The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1899-07-04
AN THE ONE CENT STORES.
Many Odd and Simple Things That
Children Buy.

Nnlluien Duy.
One-cent stores do not deal ex-
clusiyelyin one-cent things, but along
with a variety of other articles Of one
kind and another there are offered
many things at one cent each which
children buy. Among the more Curl
Gus things thus sold for a cent are eye
glasses. The frames of these eye
glasses are made of a single piece of
metal, a very light and narrow strip
of tin vigorously bent. The bending
is begun by forming the nose clip on
one side; then the strip of metal is
bent around to form the frame Of one
of the glasses, this bending bringing
it around to meet the nose clip. From
that point the metal is bent up and
back over the eye opening just formed
and back again and across to form the
nose piece and spring of the eye
glasses; it is bent down and inward, to
correspond to the opposite side, to a
point where it will meet the other
nose clip when it shall have been
formed, and then it is rounded back
and outward, and over, forming the
top of the frame Of the other glass.
The strip is carried around until it
comes to the point at which the han
die would be attached on ordinary
eyeglasses, and there it is bent abrupt
ly outward and brought back to the
glass frame again, the loop thus made
forming handle. From the base of
the handle thus formed the strip is
carried on around, forming the rest
Of the frame, and around and up to
meet the metal where it was bent back
to begin the forming of this second
frame. There is still just a little bit
of the metal strip left, and this is now
bent down to form the second nose
clip.
The glass used in glazing these eye
glasses is plain; some are fitted with
white, some with red and some with
blue glasses. A slight bending down
of the thin metal strip that forms the
frames suffices to hold the glasses in
place, and each glass is held in secure
ly by winding a bit of wire around the
neck of its frame, at the point where
the upper and the lower part of the
frame meet at the nose clip. There is
q cord attached to each pair of glasses.
These eyeglasses are made in Ger
many. AT a cent a pair they yield a
fair profit to importer, jobber and re-
taller.
The one-cent eyeglasses are an old
standby; new this year among one
cent goods is a little blown-glass duck,
with its body drawn out to form a
slender pipe an inch or two long,
where the tail would otherwise be,
this pipe being designed to be held in
the mouth. There is an opening in
the end of the pipe, and a very minute
opening in the end Of the ducks beak.
There is also a small opening in the
top of the ducks head. This little
hollow glass duck is filed with water
and held by somebody who knows the
trick Of it with finger over the hole
in the top of the ducks head. Held
thus and with the pipe stem in the
mouth a tiny stream of water is ex-
PEELED from the ducks beak. Then
the holder hands it ever to somebody
who doesn't know the trick, and when
he blows, the hole in the top Of the
ducks head being bigger than the one
in the end of the beak he blows the
water up through the top of the
ducks head to fall upon his face.
This toy comes also from Germany.
The duck is lifelike in proportions,
and when the price is considered it
seems almost marvel in glass blow
ing. Like the eyeglasses, the glass
duck at a cent yields a fair profit to
importer, jobber and retailer.
There is a large variety of one-cent
goods, and these include nowadays
many things that a few years ago were
sold at five cents. The wooden one
cent goods are almost all made in this
country; the metal and other goods
retailed at that price are likely to be
imported. Including those stores that
sell some penny goods without max
ing a speciality of them there
are in the city Thousands of stores in
which one-cent goods are sold; and in
the aggregate the amount of money
paid for them is considerable.-N. Y.
Sun