The Washington herald., 1920-02-15
New York City
BY o. o. Mcintyre


New York, Feb. 14.-wall strict.
now the financial. pulse of the
civilized world. is perhaps the best
known street in New, York. Next
comes Broadway. that long. long
road to Albany. with its many at
etactions. Then Fifth avenue. once,
the synonym for social R9estige. now
one of the most fascinating shop
ping centers In the realms ofNcom-
merce.
But a street little heard Of and
yet one of the most interesting Is
Barclay street, often styled Pater-
noster Row. from the peculiar ma
ture of the business that for almost
a century has gradually been GEN.
tering there and radiating thence
all over the English speaking world.
The three blocks from Broadway
to Greenwich street have become
the headquarters of publishing and
church goods trade and as such draw
supplies and patrons not only from
90, 900, ,008 of the faith within the
United States, but from 100000, 600
of their brethren scattered through
out the universe. Books from Bar
clay street are used and read in
every quarter of the globe.
Fate seemed to foreordaln an &C.
clesiastical atmosphere for this
highway from its inception. 1t was
named after the Rev. Henry Barclay,
who>became rector of Trinity Church
in the TSinity's early ministers. 1t
is an oddly quiet street.
u.
a religious atmosphere. They dress
in a sedate manner. They do not
stand around during the lunch hour
smoking cigarettes. Many of them
stroll over to Broadway to enter
some church for prayer.
Nearly all of them are men with
families and live in the quiet Sec
tions OF Staten Island.
Listening in at a Broadway cafe
where a typical Broadway crowd
Icongregates:
LET'S be decent tonight for a
change!"
That guy would take a dead ny
from a blind spider"
"All right-strike me IL you want
to-"
Don't you think chocolates
broaden Qpe?"
reatHevings there's May and
her husband is in off the road and
off the reservation"
That hat check girl will not get
a nskle of my money, the fresh
thing"
Copeland Townsend is New York's
most erudite hotel keeper. He is a
student of words-words long.
short. tongue tripping and ancient.
For many years he has been one of
the foremost students of etymology,
that branch of phifology which
treats of the origin and derivation
of words.
Whenever an argument comes up
in learned circles about the deriva-
consulted. In a down town newspa-
per shop the other day the cores
pOndent at Winsted. Conn. where
all the fake stories come from
had sent in a weird account of a
crawfish attacking a dog and drag
ging it under the water.
1t was a chance for a typical fun
ny first page Winsted story.
The re-write man wanted some
dope about a crawfish so instead OF
going to the reference library he
called up Mr.. Townsend.
What he says, els the deriva-
tion of the word craw- fish,"
Like a flash Mr.. Townsend ratified
off: "Crawfish or crayfish from the
French crevis. modern crevisse or
sand blind from sambIind, that is
semi-blind."
Gould a craw-fish see and attack
"a dog?'
NO" was the reply. 4
Gosh" said the reporter: you
educated guys are always spelling
good stories"
Fred c. Kelly was for some years
"a reporter in Cleveland and later a
Washington correspondent. 1t is
said that he knows more public men
intimately than any man in Ameri-
ca. He is a friend of presidents,
governors. financiers. bootblacks
and street car conductors. He has
studied human nature from every
angle.
Rarely is it diplomacy to suggest
the reading of a certain book. but
believe that his latest book HUI
man Nature in Business" is the
most absorbing volume that has
been published in the last decade.
He has taken the most common
place things of everyday life and
lifted them into the realms of true
romance. One finds from a perusaI
of his book. that rain in the early
forenoon hurts business: but rain
in the afternoon has a tendency to
help business.
Kelly has discovered why the busi-
est corners in America are the busi-
est. And the deductions are so
simple that you wonder why you
have not thought of it before. He
knows how many people out of a
given crowd will stop in at candy
store. He knows why the hotel
clerk will tell you that you may
have aSroom at s o'clock that night
when there isn't a sign OF a vacancy
on the racks.
He has discovered that two hun
dred and thirty men out of every
thousand must have their hats size
s rs but only one man in a thou
sand wears size 6 1-2.
COAL, OR THE KAISER