as so many ig-
norant people outside Of the province do
said F. c. Loomis of st. Johns at the Eb-
bitt last night. For time tnmemorial the
fisheries have been controlled by few per-
sons. who waxed rich and powerful from
them. The fishermen are employed by
them during the season, but they do not
get paid In money. The men who run the
fisheries also conduct stores at every town
where fishermen reside, and the latter are
given orders for supplies on these estab-
lishments, where they are charged from
two to four times as much for an article
as they would be If they had the cash and
were able to deal somewhere else. Form
erly. when the fishing was good this sys-
tenn did not result in absolute want to the
victims of 1t, but now. when each year, al
most, brings a failure, the destitution is
something terrible. The law which forbade
the soil of Newfoundland to be titled was
repealed years ago, but the men who have
the blood of long lines of fishers in their
veins are hereditarily incapable of farming,
SO they eke out miserable existence on
the water. and hundreds of them starve
every year."
II guess great many people here In
Washington were mystified by the remark
able mathematical power displayed by the
collie dog that is a feature Of Sandow's
show" said ]. F. Thomas at Willard's last
night. That dog apparently added col
umns of three figures as easily as an
eighth-grade school boy; spelt words cf
three or four letters, and recognized tunes
played by the orchestra, picking up the
placards on the stage containing the names
Of the airs performed. Well, 1t seemed to
pretty smart friend of mine that such
uEerring system was too nearly the result
Of human intelligence to be reached by a
dog. so he determined to find out where the
trick was, and he did. The man who owns
the dog comes on the stage to put the
animal through his act, you remember,
and a number of placards are set up bear
ing numerals on them when sums are in
order, letters when spelling was going on,
and the names of the tunes when the
around behind these placards and pick out
the right one every time. This is how it
was done: The dog was trained to. grab
the placard opposite to him every time his
y-ifh ho
other. The sound was slight, Of course
and imperceptible to the audience, but the
dog heard it every time. If the audience
wanted to have the collie spell cat, for in
stance, the dog would grab the C. when
the thumb nails snapped while he was be-
hind that placard, and so on with "a and
t. 1t is about the neatest animal trick ON
the stage"
During the February blizzard 1 was on
an NJ, X. and T. train in Kansas that was
showed In for over a day near Selma"
said F. F. Brown of Milwaukee at the
Normandie yesterday. There were only
dozen of US passengers. two being wo-
men, and everybody was as hungry as
hungry could be. and pretty near freezing
to death, when a drummer for Kansas
City grocery house named Read thought
of his sample case. 1t was opened, you
bet, and we found lot of coffee and some
canned goods. The coffee was beaten to
grounds with a poker in the stove shovel,
and made in a peach can with melted
snow, and I am pretty sure that 1t was
all that kept the weaker passengers from
rerishing. The western drummer is
great institution, and raise my hat to
him with a profound courtesy whenever I
meet him now
'Fetichism among southern negroes is as
devoutly believed in and as generally prac-
tioed as it ever was," said Orr Carter of
Mobile at Wizards yesterday. "The igno-
rant blacks place absolute reliance in the
efficacy of certain charms, and will never
admit the magic is at fault in case the
fates are not propitious to them A par
tcularly sad instance of this fanaticism
came under my observation not long ago.
colored child on the place had severe
attack Of Group, and its old grandmother
said she would cure 1t right away. She
sent one of the boys down to the swamp
to kill snake. and when the reptile was
brought to her she burned its head to
ashes and made lotion of them and put
1t on the child's neck and then stripped it
naked and put 1t in a cold outhouse OF
course the child died. When the old crea-
ture was called to account for the affair