Evening star., 1937-09-02
REVIVE MEMORIES
OF F0RGANGR|NDER
Oldest Inhabitants Also Hear
of Ragman and Low
Food Prices.

Members OF the Association of Old
est Inhabitants of the District of
Columbia last night were taken back
in thought to the days when hand
organs, their bewhiskered operators
and stunt-performing monkeys were
common sights on Washington streets
James F. Duhamel, corresponding
secretary of the association. elaborated
on hand organ days in an address
before the group at its monthly meet
ing in the old Union Engine House,
Nineteenth and H streets.
While the old hand organ would
grind out such tunes as "Sdewalks
of New York" and Silver Threads
Among the Gold" Jocbo, the monkey,
would go through his various stunts
and take in pennies from admiring
audiences for his master, Duhamel
recalled. The organ man rarely showed
evidence of having "a razor or a hair
brush in his household he said.
Had Buyer as Rival.
But said Duhamel, in recounting
other events of the time, our organ
man had his rivals and the atten-
ton of his audience was often dis
tracted by voice intoning rags, bones
and old iron and many a boy or girl
would hurry home to produce
small store of belongings to sell for
a few cents pound" The purchaser
OF the items would put his collection
in wagon and sell them. the profit
~ - l-n 1,,y,,,
the speaker said.
Duhamel said butter merchants of
the early days used surplus copies
Of congressional bills to wrap butter"
for the fastidious purchaser"
The speaker also recalled the UNI
brella members, the deviled crab sales
men. the man who bought old clothes.
from door to door the old Negro min
strels, COW barns, etc, which were
familiar to Washington in days past.
And in the days of the hand or
gan, let us not forget the carriage step
that spanned the gutter, nor its COM
psnion hitching post, the numerous
town pumps overhead telegraph wires.
the horse cars and blacksmiths. the
soap and candle factories" added
Duhamel
Old Prices Recalled.
John Clagett Proctor, vice president
OF the association. who presided, told
OF some Of the standard market prices
OF the early part of the last century
The prices. as collected from a number
OF account books from 1925 to 1929
included beef, 3 to 10 cents a pound
mutton, S to 7 cents: veal, to 9
cents; pork. to cents: chickens, 25
to 81 cents pair. bushel of carrots
or turnips sold for from to cents
and watermelons from to 16 cents
each, he said.
Proctor also told of Civil War prices
when cheese was so cents a pound,
butter so cents and tea 80 cents. He
told Of an elght-room house, near the
Capitol, which, accounts showed,
rented for only S6 a month in l845.
The association decided to celebrate
the Tooth anniversary of the erection
Of the old Union Engine House at its
October meeting and authorized Elra
G. Palmer. chairman of its Entertain
ment Committee, to arrange suitable
program for the occasion.
j. Eliot Wright, recording secretary
and treasurer; E. A. Zea and William
F. Slnnott were named to represent
the association at Constitution day
celebration September II in Memorial
Continental Hall, under auspices of
the District of Columbia Daughters
of the American Revolution. An in
vitation from the latter orgariza-
ton to the association to attend was
read by Wright.
To Decorate With Flags.
The association voted to decorate the
old Union Engine House that day with
United States flags given by John R.
Mahoney, financial secretary.
Harry A. Burr was elected marshal
OF the association to succeed the lat
Frank w. Dowling Members Joined
IN eulogizing Mr.. Bowling and Thomas
c. Simpson, another member who
recently died.
Proctor invited the members of the
association to call at his house on
October 5. when he and Mrs. Proctor
will observe their 50th wedding ami
versary.
Duhamel presented the association
with two Civil War bullets he found
August Is on the old sunken road at
Fredericksburg. Va. One of the bullets
was mashed fiat and the other broken
off, which Duhamel thought was due