Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-07-18
MERMA|DS OF GOTHAM
Modern Girls Learning to
Swim and Save Life.
ACTRESS WON A WAGER
1NDEsCRIBABLE CONFUSION OF
LANGUAGES IN MANHATTAN.
Happy Jersey Mosquitoes Invade the
Metropolis-Fake News Criers at
Last Come to Grief.
ACTRESS WON A WAGER


NEW YORK. July IL. 1893
To those born to it. the homely English is
| a language that falls pleasantly enough
| upon the ear. 1t Is vibrant. expressive, eff
fective. masculine. sufficiently maleable
and elastic. All of this. however. seems to
have been said before. elsewhere. 1t is re-
peated here only in the way of text. Eng
disappearing persons compelled. for their
sins, to live in New York like to remember
occasionally, or to be reminded what fine
| not to say noble. vehicle Of speech the Eng
lish language IS. For they do not. of a
truth. hear very much of it over here.
There is nothing strange. of course. about
+ the lonesomeness which English-speaking
people on their travels experience. after a
time. for their native tongue. But it is
peculiar. and yet the square fact. that
| there are many thousands OF Americans
resident in New York who often become
| heartsck for the sound Of their own. the
| English language.
Never Hear Native Tongue.
A New Yorker can scamper about Man
| haitian Island for a whole day of sunlight
| without hearing the language of the United
| States spoken as often any one of half
| dozen other languages by the people with
whom he comes into voluntary or tnvol-
| untary 5uXtaposition. A few weeks ago
| Your correspondent rode from the High
Bridge to the Battery in an elevated train
| car in which there were perhaps more than
| 100 persons. He didn't hear a word of Eng
| lish spoken on that car throughout the
entire ride. and yet the 100 and odd pas
| sengers were jabbering away at each other.
all together. throughout the trip. There
was plenty of gutteral German. slathers of
staccato Italian-if the Dago patois heard
over here may be called Italian-plenty of
raucous Greek. any amount of Kissed Yid-
dish-but no United States After you have
| gone through an experience like this you
begin to feel that. in the matter of the null
| titudinosity of dialects. so to speak. ancient
Babylon was the merest Pikersville COM
| pared to modern New York.
The janitor OF your fiat chaSeS the stray
| cats off the front steps with volley OF
| rapid-fire objurgations in Swedish. The
vodka-surcharged. hairy translator in the
fiat next to yours puts in all his spare
moments upbraiding and brOwbeating his
doe-eyed and humble little wife in crescen-
do Russian. The proprietor OF the meat
shop to which you repair for the morning
chops Is so busy expounding his views on
Wilhelm's naval program in hoarse Ger
man to an earlier customer OF the same
tribe that he keeps you shifting from one
leg to the other for a quarter of an hour
or so. waiting for your meat. The bakers
| wife is 80 busy discussing yesterdays lead
err in the StaatS-Zeitung with hare Tipped
| woman neighbor that you only get your
morning rolls from her after gazing at her
with an appealing. Lam abused air for ten
minutes. AS you bolt your breakfast you
| listen to the harsh chattering of the $50
swarthy Italians who are working on the
subway beneath the windows of your fiat.
Emerging from your fat pertpatettc
Greek fruiterer with a push-cart invites
you to purchase of his passe-looking ba-
nanas and withered. all-in oranges IN a
language far harder and more vefny than
any marble with which Phidias ever
wrought
Foreigners Everywhere.
At the roof garden you sit between
Frenchman who almost shrugs you out Of
your seat and over the roof paling and I'M
reels his language at the rate of 30. words
a minute and high-caste, black bearded,
bedizened Syrian with gold rings about the
size Of thoroughbreds' racing plates in his
ears who blows cigarette smoke that
smells like the garbage incineration plant
in your direction and grunts to his neigh
Dor a language that would have chased the
Chaldean shepherds to their caves.
Repair to almost any restaurant after the
show for bite and a sup and you may
close your eyes and fancy that. like Prof.
Garner you have found asylum in a cage
full of monkeys. The walters openly sneer
at the cut Of the jibs of the patrons of the
restaurant in a bunch of languages that
sound like those that greet the ears OF
PENNSYLVANIA National Guard when In riot
formation in a striking Hungarian mining
camp.
And after a day and part OF night or
this incessant babel. you are glad and reel
good with yourself when. upon returning
to your fiat house. you are greeted IN inc
old familiar tongue by the grinning. black
faced elevator boy. who nails from 20"
alley, Washington. ID. C.
Well-Fed Mosquitoes.
PEOPLE living on the meadows Of Jersey
and Long Island have been marvelling this
wear over the tremendous size and the
sickness and well-fed appearance Of the
MOSQUITOES The secret may now be said
to be out It's the OIL The mosquitoes have
grown to like the OIL They are waxing sin
envy, sleek and songful on the oil that the
scientists have, at great expense, peen
flooding the mosquito-infested ponds with
since the beginning of spring. Mr.: Wliilam
g Whitney has spent something like $4,000
in oiling up the ponds down his way on
Long Island. with the result that the West
bury mosquitoes this year look like hum
ming birds and are Sangulnary and con-
fident as bolo hurting Moros. Old-time res
idents down on the Notwithstanding Jer-
sey marsh lands and rivers declare that
the mosquitoes are such an adaptable lot
that they've already discovered a method
of distilling the poisonous elements from
the oil and rejecting them, leaving only
the wholesome. fattening elements where
with to regale themselves and take on f1es:l.
They go farther than this. these mosquito
the oil-fed mosquitoes pump the poisonous
ingredients that they have collected from
the oil, in addition to their own injecting
venom, into the persons Of their human
victims. All of which is more or less cheer
full.
Literally hundreds of thousands of dol
lars have been wasted in New Jersey ana
on Long Island in these efforts to "eXter-
inmate" the mosquitoes by the use Of Pc
troleum. The huge ol-fed mosquitoes are
even invading Manhattan Island this year
as they never did before. 1t requires only
a good stiff breeze from the Jersey side
to watt billions of them over the Hudson
to New York. and people living within half
a mile of the Hudson water front in New
York. especially up Riverside Driveway,
where the North river IS comparatively
narrow are investing in mosquito screens
this year as they never did before 1t looks
If the Notwithstanding enthusi-
asts will have to eventually fall back upon
that old scheme Of putting salt upon the
mosquitoes tails.
Practical Bathers.
The girls are learning how to swim over
this way Very few Of the young women
dawdle on the beach sands In this neigh
borhood nowadays. They make straight for