Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-02-25
NEW YORK GOSSIP
Never Tell What They Are
by What They Eat.
ONLY FEW INDULGE
MILLIoNAIREs AND THEIR SIM
PIE MIDDAY MEALS.
Plain Diet is All They Permit Them
selves During Working
Hours.
ONLY FEW INDULGE
pecial Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence OF The Evening Star.
NEW YORK. February %. 1904.
The gastronomic sage who framed the
phrase '"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell
YOU what you are" would find himself on
the limb of wonderment should he pene-
trate the financial district of New York at
what is somewhat grossly called the eat
ing hour" 1t is not conceivable that he
would be able to deduce the facts where
from to formulate rules of any value in a
tour of observation down that way.
1t is one of the pet theories of the dietary
experts. for example, that a man can ac-
eomplsh nothing but inferior brain work
after hearty meal-"on a full stomach.
to employ their own phrase. That dogma
is knocked into cooked hat every week
day by many of the most brainy and alert
financiers of New York
Every afternoon, promptly at 1 O'Clock.
no matter what he is engaged upon nor
how unsettled the condition of the market,
John w. Gates has served in his private
office, on table kept there for that pur-
pose and with his own silver. cut glass
and napery, what he calls his gorge OF
the day" He eats little or no breakfast.
After three hours Of work at his office he
is hungry, and he satisfies his appetite
without any regard whatever for the theo-
rleS or the dietary experts.
His O'Clock meal usually consists OF
steak as big as bath mat as he frankly
admits. Every two weeks or SO Mr.. Gates.
who likes to prowl about finely Kept mar
kets, selects, at the stall of his favorte
butcher, two or three dozen choice steaks
and has them sent to his restaurateur's, to
be put away in storage there and kept for
him to be cooked as he calls for them. He
generally has these 1 O'Clock steaks served
a la Bordelaise, garnished with mushrooms,
A
he has on the side is a two-foot-long loaf
of cracking Vienna bread and a quart or
champagne. When. at a quarter of 2. Mr..
Gates losses away his napkin there is moth
Ing left of the steak, the bread OF the cham
payne. 1t is after disposing OF this little
snack that Mr.. Gates disposes of the bulk
of his days business. Sometimes. when
he isn't feeling exactly on edge, he will
pass up the steak. eating instead half a
dozen chocolate cellars and whole sweet
potato pie, accompanied by three cups OF
strong coffee. When Mr.. Gates returned
from Europe last fall, after having been ill
over in England for some time, his New
York medical man kept an eye on him. The
doctor dropped into his patients office at
o'clock one day, just as Mr.. Gates had got
his knife and fork into position to tackle
one of his gigantic steaks The quart bottle
of champagne rested snugly In the ice pail
beside the table. The medical man gasped.
How long have you been doing this?' he
inquired of the genial John w.
Mr.. Gates rubbed his chin refectively,
and smiled.
Ever since connected with the price.
Doc" he replied.
But 1t will never do, you know" pro-
tested the medical man. 1T will kill you.
How long do YOU expect to last under such
a-er-such a fierce middle of the-day regi-
menu"
ASK me an easy one old man." replied
Mr.. Gates. breaking off a foot of the vi
emma loaf and tossing off a glass Of the
champagne. How do you know that
won't be run over by milk wagon and
killed tomorrow morning? Consequently,
I'm not going to overlook any bets while
I'm here. Have a bottle of wine?'
The medical man turned pale at the
thought of champagne in the middle of
the day, and lectured his patient for half
Gates still takes his steak a la Bordelaise
and champagne nearly every working day,
however.
What j. p. M. Eats.
John Pierpont Morgan, who works ten
hours a day at his Office, does his hardest
work of afternoons Immediately after par
taking of a little luncheon consisting, as
a rule of four large, fat-trimmed South
down mutton chops and quart of sau-
terne. He has been doing this for about
thirty-five years, and he is a mighty TO-
bust-looking man for his years-he is ap-
preaching seventy. Besides, he smokes
eighteen or twenty long and viciously
black cigars a day, each cigar having just
a dollars worth of strength and evil in it.
He doesn't take any exercise at ALL be-
cause he doesn't believe in exercise. He
claims not to have walked two consecutive
squares for twenty years, unless he abso-
lutely had to, and there are few occasions
upon which Mr.. J. Pierpont Morgan abso-
lutely is compelled to walk anywhere. Yet
he is a hard-musceled man. with the
shoulders of a pugilist and the biceps of
a weight litter.
August Belmont, who is not by any
means a hearty-looking man, but whose
health has always been of the ruggedest,
is another of the heavy middle-of-the day
eaters. He is a great lover of venison,
and venison that Is just leetle high, at
that, and he has a supply of it all the year
around, all of his friends who go off on
big game expeditions taking pains to send
deer carcasses to the New York cold storage
houses for Mr.. Belmont's use. He prob
ably eats more deer meat than any other
man in the land, outside of the profess
sional trappers of the northwest country,
and yet venison. as a steady diet, is sort
of meat that the best medical authorities
frown upon. When he doesn't have veni-
son for his 2 pm. reflections Mr.. Belmont
takes two or three large cuts from large
round of roast beef, with asparagus or
French peas on the side. and a bottle of
choice Rhine wine to keep the solids COM
pany. He no sooner finishes this little bite
than he turns to his desk and spends four
more hours with his large affairs of bust
ness.
These are specimens of the luncheons of