The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-03-19
RUSSIAN BRASS UTENSILS.
HOV THE NEW YORK EAST-SIDE
 RUSSIANS
Turn Out Antique. for the "Fad-
 dIsis."

There is not an old world country left that has not added it's mite to the de- velopment of the art spirit in the new Russia was one of the last to take its turn. and the interest in Russian an tiquities has recently been increased by the war with Japan. It is only few years since one of New York's Russian colonists made a trip to his home coun- try and came back with a small stock of Russian brass and copper utensils gathered principally from Russian kitchens Year after year he has re- peated the journeys, each time bringing larger stock; each time finding that. the people in Russia were wiser than before. The average Russian kitchen is place to arouse the envy of a lover of antiques, for before his eyes hang in shining rows a rare collection. Nearly every woman, on the marriage of her daughter, gives her a complete outfit of kitchen furnishings. Where people of ampler means have silver and copper, those of poorer classes have copper and brass; and what woman received on her wedding day was expected to last her as long as she needed them.
 But collectors have been depicting these kitchens, and thousands of pieces are now adorning library shelves and dining room racks and parlor mantels in America. As the demand has increased so the supply has increased. and to-day the streets of New YorlS's great Russian quarter are full of shops whose win dows shine with these copper and brass wares. Some stores claim to import all their goods. An honest dealer will tell his customers which are the real an- tiques and which are the pieces made now in factories after the old patterns. In certain shops in Allen street the goods are made in considerable quanti- ties, whether the owners of the shops will admit it or not. If one goes prowl- ing into dingy cellars, from which the sound of hammering comes, he will find the walls hung with all sorts of ham mers and tongs and pinehers. Large sheets of copper and brass lie about, and heavy shears for cutting them in the proper patterns. Rude furnaces are built near the long tables, and here the metal is heated before the hammering begins. Once heated, the metal is mal- leable, and stroke by stroke it is beaten into the desired shape. Where several workmen are at work, the noise is like nothing so much as the music of Chi nese orchestra, but slowly from under their hands come beautiful vessels, al- ways showing the marks of the ham, mer, which give them the peculiar in- terest thathandwork always has over machine made things. To please buyers who are merely 'faddists' and have no real art Judgment, these brass and cop per workers have habit of denting some of the pieces. a sorry way of giv- ing palpably brand new piece the sem blance of having seen service.
 It is common sight in these ghetto shops to see among the well dressed buyers and people who come to look and ask prices, some old Russian woman, her head wrapped in a shawl, poking around among the tarnished brass and blackened copper vessels that leave no doubt as to their age. It is always a tea kettle, big drinking cup or cook ing vessel of some kind that she fingers lovingly and looks at with eager eyes the things she need in her own home over there, and would like to have again. She sets them out and looks at them and asks the price; but when she hears It she sets them back again in their place, shaking her head, It is so absurd and impossible to pay four or five times what she used to pay just be- cause the thing Is old, particularly when she can buy for few cents from push-cart just outside the door ves- the same purpose. And so, while they sometimes come and ask prices, the Russians never buy from the collectors of antiques, who live by art lovers and ''faddists" alone.--New York Tribune.