The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-28
CONCERNING SUMMERS
II YOU VISIT NEW YORK DO NOT GO
on STUNNING TOURS.
Schemes Practiccd by Guides to Make
the SIghtscer Think He Is Get
ting His Moneys Worth.


New York letter in Washington Star.
Advice to New York visitors who expert
ence the laundering to go slumming-don't.
The advice is not volunteered with any
idea that it will be accepted. for, as has
been well said by the acute Chuck Con-
ners, mayor of Chinatown" and chief of
the Chinatown Summing guides. "deres a
easy mark born wit ev'ry tick o. de clock,
an all O. EMS got jug o. de elixir O. life
--dey never croaks." Inasmuch as Mr.. Con-
ners derives his livelihood by conveying
credulous summers, he ought to know
whereof he speaks. The advice is not Of
fered. either. on the ground of the inutile
futility. not to say the hopeless imbecility,
of Summing, as the same is practiced by
visitors in and residents of New York 1t
is idle TO ask: What's the use of slum-
ming, anyhow? The curious will slum as
long as Sums exist. Sums and Summers
always were. Summing parties were
caught and overwhelmed by the eruption
in the Sums of Pompeii. say the scientists
Our old friend. Haroun-al-Raschid,w was a
summer from away back. Nero and many
ual slummers-they took to their natural
environment like Dutch carp to smelt bait
Instances of summers multiply. Bluff
Prince Hal liked the stews of London more
than he did the wine aud whites OF West
minister. Messalina was, perhaps. the orig
inal female summer, and Zenobia. the his
toriaDs say, slummed-was ii not in Pal
myra? If one had the time, and the in
clination, ii would be possible to trace q
distinguished line of summers right down
to thc period OF Parkhurst-the glowing
and potential present.
But the New York summers of to-day do
not get their moneys worth. They are
merciessly faxed. They are made good
things" OF by the Summing guides Time
was when summers in New York We're
ever, the jewellers in New York's slums
have taken stand for their privacy. For
lucre. however. the inhabitants OF the
presentments of the real Enthusiastically
rehearsed tabieaux vivants, it were.
RUBBER-NECKING is PERTURBING.
Thus 1t comes to pass that the foolish
persons who hand over large backsheesh
In the shape OF paper currency to the
Chinatown guides. for example. never real
ly see the Mongols and their Caucasian pa
irons in the enjoyment OF the opium pipe.
Hitting the pipe" as all of those addicted
to the poppy testify. is one of those chaste
diversions OF the POLITICALLY inclined require
ing serenity of surroundngs-the rubber
ing" of rank outsiders, 1t would SEEM has
harsh and disturbing effect upon the
manipulators Of the yep-hok. The China
town summers, consequently, are taken to
opium smoking dens'' the walls of which
have really never been laved by the pun
gent drab smoke of the hop pipes. They
are permitted to peek in at a motley col
lection of Orientas and Ocidentals who
having received the guides tip in advance,
have stretched themselves out on "hop-
hitting hunks sufficiently like the genuine
article to deceive those who have never
seen the real thing. But the occupants of
the hunks roll ''phony'' pills-as the astute
intimates-over the little lamps, and the
stuff that they smoke while under the gaze
of the Summers is not HOP" at all. but
only an inflammable composition invented
for the summers. The poseurs on the
hunks are all opium smokers, all right but
they do not care to smoke for the edifca-
Inc poppy inhalations later on, after the
guide with the party of summers has set
tied with them for their skillful posing.
Manifold are the schemes cooked up by
the Summing guides to make the summers
believe in their souls that they are getting
the worth of their money. The white wife
of Chinaman used to commit suicide every
night for the summers, for instance The
Summers, under the convoy of the guide,
would be peering through her Mott-street
bottle that looked as if it might contain
carbolic acid, murmur, agonizedly, "Oh,
what's the use? 1 am tired of living"
| swallow big gulp of the sinster-looking
contents of the bottle, and then execute a
tip-top backfall onto a couch, while the
Summers, uttering Mortified shrieks, would
bolt forth in order to not be summoned as
Witnesses of the woman's sucide-Mr.
Corners says that he always had immense
difficulty in refraining from "chucklin' an
givin' de skin snap away when his
punches of Summers did this. The China
| mans white wife was we'll paid by the
Chinktown guides for her nightly suicide
sometimes, in fact, she went through the
| motions of shutting off the mortal coil sew
eral times in the course of a night-but the
police got after her and put her out of bust
ness; the cops demanded their "bit'' out of
stood, and the woman with the pat back
| fall declined TO be Shook down."
IN THE ITALIAN QUARTER.
Down On Mulberry street, in the italian
quarter-where those 100 smells of Ma
pies" are made to seem, by comparison.
like the aroma of altar of roses-a swart
Sicilian used TO poniard his wife every
| night, too-while the summers were look
ing. She was pretty girl. and it seemed
such sin and a shame, it did, Time
after time he would plunge the knife into
, her frame. leaving her an inert mass on
the floor of the tenement, and then scamper
uOWH tuTee steps at a cIip-but
| he was never any swifter on the scamper
than the shocked summers, eager to get
away so as not to be summoned as wit
nesses." The summers would be amazed
not TO find any account of the crime" i'm
the papers, and plenty of the summers
who witnessed the enactment of that
| crime" are probably still going up and
| down the world bowed under what they
perhaps still believe to be the guilty knowi-
| edge of a murder never reported to the DO
| lice. The Sicilian and his wife, with a
| competency easily derived, joined the laz-
zeroni on the quays in their native land
| last year.
An Infatuated Magyar, occupying a top
| tenement with his family in the Hungarian
| quarter, has a stunt which fetches him
| quite a tidy little income when there are
| lots of summers about. He picks up what
looks to be one OF his babies, and, while
| his clever actress of a wife wrings her
| hands and implores him TO desist ne de-
| liberately hurls ii out of the window. The
baby" Is a wel-made dummy which
| drops into a netting stretched outside
| window of the floor below, but versimili-
| tude is given TO the dodge by the fact that
half dozen shock-headed Magyar young
| ones are lolling around the floor of the
| tenement when the occurrence takes place