Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-18
By Clarence Z. Cullen.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
NEW YORK. October 10. 1908.
II you want to get away from every
body and spend one Of those long, dream
full. utterly quiet afternoons, you don't
have to hike down to Trinity Churchyard
any more and read those tombstone in
scriptions of revolutionary days.
Not none! All you've got to do is to
beat it to one of the New York race
tracks
You'll be quiet at Belmont Park all
right. Yes. they're racing down there a
few times a week these days; not often.
you know. but just enough to sort OF
make 'emselves believe that the good old
connerino game of heads I win and tails
you lose is still alive.
Yepee. you can and will be quiet down
at magnificent Belmont" "the head
quarters of the sport Of kings" all right
For instance. the hOlleving Of the program
NUTS WON'T annoy you any more. Re-
member how the squads and battalions
and punches of program yowlers used &c
make you hate 'em even at little bit
of race track like Benning? How
they'd bawl. "P'ogam! P'og' am" In
your nigh ear till you felt like stalking
them to a spank on the ulna bone with
Different Now.
Oh we'll. vairy vairy different now.
even at that supairb headquarters Of the
spot of kinks and suckers called Belmont
Park
Do you know how many p'oS'am sellers
they've got teeming down there now,
filling the circumambienl with their
raucous rough-stuff cries?
Oh, just one. Uh-hun. One. Count
'em One consecutive, conclusive po'-
gam barterer.
Used to be bout Elm hundred of 'em
at least down at r'ge-yous Belmont,
y'knOw.
Now-uh- huh-count em again-there's
ONE
Lonesome looking gink, too, that one
is He doesn't yell p'og'am any more at
all Just stands there and whispers EN-
Believe it or not, bunch, that's what he
does-whispers EN-. Sort O hands one
Of the p'og'ams out toward you as You
expression in his wicks, and whispers
"Pog' am" just like that. honest Injun.
You can hardly hear him.
"Third Rail" Stuff.
Yes. and dye member how you used to
inc counter at Bennington any other of
the trdckS-ln the Gays WHAT WAS, anu toSS
down your little two bits for horri-
BILE slug of third-rail booze. or a punker
inc bottle of beer. and get no change back
and have the red-nosed barkeep look you
over as if you were a zap. and all like
that? And how. If you felt a bit hungry
YOU'D lnooch over to another counter
where they had some bu-nmish old ham
sandwiches-yep, tlst ham. ham sand
Wiches-heaped up on dirty platter, and
how they had these ham, ham sand
witches marked "Westphalia Ham Sand
wiches," whatever that meant. and how
YOU dug into the nankeens and perduced
3D. metallic cents for the privilege of
inserting one of those "Westphalia Ham
Sand ADMINISTRATORS that means. again
into your diaphragm?
Ch-huh. Course you remember these
things OF course you remember. too,
the inside, internal resentment you felt
slug Of foul creosote called red-eye. and
two bits for a fouler bottle OF New York
beer shipped to Washington, and 80 cents
for one of those outlandish ham sand
witches.
Different now, gang: oh, lots and heaps
different!e
You trudge up to the sad. oh-so-sad and
deserted long, long bar at the Belmont
track and you carefully deposit fifteen
pfennigs, otherwise copperS OF the realm
on the bar, and you demand in loud
impertinent. naughty tone to be fur
nished with a shot of the best booze
they've got on the plantation. yes. just
like that. and the man behind the bar
sees your Is pfennigs and grabs for 1t real
eagerly, too and then he sets out a bottle
of some standard brand, and you poke foul