The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-05-31
$4,000 4 DAY FOR lCE CREAM
NEW YORK's EXPENDITURE ON A
SINGLE SUMNER LUXURY.

lneT0 ID Story auodt bIkfoIiS cooVy WI
ers Of a certain impecunious mother who
gave her young son one cent with which TO go
forth and purchase his dinner. The boy IN
vested his capital In an ice-creani sandwich.
which furnished his nutrin1ent for the day;
appetixing, but not very filing. Being q
New York boy. and the time being summer,
he could not have done otherwise.
The boys Of New York'support some hum
dieds Of ice-oream pushcarts. There Is no
way OF telling Just how many. as tho push
cart licenses are not classified.
Ice-cream pushcarts are found In New York
to . greater extent than In any other town.
They psnetrats to tho remotcst corners OF the
city, but congregate chiefly 10 the crowded
tenement dist lots and In tho business
regions. whae the office and messenger boys
form q steady and consistent purchasing
public.
There is one man who has perambulated
for years In the neighborhood Of Printing
House Square and Is we'll known to the boys
OF that congested region. In the height OF
the season he makes an average daily sale
OF eighty quarts. He 10 putocrat
An average man will take in $3.50 or IS =
day Half Of this must go for cream. leaving
him wages Of 81 or $3.50 day. Some
Of the men rent their carts for 81 or 81 SO
week, buying their cream where they choose
or making it themselves. Others get the
use of the pushcarts free from the men Of
whom they buy their cream.
The greatest part Of the cream cold In this
way is made on Mulberry street. Ore estab-
lishment there keeps twenty pushcarts
busy each selling forty or fifty quarts day
besides supplying soda fountains innufner-
able II has a mechanical apparatus
capable OF freezing thirty quarts at time,
and the proprietor's wife, blue-eyed little
woman from north Italy. was very anxious
that the visitor should inspect the cleanA-
ness Of the freezers and utensils.
-You mig ht eat quart Of our Toe cream,
and it wouldn't hurt you, said she W tn con-
viction. .Ths drlimmers come and try to
sell US faxed milk. she continued earnestly,
'but we never buy il. F1aked eggs, too;
every kind Of thing to put In Ice cream. dried
and faxed and desicc ted. and all such, and
put up in boxes but We never Use none Of
EN-. Just good clear. condensed milk, that's
al that goes into our cream. What? Oh,
yes, and water"
This is the secret Of pushcart ice cream.
There isn't any cream about It, but neither
Is there anything harmful. We're It other
wise, the bright young lives Of some thou
sands Of messenger boys would be sacrificed
annually.
just plain, ordinary condensed milk, re-
duced with water and favored With sugar
and extract-that IL pushcart ice cream
And as the water is used in the proportion
Of two to one. the East Side boy did not take
any startling amount Of nomishInent into
his stom'ch for his one-cent dinner. Just
mouthful of favored icewater; that IL
what goes over the little red cart for a cent.
All along down Mulberry street one sees ice
cream milking going on, either on tho pave
ment IN front Of the house, or down some
dim, mysterious cellar stairs. It is some
man who owns his own pushoart. and makes
his own cream.
Whether he scalds his pots after each max
ing oruses the same lot through the summer.
who shall tell? The reporter was not brave
enough to ask. The question might have
been taken as personal ono, and the gentle.
man might have been from Sicily.
1t is likely, however, that the occasional
casualties that arise from the eatirg Of ice
cream do not come from any ingredients OF
the cream. but from matter absorbed from
utensils not immaculate. 1t is noticeable that
tales Of ice-cream poisoning come usually
from picnics and other large gatherings
which have moved New York to get their
cream cheap. One Of the biggest Ice
cream manufacturers in the citv oonhded
to the reporter, with some resentment which
he fondly thought concealed, that Sunday
schools are the worst people in the world
to try to get their ioe cream cheap.
There is rumor that down on the crowded
lower East Side, where they want their un'
sold ice cream to last over without melting.
the cheapest vendors put in sort Of gela-
tine which toughens the cream and makes
it keep its shape longer. and further re-
duces the cost from 90 to N cents gallon
The best quality Of cream costs the push
cart man the former price, and selling il BY
the cents worth they just double the price
The ioe-oream sandwich came in four years
ago. 1t was cold for two years at two and
three cents, but the boys OF Now York COM
PEELED blanket price Of one cent. There
was more cream in the more expensive sand
witches, but the boys would none Of It,.
The cent is convenient and fairly album
dant coin, and the boys wanted one-cent
sandwiches. Sold at the same price they
are less profitable than the one cent bricks,
e the obaS wseq n mas f f e as
made for the purpose, spread 1t with loose
cream and clap another wafer on top all
OF which u q bother and consumes time.
But IL 10 taTortte correction, the ice cream
melting into the wafer and forming Pc
arly enticing compound
The ice-cream cart is an economic factor.
Anybody who pokes around among the sat-
Elements knows how, on deposit daye, long
line OF waiting youngsters, each with his
grimy stamp Book, stretches from the door
OF the Penny Provident Bank, in the Settle
ment House. out into the street. In suInper
this line dwtndles to scant half dozens,
and the settlement workers say that the
precious coins 20 carefully boarded in winter
now make their way In a cooling procession
down parched little throats. One worker
told another story, also, Of family. long
reckoned among the poor Of the neighbor-
hood. who were discovered to be making
the comfortable income Of 325 day from
a modest little foot-wide ice-cream counter
at the corner Of the street.
In all this the other half are not In the
least peculiar. Their betters do the same
the moment hot weather co mes. Let the
heat drop down like burning pail; let the
heavens be as brass above, and the ocean
breeze sink painting on the edge Of the Bat
terry. and New York filings iteelf upon the
e-cream freezer like lion upon its prey.
One hundred thousand quarts Is the estimate
OF one Of the leading manufacturers a. to
amount Of cream New York will put down
on good. typical broiling day.