Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1889 — GUM-CHEWING AT THE CAPITAL [ARTICLE]

GUM-CHEWING AT THE CAPITAL

It Is Practiced at the White H&ttee and on the Supreme Bench, Washington is a city of gmn-chew-ers, says a letter to the Waterbury American—more emphatically so perhaps than any other city on the middle or southern Atlantic coast. The daintily flavored saliva-increaser is not only popular with schoolboys and schoolgirls; it permeates society from top to bottom, and a census of the men who delight to roil the waxy morsels undpr their tongues would be a surprise to -the country. The man who (next to the president) controls and directs the foreign policy of this administration uses a great deal of gum, but he takes it straight It is the pure product of the spruce trees which are so numerous in his native state. He says that gum-chewing is not with him an unreasoning habit “It aids my digestion,” he says. “J chew simply because of the good effect it has pn my stomach.” His better half has not that same excuse, for her digestion has steadfastly refused to be impaired by many years of the most excessively fashionable life; yet she f too chews gum. Not in public, though, for there is no greater stickler for a submissive yielding to the “proprieties” than Mrs. Blaine. There is gum at the white house. Mrs. McKee is an expert ehewer. and when llussel Harrison married exSenator Saunder’s daughter it didn’t take the western bride very long to pick up the habit from her sister-in-law. Passing down Pennsylvania avenue Saturday afternoon I noticed three ladies sitting in an open carriage waiting for the coming of a fourth, who was in a jewelry store. All three were working the muscles ol their jaws as rapidly as possible and the fragmentary conversation was frequently interrupted by gulps aud gurgles of the most distressing character. The fourth lady came out of the store in a little while, but before entering her she opened the everpresent sachel aud took from thence a little silvery covered square of something. She removed the wrapper dexterously anti then put the brown contents into her pretty mouth. In less than ten seconds thereafter there were four ladies—at the head and front of Washington society—riding down the avenue at high noon aud every one of them was chewing gum as though their lives would be forfeited if they stopped for an instant. Two of the judges of the Supreme bench of the District of Columbia are Incessant chewers and so is Justice Gray of the Supreme court of the United States. Gum chewing caused a good deal oi trouble in the interior department a few days ago. One of th’e lady clerks is a helpless victim to the habit an d lately had felt as though copious expectoration was necessary to crown, her masticatory efforts. A mischief loving gentleman whose desk whs in the same room took advantage of hex absence from her place to put a cuspidor near her chair. When the lady returned she notioed the presence oi the vessel and the smiles of her fel-low-employes and immediately, exhibited symptoms of very violent wrath. It mattered not that she had (unobserved, she imagined) used the rug at her feet as a receiver; She rushed ,at pnee ,to the secretary’s office and poured put her tale bf woe. If any member of President Harrison’s cabinet has a fine sense of humdr it is Gen. Nqble, and beneath a grave and courteous exterior he struggled on that occasion with a volcano ol laughter. He promised to have the alleged insult looked into at once and soothed the lady’s feelings. But the cachinnatory volcano was in a state of very,noisy eruption as soon as the fair gum-chewer had departed. Of course that was the last of the matter.