The Washington herald., 1922-03-15

Dav By Day
impressions:
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NEW YORK, March 1.-THE an
uque shops! One finds them every
where-East Side. West Side, all
around the town. 'Ghostly spots
In the busy marts- piled high with
dusty wraiths of the past. Where
ever a dingy, building begins to sag
an antique shop is certain to bloom.
Antique shops-run by antiques!
Old, sallow men with crinkled skin
like a raisin and skull caps sitting
alone among the cheerless junk,
morosely preoccupied. They never
try for sale. Rarely do they rise
Even the crestfallen facades diff
fuse a self apology.
Youth and life seem so far. far
away. The rumble and clatter of
the street sound like a sacrilege.
When the customer asks the price,
there Is always a hesitation-a
coughing apostasy. as IL 1t were a
PROCLAMATION to speak in terms of
sordid gold.
They live constantly in the gloom
silently brooding and staring into
the dim corners. Around my corner
is one who the neighbors say has
not touched his foot to the side
walk outside in twelve years. At
night a feeble light from an oil
limp glows in the thickening dust
fop short time-then pitch dark
ness
or course. there are the fiossy
antique dealers on the avenue. An
entirely different brood. Their
places are in marble magnificence
and brisk statesmen wait upon the
trade.
There is a block of old antique
shops on Houston street and all the
dealers might have been cast by
the same mold. They do not mingle.
nor do they seek to coax business
away from each other. They mere
ly sit and wait while the dusty old
grandfather clocks tick off the
minutes.
In their little darkened theaters
they appear to be tragicaIly and
cruelty out of things and so they
look out upon the life that has
left them hopelessly in the dark.
They represent a glittering metrop-
oils run down at the heel.
A sudden puff OF violence has
sent the police clubbers out on the
trail of the rats" as the gangsters
are known at heaQuarters. The
strong arm squad Is being revived
after being banished by the late
Mayor Gaynor. The gangster fears
the club more than iron bars.
The sidewalk groups on the
East Side are not being broken up
with a Move on boys" but by plain
clothes men who, suddenly appear
out OF nowhere and cum the gang
sters into gutter star gazers with
out warning
Primed with drugs these weak
scure druggists and jewellers. In a
"stick up" the other day in which
a druggist was brutally slain the
youngest Of the gang was Is and
the eldest %. They all have their
girls to whom they deliver their
loot and with which they tour the
cheap dance halls.
A certain moving picture star
and his actress wife have been re-
ported by the gossip weeklies as
being ready to sever their marital
ties. The talk evidently got on
their nerves for last week they
gave a dinner party to intimate
friends. Under each plate was a
printed card which read: This is
to celebrate the sixth anniversary
of our wedding. We expect to be
married much lonGer-despite the
gossips." And so there was. jol-
lifcation and wine flowed freely.
Later they all went to a supper
club and at dawn the husband and
wife had a jealous quarrel and
she went to "a friends home in
huff and they haven't seen each
other since.