The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-05-24
THE SEVEN LOST ARTS.
Dodo Club of Manhattan on Trail OF
the Vanishing Good Old Days.

There are hundreds of curious clubs
in New York City of which one never
hears. They avoid publicity not only
because they are personal but because
they are eccentric, writes Benjamin
de Casseres in the New York Times,
They are shy centers of esotcric dis
cussions that would wilt beneath the
word ''nutty." Few OF them are
red" many are pale blue, and some
of them are as white as the soul OF a
new born pacifist
Like all old, indoor and eccentric
things, these clubs and their meetings
are interesting. Rarely is an outsider
admitted to their discussions; rarely,
| too, does an outsider apply for adj
mission, for these clubs are generally
without bar or a community locker
| There was the old Stowe club OF
Brooklyn, which used to meet every
| Saturday night to discuss the psy-
chology of Uncle Toms Cabin" Does
it still exist? The Geranium club Of
Fordham used to meet every Wednes.
day night up on Fordham road and
discuss suicide among the flowers and
plants.
Staten Island had its inner circle
the Atlantic club it was called
which collected and dilated on the folk
lore of the lost archipelago between
the Battery and st. George, of which
Bellows island and Robbins Reef are
now the only yestiges. | was once the
guest of honor at the now defunct
Hoax and Humbug club, which used
to meet in a building where the Hotel
Aston now rears its arid head. The
standing theme of these rare spirits
was. What have you done this week
to promote the art of lying?
The influence of the stub pen on
mid Victorian literature was the cur
ious standing theme of the old Ruth
erford b. Hayes society, which held its
meetings up in Harlem. There were
many others whose whimsicalities ] do
not recall. The times are low brow
and concrete-even ghosts are common
as ashcans, New York has grown strenu-
Gus and commonplace, which is prob
ably the why of the organization sew
eral months ago Of the Dodo club,
which now meets to discuss the seven
| lost arts of Manhattan.
| According to the constitution OF the
Dodo club, life in New York is in a bad
way. Spirits are at low ebb. The
character of the inhabitants has under
gone a change for the worse. Some
thing has passed away since 1914 never
to return maybe.
The Seven Lost Arts.
New York is suffering from some.
th;np-eyerybody knows that. The
Dodo club has found out. Its sociology
cal committee returned recently with
a report returned from Bath beach,
where it had doped out the whole
matter. The seven lost arts OF Man
haitian, according to Gus O'Toole, who
is the scholarly secretary OF the club
are: Living. dining out, politeness, ex-
travagance, imagination, lending, walk
| ing.
The sociological committee of the
Dodo club finds that the psychological
strata of Homo Manhattan have fall
len into the cellar The phiz of our
souls has changed. The New York
manner" il extinct-even as the dodo.
We were once great painting done In
oils, under which sang the title in mean
descent bulbs. The Joy of Life"
We are now, according to Gus
O'Toole and his colleagues, a chrome
done in water-colors Was it prohibi-
tion, war, landlords. food profiteering
or the oaija board that was the cause
of our downfall? The Dodo club has
not gone very far into causes; il sticks
| TO facts.