Omaha daily bee., 1902-12-28
TURNING OVER NEW LEAVES
Survival Of the Bottle Method Among the
Hot Boys Of Gotham.
SPIRIT OF THE DAY IN MIXED DRINKS
New = the Tall Towns Most III
Iarious Holiday, when Everything
but the s%kyscrnpers Become
Kittenish.

Ant NtW IOTheT IN the mass is not SUE
h%ciently classical to know much about
the old Roman saturnalia, but he pays
punctilious attention to the details of one
once a year, or, rather. twice, for it be-
gins on the morning OF December 81 and
does not taper of until the morning OF
January 2.
The city of lean buildings moves pom.
derously through most Of its holidays. 1t
skips coltishly through New Years. Some
time an incoming steamship will report
that while still twenty miles on shore on
New Years day, its passengers could
smell the rich odor OF whlsky, hot and
cold, waited from celebrating New York.
New Workers who are good through the
ordinary 1853 days Of the year, appear in
public in the afternoon and evening OF
December 81 with bottles in their arms
and the contents OF other bottles hidden
In their bosoms.
The bottle is the New Years emblem Of
the big town. Unhallowed is the name Of
the liquor dealer who fails to give q
bottle of whisky, rum, brandy, sherry or
port to each regular customer on the 31st
day Of December. And II must be a
quart bottle, too. The unwrltten law is
that the stun inside may BE a gift horse
that burns the mouth, but there must be
a quart Of Il.
one prominent liquor dealer down tow
gave away SO, 900 worth OF liquor last
year.. His best customers got a quart bot
tie OF brandy that cost so cents a drink
over the bar. From royal New Years lar
gesse like that, the gifts go through
various grades until they attain the level
OF the brown bottle of Mulberry street.
wherein there turks a whisky that would
eat a noticeable hole in a Sioux chief.
Business men appreciate the fact that
the fervid desire to get bottles of soine-
thing for nothing will seize even the most
sober employee on the last day Of the year,
therefore December 81 in New York has be-
come a day of mingled revelry and work,
with the work decidedly thinned out in
the mingling.
Hunting the Bottle Present.
Even the most solemn and staid old per-
sons are seized with the spirit that makes
them visit the nearest barroom to see II
they cannot get a bottle. They find other
solemn and staid old persons there on the
same errand. Each would rather die than
to confess to the other that he has come
in the hope of deluding the owner Of the
place into the belief that he Is a steady
customer deserving Of a present.
So they lie to each other stoutly, and
at last even go to the desperate length Of
buying each other drinks. While they are
doing 1t their souls are torn by the sight
Of bottles being handed out. Reeklessly
they buy more drinks Ia the hope that
the owner will catch their eye and give
them something.
Every bottIe-present hunter imasines
that IL he gets one he will stop and go
back to work. But he won't. II he gets
one he will hurry to the next barroom to
get another. II he doesn't get one he will
hurry to the next barroom In the hope of
better luck
The natural excitement Of getting some-
thing for nothing, added to the equally
natural excitement of taking at least one
drink in each place, makes the New
Yorker in the mass a genial and discursive
person by the afternoon OF December 81.
His approach lie heralded by a rich alco-
holic fragrance, and a halo Of whisky and
sugar surrounds him.
,. The elevated trains bear him In happy
compressed carfuls. Every time the door
opens at a station the mighty scent of
liquor PUSHES out like the warm sugary
breath from a bakeshop when the ovens
are opened. The insides OF the cars are
impressionistic pictures Of sideboards. The
aisles and seats bristle with bottles
some carried decorously in their oblong
paper packages, but battalions Of them
carried in primitive honesty, open to the
gaze of ALL.
\. 1t Is an old New YORK fashion that New
York has not outgrown. 1t outgrows many,
but It does not cast them of entirely.
Always somewhere in the herd of COM
munities that make New York. there are
some that can wear the fashions that have
become too small for the city as a whole.
Calling on the liable setters''
New York, as a whole, has outgrown
the good old fashion Of the ancient days
OF ten years ago, when everybody called
on everybody else, quite without the mere
detail Of knowing anybody personally. But
II one go east or west into the streets
where families live in layers seven and
ten deep one may still find the glad caller.
Windows still sport the evergreen or ar
tihcial wreath with red satin ribbons, which
informs all who pass that inside are host
esses who have "set a table, and are walt
ing for whoever will to enter to wish them
a happy New Year. r..
Total strangers are not really expected to
call; II they do, they are not thrown out.
Total strangers drop in freely, therefore,
and as the New Year day wanes, they often
drop in with absolute fidelity to the literal
meaning Of the term.
1t is an unwritten law that the woman
who "sets the table" and her woman
friends, may be kissed by the callers. The
kissing is not confined to a pent-up
I Utica Of intimate Gc~quaintanees. The total
stranger kisses with as much enthusiasm
as II he had known the kisses all his life.
The visitor finds the table set" with
cakes and glass plates full Of lady fingers
and sponge cake and sandwiches.
The glass plates are the ~favorite patterns
that stand on q glass foot like N old-fash-
toned glass lamp The table may be only
q board resting on ~trestles. But the table,
cloth. with it's giittering decorations.
makes It as worthy as the finest OF old ma
hogany; at least it so seems to anybody
who doesn't peer underneath. and no gen.
tleman would do that unless he falls on
the floor and cannot get up.
The supply of Liquid JOY.
More attractive to the caller than the
glass plates full Of cakes are the glass
things that are not plates. The lady who
'sets the table" has no narrow, puritani-
cal notions about drink. She exhibits gem
erous art in wines on New Years day.
Aroma and brand do not bother her. The
main point with her Is to achieve variety
and quantity. The callers Judge quality
solely BY the quantity.
A truly magnificent table provides every
thing that ia lfoufd AVIAN Iamouada The