The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-12-15
BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES.
FOndness of the Race for Holes and
Caves-New York Examples.
New York Press.

New York Press.
If men are not mere animals I want to
know the reason why. The enterprising
fellows who have opened dungeons and
caves for the entertainment of the race are
making large fortunes. New York boasts
about twelve deep. dark recesses where
one may order a steak, chop or bit of
game, with garnishments, and they are so
crowded nightly that overflow meetings
are held on the opposite sidewalk. Does the
indisputable fact that we like TO eat in
grotto indicate that our ancestors were
cave-dwellers? Are we returning to first
principles?
One important feature of the subway
rapid transit road has received little at
tention- BY the time trains are running to
Harlem in twelve minutes there Will be
scores of underground restaurants connect
ing with the railway stations. And IL is
not improbable that we shall have subter-
ranean theaters and opera houses, as We'll
as smoking rooms and cafes There is to be
a great deal of life below stairs when John
b. Mcdonald completes his job.
The Germans have long had tunnels and
cellar taVerns, and France is full OF caves.
In New York we have beefsteak dungeons,
a restaurant called the Crater" a "Grot-
to-" a Den" rathskellers, tunnels, an eat
ing room called Limbo" one known as
the Coop" another the JAIL two
Prisons BLACK Hole" We'll" a
"Ctstern" and half dozen Mines. one
OF the deepest taverns is the ''Al Fresco,"
because it is exactly the opposite of what
you expect 1t to be.
Two large dungeons" were opened on
the West Side several years ago and the
business done in them is phenomenal The
house is the afternoon headquarters Of ex-
Mayor Hugh Grant, Johnny Sexton, Gen.
Howard Carroll, Park Commissioner
George Caspar Clausen and other kindred
spirits who are fond of horseback riding in
a nearby academy. The man who has been
the mainstay of the old Hoboken Turtle
Club for number of years, James Il.
Clyde, has dug another dungeon in upper
Broadway. 1t is said to have features
hitherto undreamt of in dungeon digging.
There are padded cells for dangerous Boz
hemians and third degrees for malcOn-
tents. Mr.. Clyde is well qualified to be
dungeon keeper, having been trained to the
duty in his Jolly Dungeon" in Twenty
fourth street. The head turnkey is to be
waiter in the Colonial Club, of which Mr..
Clyde has been superintendent for the last
eight years "Clyde's" may become as fam
Gus as "Joseph's" or "Ritz's."
The ingenuity of our ablest architects has
been employed in constructing queer dining
rooms in the homes of some of our million
aires who like a little Bohemian spice in
theirs. But these are delectable ground,
denied to outside sinners. Many a fine old
time is had In this city behind and below
the most chaste walls of Murray hill and
the Highlands. The cellars are bomb-proof
and no sound of revelry dtsturbs the police
man on his lonely beat. When the great
organ was built in the Cincinnati Music
Hall, and George Ward Nichols was in his
of the instrument and drank music with
their champagne There have been many
organ dinners, the most notable being that
given by the Silbermanns century ago in
the organ of the Royal Catholic Church at
Dresden. Dining inside of a tree is COM
mon in California, and William Waldorf
Aston, at Cliveden, entertained forty guests
on top Of a redwood stump.
At the Paris exhibition $50 persons dined
in champagne tun large enough to hold
81 100000 worth of the wine Of the gods.
dinner q
This tun, in the shape of an enormous bar
rel, was large enough for an army of three
thousand men to stand in its interior. A
year was spent IN building 1T, and its cost
was $1,000. About two years ago an inn
mense whale was driven ashore on the
coast of Norway. 1t yielded bone and oil
worth S12,5O0 and in honor of the find
banquet given inside the body, which,
after the removal of the blubber, afforded
ample sitting room for thirty guests. A
novel dinner was that which Capt. Charley
Barr invited me to eat with him in the
hold of the victorious Columbia when the
defender was standing on her keel in dry
dock.
The Italian Renaissance is to be found in
profuSion beneath the piers along our
water front. 1 have squeezed through
hatchways, descended perpendicular lad
ders and crawled on hands and knees for
hundred yards in tortuous tunnels to see
what the scOw-strippers were having for
their Thanksgiving dinner. Possibly you
did not know that colony of Sicilians
lives beneath the piers. Imagine the dining
roOm-a small cavern, in the center of
which is the wreck of what was once a
large garbage pail OF galvanized iron. 1t IS
vomiting flame. cinders and smoke. Holes
have been cut in the sides and the five ban
queters are toasting something like meat
on splits made of barrel slaves. 1t is q
weird scene-under one of New York 8
streets. The smoke, heat odors and a sort
Of fear of injury. drove me back before
introduced myself. 1t was a dreary return,
and / felt a thousand stilettoes in my spine
before reaching the deck again.