Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1910 — EATING ON THE PUBLIC WAT. [ARTICLE]

EATING ON THE PUBLIC WAT.

Tbe Simplicity of Open-air Meals Has Not Died Oat la Many Cities. Street venders of combestibles play no such conspicuous part in the life of New York’s public ways as they once did, and not so long ago. Perhaps the city has grown more dignified, but whatever the reason people no longer walk abroad munching, regardless of appearances. However, these open-air nifeals have not vanished in the financial district of the juvenile business men of New York, for in the first block of Ann street, in the noon hour, newsboys, messenger boys, and office boys, still tin knickerbockers, make hearty luncheons from a variety of tins or from “hot dog” in a split roll. This is but a survival frbm a bygone period when the elders patronized the waffle baker on the corner, Other cities yet retain the pristine simplicity —Hunger is not to be cribbed, nor will it regulate itself by the dropping of any time ball. There still are towns where the hungry man may eat and be not ashamed of eating on the crowded highways. San Francisco still has its tamale, the retailer selling his wares upon the streets by night and the wayfarer welcoming the viand. Scoffers may suggest that seap gull is the principal component of the peppery combination of meat and cornmeal, and the unalterable price of three for two bits lends color to the aspersion. The tamale is none the less a satisfying meal, a meal of the streets, not a thing for a knife and fork and dainty napery. Cincinnati still hears of late evening the plaintive cry of “winnewish.” It demands the resources of philology to discover that it is but the negro attempt to compass “Wienerwurst.” This nocturnal food finds a ready sale among such as are going home at unholy hours. '" Richmond streets are still the market place for fried chicken —yellowlegged chicken on a slab of pone no less yellow. The purchaser of this refreshment may wonder how he gets so much at a price so small. He may estimate that the two levies with which he pays the ancient darky can scarcely cover the cost of manufacture; the cost of material is unaccounted for. Far better leave it unaccountable, save that the chicken was cheaply acquired in the natural way.