Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-08-10

|, envy position, standing or sitting, with
out seeming to make any particular
effort
Discussion of politics went on inter-
minably, freely mixed with saliva. The
traiectories described by the flying
brown juice were marvellous.
The small boy who happened to
watch such sight could find nothing
with which to compare them except
the pictured fight of the shells at the
siege of vicksburg. as shown in q pop
ular steel engraving OF that interesting
event.
With such a universal outpouring OF
tobacco juice, 1t might be thought, at
this late date, that many would have
come under the classification of che
who got slapped"
The truth was that those men were
accurate They seldom missed Few
human beings were ever struck, and
then they were mostly curious boys
who insisted on wandering into the
firing line.
Yet it made q small boy terribly
indignant, as no doubt he had a right
to be. All this reminds us of the in
justice and humiliation practiced by
the boys of the same generation against
inoffending graSshoppers.
With much ceremony a grasshopper
was seized between thumb and fore
finger and pressure eXerted on his tho
rax to the tune Of a rhyme, the gist of
which was an invocation to the grass
hopper to spit tobacco juice"
Usually the insect managed to bring
up small quantity of q brown liquid,
much to the delight Of tne small boy.
who thereupon promptly released the
victim.
The beginning of the end with the
ancient cuspidor came five or more
years ago when the Pullman company
removed them from the berth sections OF
sleeping cars. Cars chartered for all
male occupancy (base ball teams. etc J
still contain plenty of them, usually in
shiny brass.
1t is interesting to realize that our
word "cuspidor" comes from a Portu-
gese word to spit, and that q whole
train of words are related. We have
"cuspid," known to every dentist, q
canine tooth: cuSp. pointed end. promi-
hence on crown of a tooth; cuspate
cuspidal, like cusp; cuspidate, to make
pointed.
1t is true that these latter words are
derived from the Latin, cuspis, cuspidis.
a ~ ~ AlOI 10 DG CTCQlIEU, now
ever. that this root is not related in
some way to cuspir, the Portuguese for
Ito spit"
Cuspidor, in the Portuguese, means
one who spits. Thus we have the COM
mon change the doer giving the name
to the article
The Spanish toreador is one who
fights q bull. It is comical how much
like that much-used word our common
cuspidor is!
In the museums of the future q coll
lection of spittoons will have q place.
Brass and china will be in the majority.
although. no doubt, specimens OF vari-
Gus compositions will be there, too.
Today various Hobbies display tall
brass urns, filed with sand. but these
things are not spittoonS at all, but
masqueraders, lurking for furtive hands
to throw in cigar butts, etc.
The old idea, that man had to
"chaw tobacco" to be a herman, Is
about extinct. If any reader should
object TO this article. let us remind him
or her--that there was something
picturesque about the custom, after all,
and that 1t was fact, at least, noted
at length by Dickens and others. After
all, there must have been something
soothing and real homelilse in the scene
Of the oldtimers gathered around the
fireplace, splitting deftly into the names.