The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-03-19
In New York
BY PAUL HARRISON


 New York = Oscar L. Richards doctor never would approve of the kind of life the elderly banker leads. The ice skating, tennis and. handball are bad enough for a fe,~ low who's going to be 80 next June. But he eats and drinks what a he pieases, and sleeps when he hasn't anything more exciting to- do.
 Nobody reprimands MT Rich- ard, however, because he hasn't got doctor. He just doesn't get sick. Once in skating hurdle . race at Newport. he fell and tore some fragments in q knee. That was in 1878, He had to have a'i doctor then, and didn't skate again for 30 years. But when he was 53 he put on the runners and showed the young blades he still could teach 'em few tricks. s8
 He's fancy skater. Won his first prize for figure skating 62 years ago, and his last one q year ago in Switzerland for waltzina' on the ice. in between, he has garnered hundreds of trophies: once beat John Drew. the actorn in q special challenge race. He heads the banking house of c. B.,s Richard. founded in Manhattan by his father in 1S47.s But much of the time Richard travels, has spent fiften summers and tifT teen winters in Switzerland. fre
 In New York, of an evening, he generally goes to the skating club next to Madison Square Gardens. N1 1yyti fnt n hit1a .lt the New York Athletic Club..l where he is the oldest member You'll probably find him playing hanGball with some papting youngster. Or maybe punching q ' bag.
 4~sr Casting Office
 Writers continue to mentiop cast-iron deer. dogs, lions an.lF such us relics of a vanished era. Fact is that they're still being mar ufacturcd and lot of people are still buying them. E
 On Park Place in lower Man haitian is the office and salesroomt of the J. w. F'iske Iron Works, established 76 years ago. And if you have $500 and the inclination, you may go there and select Il, stag. fawn. standing deer, reclin.,. ing deer, elk. lion roaring. lion couchant' or almost any other ami man. A metal eagle, perched on a rock and with nine-foot wing spread. will set you back $500.
 The statutes, which are mostly zinc. and not iron at all. still are in demand for the lawns of coun- try estates. Whether people buy them in fits of nostalgia whimsy, or because they think they're ar tistic, is beside the point. The Fiske Company doesn't bother about motives.
 Now and then the company has concluded that there would be no more orders for certain designs such as the Negro boy hitching post. and the jockey hitching post. They were wrong, though. for or mold for Gambrinus holding aloft foaming beer mug was broken up when prohibition came, and now the management is sorry. Civil War statutes were sold by the hundreds until 1925, when last order came in from a small town in Ohio. It was bought by the members of C.. A. R. post. The Fireman, Save My Child" statute isn't doing very well, either. It shows fireman in long over- coat. a lantern in one hand and D child safe in the other arm. The last order was received 20 years ago. World War statutes haven't ben popular--only about a dozen casts have ben made of an in- fantryman charging with fixed bayonet.
  Toying With Money
 A number of New York bankers, I hear. make a hobby of collecting toy banks-ancient ones, historical ones. and especially mechanical ones. Elmer Rand Jacobs, of the Seamen's bank in the Wall street district, has collection dating from the present back to 800 B. c. His special delight is an effigy of Boss Tweed, most notorious of Tammany Hall politicians. Put u coin in the flgure's hand and it ! immediately is transferred to q pocket. Then there's one showing Teddy Roosevelt as a huntsman. The bullet he fires Is coin, which goes into a hole in a tree stump. That scares a grizzy bear out of a hole in the top of the stump. My favorite is the Magician Bank" You put your money on a little table before Iifeliixe fig- ure, and press a button. A high hat descends over the coin, tho magician mods his head, makes a few hocus-poctA motions, and iho money disappears. Ik reminds n,e Of some cf the financial iegerder-