The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-15
OF MUSIC
 0N YOUR EATING DiSraeli Wanted Solemn Music and OrtOIens While Dying MEASURES INVESTIGATION Quick, Martial Strains Inspire Like chewine-soft, Low Music Has
 Opposite Effect-casual ob.
 server Makes Notes.

server Makes Notes.
 From the Chicago Record-Ierald
 Was it not Disraeli who wished ito
 die eatinG ortolans to the sound of sol
 consequences of the small hot bird" nat
 urally predisposed the eater to solemnity
 or because the "solemn music" induced
 the thorough Fletcherizing calculated to
 render the ortolans innocuous and the
 after effects mild and peaceful, history
 sayeth not. But the Casual Observer
 who last week wandered forth daily to
 partake of public nourishment in down.
 town Chicago Is more than ever certain
 of the wise, good judgment of the know
 ingly epicurean Dizzy" Large quantl
 ties of people eat to music regularly, and
 that the said music exercises a powerful if unclassified effect upon their jaws and
 digestion it needs but careless inspection
 to prove.
 There was an active and able-bodied orchestra on duty in the crowded res taurant wherein the varied and porten- tous possibilities of eating to music were first discovered to the Casual Observer. This orchestra was playing madly when the unsuspecting visitor entered. Every body about, moreover, was masticating mady-everybody that is, but the wait CTS, who have long ceased to take other than the merest professional interest in the food question. "Tum-e-tum-tum, Oom- -Bahr' the martial march shrilled and pounded, and the Casual Observer having ordered light repast, idly won- dered why every one in sight looked so proud and fierce.
 Presently the air changed, and all the eaters, who during the brief intervening intervals of silence had disposed of their food in quite normal manner, were affect ed in markedly different way.
 This time a lively ragtime selection was in order. and men and women alike chewed fast and furiously. bites being snatched In airly vivacious manner, the instruments of dietetic warfare manip- uated with gay disdain.
 ''The ragtime music makes ragtime chews,' meditated the Casual Observer falling into the mood of the moment 'I wonder what would happen if we lunched to a funeral march?"
 The wonder speedily was dissipated, at least in part. The musicians swung into a medley of sweet old airs, and even the fat and red-faced man, who ate his steak as though quarreling with 1t, became gentle The long-haired, high-browe in- dividual who had ordered bread and milk and honey grew positively maudin in his jaw action, the pert little girl with the red psyche knot and the cunning frecllles across her nose and cheek bones forgot to flicker her light eyelashes and dimple at the goodlooking young man on the other side of the table. When "The Heart Bowed Down" was breathed senti- forth over the waiting-and eat ing-mu1titude the facial-and universal all but passed belief
 One and all young and old, stout and slender, bland and tragic, sweet-tempered and the reverse, passed with swift aban- don into state of happy melancholy, if the paradox may be pardoned. One and all young and old, stout and slender etc, etc, worked their chins very slow ly, very rhythmically, cutting meat, fork ing salad, spooning berries. and biting bread with an air so deprecatory as to be almost apologetic; one and all again, etc, etc, gazed into space, meanwhile, as though seeing tender visions.
 Then, presto Another change
 "Oh, wish I was in the land of cotton -" the silver trumpet merrily proclaimed, and the sad faces and slow mastication disappeared as if by magic. Everyone "chirked up'' cheerily, and the jaws fair ly flew in time to the inspiriting music. Whe nit came to the "Hooray" part of the chorus-well, weary walters, probably wondering if certain of the languid eat CTS would ever finish soon were enabled to clear away the plates.
 From all of which, backed up and sup ported as 1t Is by repeated observations and the testimony of those luncheon old timers and experts, who, daily partaklng of the midday meal downtown during a long period of commercial servitude, again and again have run the lunching gamut from the fine and fashionable res- taurant that marks the recurrence of pay day to the generous but guiltless of style "grab places" where each luncher helps him or herself to as much assorted food as he or her can consume-or afford marches to an empty table, deposits the contents of the unfailing tray drearily or cheerily, according to circumstances and system, and sits down to do his or her duty in that state of luncheon life in which it has pleased fate to call the luncher, it is decided that the Fletcher conclusions were shockingly incomplete.
 Don't eat when you are sad or mad or bad" MT. Fletcher gravely, If not poet ically, warns his fellows; "only when you are glad"
 But he fails to inform the duly im- pressed fellows of the method of which the glad" condition, If not the glad hand extended In payment of the inev- itable luncheon check that has saddened so many otherwise fine luncheons, may be most easily attained. Now may the case be considered simple.
 Eat to glad music, and If your higher self is not thereby rendered truly glad, at least your physical jaws will be.
 The ordinary human being can no more help eating in time to the music he hap pens to hear than he can help walking in time to that music If the playing of the tune, sorrowful or lively. finds him on his feet rather than seated before a luncheon or dinner table. Which fact, again. duly Is attested by the uncon- scious evidence of the gum-chewing girl at the band concert, she whose dainty iou,. ,,,oxa y, ,,ncrrinu cvmnathv and