Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1895 — Odd Use for a Lemon. [ARTICLE]

Odd Use for a Lemon.

It seems that at business and other places, where the playing of a street brass band is annoying, it is customary to send a boy out to suck a lemon, facing the men who play the wind Instruments. These men cannot play on the instruments at alllf they see the boy’s mouth puckered up by the sour lemon juice, which fact is utilized by those who are disturbed by the music; alsoby others who want to try the experiment or think it funny to move the wandering minstrels. Actuated by the former motive, an eminent scientist paid a boy a quarter to go out and suck a lemon in front of the flutist and French horn players, and the man with the oboe, who had located in front of his office; and no sooner had the bandmaster caught sight of the boy than he removed his artists to the next square. The boy followed, and again the band moved. The third time the lemon-sucking boy faced the wind instruments the bandmaster, who had been gradually growing infuriated, struck the lemon from his mouth. The boy howled, and a policeman who had arrived, inquired the cause of the disturbance. The bandmaster said he was standing there sucking a lemon, which the officer explained, the boy had a right to do, so the lender proceeded to other parts. Hence the scientist is convinced that it Is a fact that it is impossible for performers to blow into wind instruments if they see any one sucking a lemon.