Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1884 — Making a Directory. [ARTICLE]

Making a Directory.

“I tell you what it is, you or any one who have never got up a city directory, don’t know what queer ideas people have, or how many seem to be really above their occupation,” remarked a canvasser for the new city directory, as he was about to make a memoranda on a slip of paper. “At some of the houses you can’t make.people understand anything. I asked a lady how many lived at her house, when she flared up and said it was none of my business. She then took the time to ventilate her mind. She said if she did rent her rooms to a few- lodgers it was her own business, and no one need worry about it. ‘I ain’t obliged to rent my rooms,’ she said, but it’s no harm for a woman to make an honest penny in this way if she wants to.’ I finaliy made her understand that I only wanted to know the names of her lodgers to put into the directory as a guide. She then realized that she got a hot box without cause, and apologized. Then there is the whitewasher. You have to take it down ‘fresco artist.’ Just so with nearly every business. A laborer is a ‘contractor,’ a saloonkeeper is a ‘liquor merchant,’ a barber is a ‘tonsorial artist,’ a common sign painter wants to be put down as an ‘artist,’ the reporter considers ‘journalist’ as the proper word to designate his occupation. Why, even an old junk dealer considers that nothing short of ‘broker’-would tell of the business he is in. Then there are the gamblers, they want to be put down as ‘gentlemen of leisure.’ The clerks, that is a large number of them, want to use some word to express their situation in such a way as to lead people to think they owned at least half their employers’ business. The work ‘clerk’ after their name is a terrible thing. They want ‘salesman,’ ‘confidential secretary’ or something of that sort. I’ve noticed this fact, though, that the people who afe not above their calling, who want it put down in plain English without the use of high sounding words, are the most prosperous. They have gone into the business with a purpose to succeed, and they’ll do it too. Yes, we meet with all kinds of receptions. At one place I visited in the Third ward, they threw dish water on me, and called me a ‘meddling dude.’ I called at one place, and was met at the door by an old lady, who not only slammed the door in my face, but let the dog'Out of the back way,, and 'before I could get out of the yard the dog was busily engaged with me. It was very funny for the dog, and it wasn’t so uninteresting for me.—Peet’s Sun.