The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-06-02
OLD THINGS LIVE THERE.
What Visitors to Center Market May
See.

See
The person who has occasion to visit
Center market regularly in search OF
materials for the days fare has doubt |
less more than once been impressed by /
the very considerable number OF Smai1
trades and curious wares that are
distinct reminder of the days long gone
by In fact the market is full of such
vestiges of a past period, 50 that IN one
sense It might with truth be designated
a sort of museum of American anuqui-
ties-not Of the prehistoric sOrt-but an
tique in the American sense of the
term; that is to say. from so to 100
years old
The polite old man who has been sell.
ing the HagerstoWn almanac near the
cast door of the market for the last 80
years, is among the first to attract at
tentiOn for, although the entire modern
population of the city does not regard
the old HagerstOwn almanac as. next
after the Bible and Maryland code, the
third most infallible and profoundly
wise vehicle of truth. as it did during
the infancy of the republic, still the
number of Neutrality-suspicious.. Maryland
farmers Chesapeake Oysternen ard
Virginians who still pin their faith to
the old calendar is surprising in this
day of agricultural and scientific jour
mails and weather bureau forecasts and
prog nOst1catlonS served out to the rurat
public by the rural free delivery carrier
large proportion of those who con-
duct booths in the market have beess
IN the business all their llNeS, ana are
the sons of fathers, grandfathers and
great-grandfathers who once conducted
meat, vegetable and fish stands in the
ancient markets of Alexandria. Fred
erick and Baltimore. and who set up
shop in the local market at the time
it was built in 1870.
The largest and, in fact, the principal
fish, terrapin and oyster booth in the
market is conducted by a man whose
father and grandfather kept a stall ii.
the old Alexandria market. The father
set up in business when the local mar
ket was first erected and turned it over
to his son when he died The great
grandfather of this man was great
fish dealer and oystermen in his day
and the great-grandson, the present
4 head of the business. still maintains the
old herring fishing stations established
by the first members of the family
who settled in the new world at the
time they erected their log cabins along
the Potomac. The excellent dried ana
smoked aleWives called s'herrings',
throughout Virginia and Maryland.
winch one sees on sale at this stand
are dried and smoked at the old fishing
stations along the Potomac which to
TINS day are considered valuable prop
erty, Just as they were in the DAYS OF
Washington. The work is done by ne
groeS. the descendants of old slaves
who have transmitted the art of dry
4 ing and smoking fish from one genera
tl9n to another for two centuries.
but ore does not begin to encounter
IL
ing the interior of the market at the
| Nlnth street door he turns and saunters
down the b street front, under the wide
awnings to Seventh street Here il
would seem that they have gathered. in
a sort of last stand against the onrush
/ OF progress and change Like the buff
Ialo and the Indian they are gathered
together on narrow area surrounded
on every hand by the protuberent and
pushing institutions of modern civiliza-
ton. First one encounters the old ladv
who has been selling, not only old fash
toned flowers. but old fashioned bou-
I quets ever since the war. These she
cultivates on a little plot of ground
north of the city, the produce of which
Yields her living Old hollyhocks.
eockscomb, Canterbury bells, blue bells,
posies buttereups, dandelions and doz-
ems OF others. NO French names for her.
Even the work "bokay'' is a somewhat
news tangled conceit to her mind Old
( fashioned nosegays, buttonhole bouquets
wreaths of holly and everlasting flow
ers, together with curious old crosses,
/ rocks of ages, doves and other conceits
worked out IN old time everlastings and
+ eyergreens. reminding one of the par
i lor' in the house beautiful of our fore
/ fathers, with its dismal cardboard and
worsted scrolls hanging about over the
walls and above the doors, and hearing
such legends as God Bless Our Home
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother"
/ handsome Is IS Handsome Does and
various other lugubrious sentences. Such
+ is the old lady's stock in trade. Nor is
] her custom slack or scant. Old residents,
old timers. old women and old men stop
on their way through market to pur-
chase the flowers of their youth AMI
young people and strangers contribute
their custom just for the novelty of The
thing and as an excuse for asking ques-
tions.
Farmers and country people with ev-
cry manner of vegetable and poultry, of
all ages and conditions, fill in the gaps
until one arrives at another curious lit
tie stand, poised upon the tops OF wos)-
bly, barrels and setting at every imagi-
nable angle. Here the visitor win make
the acquaintance of Asr. John A. Nc
Conkey. if you please John lives out at
TT Foote, Nd He is not much Of A
man for style. a fact that readily i'm
presses itself on the observer the mo-
naent he arrives before his stock Of
wares nor is he given to high flown
/ rhetoric and ornate English In fact, he
has red hair and a mustache that looks