Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-10
HAVE LEATHER LUNGS
New York Hawkers Are
Maniac Producers.
NEARLY ALL ALIENS
SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE
WORST OFFENDERS.
The Cline Up" Man, a Recent Develop
ment, Seems to Be About
the Limit.
NEARLY ALL ALIENS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star

Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star
| NEW YORK, May Q. 1902.
The street believing heard in the resi-
| dental sections of New York are not to be
described in terms of serenity-they're too
4 maddening. To the nerve-racking din of
the hucksters' howls distracting enough
upon the hearing Of the listener with a SEN
| sitive tympanum. must be added the awful.
battling uncertainty to what the buck
sters are bowling about. For the great
body of the New York pavement howlers
are foreigners incapable Of
| speaking known and written European
languages, and who, for the most part.
can only speak some collateral patois
of language. When rasp-throated in
| dividuals of this character are given
the absolute freedom of the streets Of
New York, as they are and when they
| attempt to describe the virtues of some
| thing they've got to sell in an obscure
| patos only slightly seasoned with frag-
| mentary sprinklings of the American
| tongue. the result is Of sort to get on the
| nerves of a boiler maker No one who has
| ever heard a shock-headed half Greek and
| half Turk, with voice like that of q
| colicky mule, endeavorng to ''rassle'' with
| the slogan, Nice, fresh ripe Strawberries
| 10 cents box" can fancy the awful posi-
| such an essay. One used to think in Wash
ington that the plaintive wall. "O-o-o-oy
| stuhs!' delivered by the ebon-hued street
purveyor of bivalves, was fierce enough,
| but 1t is as soft wood notes out of the pipes
| Of Pan compared with the wild. shrill.
Bash- BaZouk shrieks of the aliens who go
careering through the streets of New York.
Devices to Aid the Voice.
| But. in addition to the torture of their
voices, they have other and extraneous de-
vices wherewith to contribute to the misery
of the listening victims. Most of the street
hucksters of New York now carry along
| with them huge hand bells, bigger than
those that used to be changed in front of
auction establishments. and when they are
not giving vent to their Bull-of- Bashan
yells they are ringing these bells with
both hands and with all their might and
main. When about eight. say, OF these
hucksters get upon one block and inter-
mingle their hoarSe Rawlings with tangled
and out-of-tune performances upon their
respective bells. all at one and the same
time. the fiatters upon that block have
either got to take to the rear fire escapes
until the indescribable din has abated or
go staring mad.
Some of the hucksters. deeming the ordi-
nary bells cast of bell metal too common to
attract the attention of fiatters or house
holders, have provided themselves with
mammoth cow bells. and a number OF them
in the Harlem district actually go through
the streets pounding with all their strength
on those unspeakabe tom-toms wherewith
the dinner call is sounded at some southern
railroad stations and on some lines of ocean
steamers. Worse than that, some of the
huckSterS are using those automatic rat
ties that are twirled upon a stick-not the
small, ordinary sort of rattles that used
to be used by rooters at base ball games,
but large ones that give forth an uproar
not unlike that produced when a Kansas
barn is being deprived of its shingles by
200-mies- per-hour funnel-shaped cyclone or
that might be produced by cricket-on-
the-hearth of the proportions Of an Alaskan
maStodon.
OAher Noise Producers.
Other street wayfarers. not hucksters, but
small-change cleaners. also have their in
struments of torture wherewith to attract
attention. The perambuating scissors
grinders carry battered trumpets into which
they blow with tremendous lung force but
agonizing want of harmony the window
members carry triangles that seem to be
mysteriously reft of all sweet intonation,
some of the peripatetic chair repairers
keep up day-long droning, as they trudge
along. on antediluvian accordons, and,
finally. the umbrella members drag their
curious victims to~front windows by means
Of snare drums-one ruffian Of this class,
indeed, operating in Harlem, pounds a
bass drum in his business.
There are. of course, municipal ordinances
against all this sort OF thing-but New
York city ordinances are thistledown upon
the warm. sun-expanded air. There is, for
example. a special ordinance framed for
and directed against that intolerable New
York nuisance the lineup man, but the
line up man pays no more attention to
1t than he does to the minutes of the Hal
tan congress. The New York LINE up"
man is just what his name implies--that is
to say. he puts up lines. He is essentially
a New York development. In Washington,
or any other civilized town, when 1t is
n hang family oh
songful washerlady just strings the rope
around the back yard fences and props
it up with fork-ended poles, and there's
the end of the job. But there are few New
Workers so blessed as to possess back
yards all their very own, and the clothes
lines have got to be strung from fiat win
dows to poles. taller than tall masts. set in
the rear of the fiat building. And so here
is where the Zine up man gets in his
work He wears the pole climbers of the
telegraph lineman. and he sells the rope
and fixtures. which he adjusts. He has
such an edge on the situation that he utter
ly declines to put up any line that is not
bought from him at an exorbitant charge.
You've got to pay him 40 cents for a piece
Of clothes rope that you could get at the
store around the corner for a dime. and
then you've got to pay him for the pulleys
and whatever he elects to ask you for his
labor.
Ordinance to Regulate Him.
But it was not on account of his gouging
that a special ordinance was framed up
for the Zine up" man. 1t was against his |
weird vocal speciality that the ordinance
was directed. The cline up ruffian begins |
his rounds in the neighborhood of o'clock |
in the morning. He takes up his stand at |
the head of an alleyway behind a couple |
of long rows of flat buildings, and, making |
a funnel of his hands, he gives vent to a |
series of the most hopelessly mournful |
bowls imaginable aside from the expressed |
grief Of family dog outside a house of |
the dead. "Li-i-i-ne oo-oo-oop" Is the |
shrilly ascending burden of his steam cali |
ope moan. until the soundest sleepers on the
block are ylnked from the snug slumber of /
early morning and thus forced to pre-
mature apprehension Of the duties and
trials of another working day. There's a
$50 fine on the New York municipal code |
book for the Zine up loafer that springs
his intolerable bawl upon the populace ear
lier than o'clock in the morning but when |
inlted out of sleen at g po,l rush To tho |