Evening star., 1897-04-10

town grocer to a Star reporter. for the
reason that there is no oil sold now which
viii not stand the standard fire test. There
has been a steady Improvement also in the
make of lamps. and even the conmonest
lamps nowadays have a center tube which
allows any gas which may have been gem
Grated to escape and thus prevents the ex-
plosions which were so frequent and dis
astrouS only a few years ago. 1t has been
demonstrated that coal oil Is by no means
dangerous any more if any care at all is
used. My trade is confined to the poorer
classes. who seldom buy over , GEMS worth
Of oil at time. Indeed many of my
customers only buy a penny worth of
illumination at a time. The majority of
them colored folks who live in alleys.
OF course they have learned great deal
by experience in handling the oil and such
thing as an explosion rarely takes place.
The ventilation of the lamp has done even
more to stop these explosions. thiak. than
the constant improvement in the manufac-
ture of the OIL
THE departments gain a great deal by
the base ball fever" observed a depart
ment clerk To Star reporter, "and though
some clerks waste considerable time dur
ing the office hours in talking base bah
and the probable outcome of the season
as to how the various clubs in the league
will stand when frost comes again, they
more than make 1t up by hurrying during
the afternoon hours to get their desks
clean so that they will have no difficulty
in quitting work the moment the clock
strikes four and be off for the game /
don't know how it will be later on in the
season. for l expect. and so do all other
base bali Cranks, that this will be base
ball administration from the President all
the way down TO the ordinary clerks. but l
am confident that the departments VIII
gain nv the of work
done than they Will lose by the time spent
in the morning hours talking of the game.
The Treasury Department is probably more
daft on ball than any other department
1t is not confined to young men some
might imagine, for some of the most en-
thusiastic rooters men who past
what is known middle age.
x
''The peanut as an article of commerce
and consumption" said Judge Christiancy
OF the pension Office to Star reporter. lis
something enormous. and a greet deal
more so than those who have not had the
opportunity to examine into it have the
slightest idea OF. l don't desire to deiuge
You with statistics. but my examination
and that of others who have had better
facilities, satisfy ME that the peanut ranks
second to anything else used a fruit
The banana ranks first. By this 1 do not
GOnfine myself tG this couatry alone. l re-
fer TO the consumption throughout the
world We are shipping peanuts today 10
every part of the world, ana IN Paris. Lon
don. through hOut Italy and Germany and
England have already got the African pea
nUt on the run. and are going to make il
run very fast before We get through. The
peanut We ship does not compare, how
ever. wiIh the nut that is sold in our own
country. but II has secured the market
from the African peanut. which only
few years ago was the only nut which was
sold E,UrCDa the of E1I;-e-1a to-
day the children are feeding American pea
mats To the animals. well as eating
theTn, the peanuts. mean. the anselves.''
y
'Iu the matter of travelling by cars
there is clerk III one Of the uptown de-
partments who holds the record" explain
ell a fellow clerk 20 a Star reporter He
lives in Baltimore, and has Travelled those
eighty iaiies back and forth every ,seak
day for over twenty years. He has travel
Cd therefore nearly seventeen thousand
miles. He rides over q mile 10 reach the
depot when he leaves the department.
ard when he gets to Baltimore he has
three miles more 10 ride in a street car TO
reach his nome. This eight miles a day on
the street cars amounts, In twenty years
TO seventeen hundred miles, which makes
his total mileage eighteen thousand seven
hundred miles. or the distance that wosId
be travelled in two trips across the ocean,
added 10 four trips across our continent.
In the twenty years he has never been over
half hCur late except during couple of
bllzz2rds. The same days, however there
were clerks late who only had a mile or so
10 travel from their homes to the depart
ments- He has spent some of the time on
the cars in the mastery of foreign Ian
guaSes. and now is able to speak and
translate German, Spanish, French and
Italian.
He has spent one-sixth OF the hours he
has been awake. over three hours eacn day
Or in all over three and half years, on the
cars. As far as Tnouey goes his expen Ii
ture has been very large though OF cor1rse
he has Travelled all this time on c1mmuta-
tion tickets. His daily trip to and from
baltimore mas cost him, in twenty years
nearly four IhouSe.l dollars. for the low
est communication for three rnon-hs has
never been less than il is now-forty-llye
dollars Adj to this his street car fare to
anu nom the depot in Baltimore-:en cents
eSch ety-and his street fare to and
from the depot il this city-ten cents Der
day-whiCh makes nearly one thor!.aId
dollars in twenty years. With all of this
re says he has found that living in BaI;i-
more has cost him less than if he lived in
Washington"
~
Our religious folks are very frequently
imposed Upon by the 'experIerces' tney
hear At the Salvation Army and .lrniIar
meetings.. said an cid police officer to a
Star ?. porter only Secently l attended
one OF these meetings, and heard a young
fellow who claimed TO have reformed Civ
ing mis- experiences. He started out with
the Statement that ne was one of the wick
edfst men IL the city. that mis- former
habit Was 10 get drunk and beat his moth
ar and brothers, and. in fact every one
else II struck me that If this was true
he should have been cowhided by his lis
teI Frs rather than aDplauded. and that as
II was not true he should have been cow
hided for lying. He also described the
days ana weeks he had served in prisons
and how much better he felt now when he
could spend his evenings with such pleas
ant ana religious surroundings. | know
the young man. and knew his father and
mother before him. He never beat his
mother for she was "a druukard and a
terrible HgEter on her own hook So was
MS fother- The only prison he ever served
an hour IN was in the workhouse and he
was sent there for drunke mess and street
beSS ing. Instead Of for fighting or beating
MS parents. He is a blower all the way
throGsh, and. II 1t was proper 10 speak out,
would have told his listeners So
one million and a half persons annually
cross over the bridges leading from Mary
land and Virginia into the District of Co.