Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-13
WEATHER TOO BAD.
No Egg Rolling on the White House
Grounds Today.

Keen disappointment has ragged all day
In the bosoms of Juvenile Washington, the
Greek candy and fruit men and the penny
ice cream men; likewise in the breasts of
the egg snatchers. All this comes from
the weather and the consequent failure OF
the annual Easter egg rolling festivities in
the White House to materialize Colonel
Bingham will rejoice, and SO will the score
or more of policemen who were assigned
to duty in the grounds and expected to
spend the day hunting for lost and crying
children.
Maternal Washington was too prudent to
allow the juveniles to go to the White
House grounds today, and the gaudily col
ored eggs We're rolled over the floors of
Washington homes and otherwise made
way with The weather was too Indictment
for any considerable number of grown peo-
pie to visit the grounds during the day
The fact that the grounds were open in
duced a number of visitors to the city,
strangers who are passing through, to go
through the grounds The rule as to per
hitting grown people in the grounds when
accompanied by children, only after 3
O'Clock. was not strictly enforced by the
police force after it was seen that the rain
and the wet-looking clouds would keep the
children away. Many strangers got to see
Che grounds who had never had that privi-
lege and did not expect it. Comparatively
few children were out, and these were not
little ones with baskets They We're the
larger size children with parents, and a
good percentage of them were strangers in
the city. Few tots with tiny baskets We're
pulled around in the damp weather by
mothers.
Outside the grounds the plaintive cry Of
the Greek banana man told how bitterly he
was disappointed. An Italian and his hand
organ and monkey tried to attract some
attention at the northeast corner of the
grounds. on Pennsylvania avenue, but the
monk felt damp and chilly and was not
1t,t,
was no larger than would gather on any
other day at the same place. The peanut
man gave up the struggle early in the day
and retired. The only ones to hold on any
length of time were the ice cream men.
with their cans of one-cent ice cream cakes.
Their patronage was of a doubtful and
dangerous quantity in that 1t consisted of
what the police call the "egg-snatchers."
This squad Is composed of colored and
white boys from the alleys who do not
have eggs themselves, but who feast to
their stomachs content on the property of
the more favored children. A fringe Of
this contingent hung around the outer
gates waiting an opportunity to dart in
past the policemen should there at any
time be large enough crowd to fill the
gateways and furnish some confusion. The
egg-snatchers make 1t a business to snatch
from baskets or of the grounds where
the children are rolling them all the eggs
they can get. Frequently they have a
well-organized system of egg-snatching and
throw the eggs from one to another until
the products of the hens are passed to
boys outside the grounds. These boys
have been known to take away hundreds
of eggs in a days time besides the large
number they eat during their work of
spoliation.
II have known many of these boys to be
treated at the hospitals after the egg-roll-
ing for stomach troubles resulting from
gorging hard boiled eggs" said a sergeant
OF police. In recent years we have kept
these boys out of the grounds pretty well
and have minimized their thefts from
children. but they hang around the out
side and sneak eggs from the baskets of
unsuspecting children on their way In and
out of the grounds.
For one am glad that there is moth
Ing doing here today. This whole thing Is
an impractical, antiquated affair, and the
better people of Washington ought to urge
its abolition. More diseases are COM
municated from one days egg rolling than
from hundred other gatherings during
the year In Washington. Besides that the
children who come here never hear or see
anything that benefits them frequently
they hear other children say things and
see them do things that their parents would
be shocked II they were aware Of