The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-12-30
WILD TIME ON BROADWAY EXPENSIVE ON NEW YEARS
That Old $2O William Will Not Go Far In Paying For Couples Celebration
(Leased Wire To The Age-Heraldl

NDCuSCu V Il AC AS
 NEW YORK, Dec. 29.-The $20 bill which used to pay the piper, the hat-girl, the cabby, and the waiter in full for a wild time for two on Broadway, New Years Eve, will just pay the rent for a couple of rickety chairs before a palsied table in a fairly good cabaret when New York sets out to make as merry as pos sible under the circumstances, Mon day night.
 New Years Eve will be dry. as usual. which Is relative term, meaning that covers will be laid in the leading hospitals for a large number of ceIebrants. Christmas, for instance, was a dry festival in the official sense, and the latest re- turns from outlying infirmaries and morgues brought the total to: Dead, 9; more or less critically indisposed, 11S.
 These figures do not show how dry Christmas really was. however.
 They do not include the casualties to numerous teetotal citizens who had the misfortune to fall down the "L' steps, which had a tendency to gyrate that night, or to motorists who found roads wrigglins as they returned home from their caroling.
 Broadway, of course, will fill from building line to curb on both sides Of the street and from Times Square to the early Tifties. with tho9sands of trudging merrymakers, doggedly elbowing along while the police ride herd. These, however, are not the people who have the wild time on New Years Eve as most of them spend little more than few hours on their gaiety. The true ce1ebrants are those who go to the hotels ana cabarets, in evening clothes, for the most part, and start the new year with a fiscal and physical deficit. Moderate Party For S255.
 A moderately merry little party of, say, half dozen friends, who wish to go to the theatre first, should not fare to any hospital in the fourth inspection district. Merrymakers having strong preferences for Broad street hospital or Van Cortlandt Park infirmary, which lie beyond the reg ular zone, must expect to pay a llt- tie more for their whims. This price would roughly cover six theatre tickets at s10 each; leasehold for the evening on six chairs ana one table. complete with ash-tray and matches. $50; six portions of celery grown in Akron, O., home of the rup- Der industry; six necks of chicken from tho same source and six th1m- bles of coffee. $60; three taxies at $ each; and six quarts Of genuine tbree -day-old Gates Adjar rye at slo 0 quart.
 Applications have been filled out by now for about 100000 places at suh tables, the blanks are reading somewhat as follows:
 "Name..
 "Correct name.
 'Favorite divorce court (vote for one).. sing Sweet Adeline. or try to lead the orchestra?
 q wish to be CD buried. (2) cre- mated, (3) just thrown away. No Worry About Shaving Cup.
 In one of the hotels there will be AS centers of celebration in AS Iirgc rooms and 4S orchestras will make so much noise that 1t will be impos- sible to taste the shavnig soap in the charlotte russe. Prices here Will be 6S and S7.50, but, of course, if one will insist on going to hotel, one can't expect to get rid of so much money.
 For real spending one must go to one of those upstairs places or one Of those downstairs places in the dark of the side streets It Is good deal like choosing 8 dentist. You go to one. on Broadway, who has an cleo tric sign and a couple of mechanical jawg crunchin In his window and he pulls your teeth at s2 each or six for a ten-spot. But you take up with a man who calls himself . dental surgeon on Park avenue ana you'll give him S25 for telling you not to have them pulled.
 R. Q. Merrick, chief of the field forces of the prohibition department. has seized seven truckloads Of whisky on the Long Island roads in the last, few days. One speed boat also was nabbed trying to make a landing on the Long Island shore, and small raids have been soppins up the dew here and there about the city.
 NInPE