The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-10-08
MEN OF UNIQUE CALLINGs.
Only One Member of Wooden In
dians in New York.

dians in New York.
In New York there are men who
work at occupations in which no one
else is engaged. Their callings are
unique in the strict sense of the
word. Each person so employed
enjoys the distinction of making his
living in a pursuit followed by no
one but himself.
One of them is an old man who
repairs the few remaining cigar
store Indians in use by old-fashion-
ed dealers in side streets. At one
time he owned wood carvers shop
where these figures were turned out
in large numbers. He also did
thriving business in making eccles-
iastical figures for churches and
carved figureheads for the prows of
ships. Part of his work consisted
in carving decorations for circus
wagons. At one time he had 12O
men working for several months on
designs to fill q contract with
celebrated Snowman.
This man, who is probably the last
of the old time wood carvers MAX
ing a specially of effigies for tobac-
conists, churches and yacht owners,
can still be seen in his Brooklyn
shop rounding out fifty years of ex-
pert workmanship, but he has not
carved wooden figure for ten years
or more. He only repairs images
made by himself or others years ago
which find their way back to his
bench for an overhauling. The rea-
son for the falling off of this occu-
patton is that to-day such figures
are all cast in metal.
Then there is an artist employed
by Brooklyn's only manufacturer of
comic valentines. For twenty years
he has put in all his time drawing
the grotesque caricatures received
by thousands on February 14th
from friends who do not lose the
opportunity to remind them of their
frailities and defects. In the en-
ploy of the same firm is a versifer
whose vitriolic lampoons appear un-
der the pictures drawn by other men
and help them to make the record
ing angel work overtime on St. VAL
entine's day. These two are kept
busy the year round and have the
field to themselves.
In certain New York publishing
house a man sits at his desk from
8 in the morning until 5 in the
afternoon piecing together sets of
three dime novels for the purpose
of making one continuous story for
publication in book form. Not alone
is he the only man in New York who
works at this peculiar form of lit
erary endeavor, but probably he is
is the only man in the world earn
ing living this way.
In another publishing house is a
man who does nothing but make
legible the handwriting of a corps
of regular authors on it's staff.
These men for fifteen years have
been contributing a weekly story
for boys measuring about forty
thousand words, and either cannot
or will not learn to use a typewrit-
er. Such a enormous output means
rapid writing even on a machine,
and the great speed required to get
so much out on time by long hand
results in bad copy.
The compositors were obliged to
work slowly and it became a uues-
tion OF getting new typesetters or
new authors. The latter course
would hardly do, as authors with
desirable sustaining powers and
dynamic force cannot be picked up
on every literary bush, and there
was no use of firing the long suffer-
ing compositors. Therefore the
publishers hit upon the scheme of
having a man familiar with the
scrawl of these high pressure word
singers go over each manuscript to
round out incomplete o's, defective
is and perform other necessary sur
gical operations in chirography to
keep the compositors from throwing
fit at every other word.
The only girl operator of wireless
telegraphy in New York and possi-
bly, In the world at present sits on
the roof of a Fifth avenue hotel in