The Red Cloud chief., 1896-03-06

all this walled in with tuns and hogs
heads OF wine. casks and barrels of
brandy and whisky. TASKS Of rare old
cordials. ana over all the dust Of dec
AIDES and cleaning Skulls recring
down from odd places through the
dusk. which the pickering candle light
only served to make more ghastly. says
the New York World.
This is not a picture from degenerate
Paris, but an actual scene in Old New
York. II Is one Of the monthly meetings
of the Gnomes-a drinking club IF old
Ninth warders. and held in the sub
cellar Of Il famous-timc drinking place
at the corner OF Fourth and Charles
streets.
Ii is not a new institution-this
gathering OF sub-surface Tevclers. with
their ghoulish tastes. For upward OF
fifty years the Ahrens. father and son.
have kept a drinking place in the little
old Dutch red brick building. and dur
ing that time ii has been "A favorite re-
sort Tor the politicians and ~mcn-about-
town of the old Ninth ward and old
Greenwich village.
This place is now kept by Henry
Ahrens-'Hands0me Harry" they cali
him. II consists of a large barroom,
with a sitting-room in the rear. The
barroom is itself unique. Il Is q low
ceilinged room with oaken floor.
which Is kept as clean as scruhbing-
brushes can make it. Half a dozeu
handsome rugs cover the floor. 4
quantity carved old English settec and
three or four comfortable rocking
chairs and a Turkish stool add TO the
unsaloon-like aspect OF the place.
Two groups OF life sized statuary-one
a Faith, Hone and Charity. and the
other n V~cnus-occupy prominent
places in the room. They are surround
ed by pottcd plants and tropical ever
greens.
The inside room ia a museum Of
curious, incongruous. yet artistic treas
ures, some of them rarely interesting.
The chief interest in the place, how
ever, lies in the old cobwcbby cellar,
or rather in the banquet room Of the
cellar. This Is a little room, not more
than fourteen feet square, walled in
with barrels and casks grimy with dust
and cobwebs. Thick, black webs hang
from the weather-staired r%afters, and
where the spiders have failed 10 string
their nets artificial webs have been
made Of pack thread 10 which papicr-
mache spiders as big and ugly as horned
toads cling and wink their glass bead
eyes with looks OF devilish fcrocity.
Two bats live in the cellar and occa-
sionally stir up the dust with their
skinny wings, and skulls grin every
where.
One thing that is always pointed
out to a visitor is a cask Of Madeira
wine which it is claimed is forty years
old. It is so old, or rather the cask is,
that the hoops look as if they were fall
ing off. The cask is never tapped e%-
cept on the occasion of a marriage or
birth in the family, and upon the oc-
casion Of the fve-year unions when the
old BOOSTERS hold. Another old cask
of liquor Is O;ard Dupuy brandy, which
has beer in stock since 1860. This is
v touched except for medicinal
purposes, and upon l. physicians pre-
sCrlptlOH.
An enormou coffin. in which is a pa
pier mache skeleton, and the worm
eaten bier are the principal articles Of
furniture. The coffin is the %s!dcboard
OF the club.
A similar apartment-but little more
than a niche in the walls of barrels ana
casks and hogshoads, holds the ancient
and rusty cook stove where the ban
Guets of the midnight jewellers are pre-
pared. There are no chairs or stools
The guests sit around on beer kegs
and rough planks. The first thing
10 meet the eye OF the visitor, when his
eyesight gets used to the dark, is "A huge
blackboard. reaching from ceiling "a
floor, upon which Is a ~hideousiy drawn
skeleton.
B.