Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 14 October 1886 — Page 10

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GASTRONOMIC I0XD0X.

STRAY BITS FROM ITS NOTED CAFES. AND RESTAURANTS. ... .J

A Dinner at the Holborn—1The Old Cock Tavern—A Disgruntled Waiter Fee® «n«l Fee-Giver* Living in Apart* mints Etc., Etc.

L&lieelal CorrcsDonaence.J

LO^DOV. Sept. 24.—I write this letter In The very heart of tho greatest city of the world. All around me throbs the life blood of London, and within a ffew minutes' walk of me is the center from which go out tha wires which affect every nation and every market. A stone's thr^w away is Charing Cross, with its trains and 'buses leading to all parts of Loudon and England, and below this the Strand, with its everlasting stream of vehicles and men. I go to the top of my street, n. block away, and Trafalgar square, with its giant column of Nelson, with the great bronze lions lying at its feet, greets my eyes, and down below, not far off, are the houses of parliament, where to-night Parnell is having tussle with the government about old Ii-elaiul. Hyde Park, Pall Mall and Piccadilly, with its clubs, are within walking distance, and all about me is the London of history and literature, as well as the great city of business activity.

Just across the street Benjamin Franklin lived when he came here to advocate the cause cif the Colonists in 1771. Above this stands the Golden Cross hotel, where Mr. Pickwick met the hackney coachman and became acquainted with Jingle, and a little further down is the house of Samuel Pepys, the author of the Diary. Garrick lived in this vicinity, and some of the most important events in the life of Lady Jane took place right here.

When you are in Home do what Romans do, and you will pay what Romans pay. If you try to carry

American customs about with you, you will be charged three prices for everything, and will not be as well served into the bargain. It is the same with London. My friend and I are living here in apartments and we have a suite of three large rooms and an ante room on tho second floor front for a fixed price of $2 per day. The same accommodations in the Grand hotel in the next block would cost more than five times the money.

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have our break-

BIUTISH WAITER. fast in our sitting "room. We order what we like the night before, and at the time appointed we find it well cooked, nicely served and smoking upon the table. We eat at our leisure and enjoy our breakfast. The othex* meals we take at the noted restaurants and •cafes of London. We live well, and the "whole does not cost us each over $3 a.day.

Americans are, as a rule, the most extravagant of travelers. They have acquired an international reputation as such. They pay bigger fees and get less for their money than any other class of travelers. I heard a rich

American at Edinburgh say that it cost him an average of $5 in fees to every hotel bill he paid, and I find that twice as much is expected of an American as of a German, a Frenchman or an Englishman. Every servant here seems to expect a fee, and cabmen, stage drivers, railroad conductors and the government employes about the public buildings have their hands always open. The fact that signs are put up warning the travelers that no gratuities are to be paid makes no difference, and at hotels the servants expect the same fee whether attendance is charged in the bill or not. I have paid thirty-seven cents a day for attendance at hotels, and have notwithstanding found an army of servants waiting to be feed at my departure. At many of the restaurants the waiters get no wages, but rely "upon fees for their salaries, and at some hotels and cafes they even pay a good round sftm to the proprietor for the privilege. The head boots at one of the big hotels in Liverpool pays, I am told, $500 a year for the blacking of the boots of the guests of the hotel, and hires his own assistants.

The average English waiter and porter of a hotel are almost always feed. The waiters are as a rule solemn-looking fellows, and they are always dressed in swallow-tail coats, low cut vests and white ties. They are very polite, especially when you are about to depart, and at that time all present themselves. The beet of them do not ask for fees outright, but you can see they expect it all the same. If you do not fee them a look of ineffable scorn oomea on their faces, and you have fallen like lead in their estimation.

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BREAKFAST IN* OUR SITTING ROOM.

Last night at the Covent Garden theatr* restaurant a party of Americans, of which was a member, drank a bottle of wine to gether. Wesat at a little table just off of the promenade of tho grand theatre and were waited upon by one of these walking clothes frames in full dress. The bill was asked for and a noted literary man of America handed the waiter the exact change. He started away with a thank you and then came back as he looked at tho change, and said with an air which was half demand: "Genfiemen, there is no fee here for the waiter!"

The American replied: "No, and you will get none! I am usually very liberal with your class, but I will never give fees when I am asked for them."

The waiter looked mad, spluttered a little, and wont off. As he did so the American ra^marked to me: "This is the first time I have v- Vver been directly asked for a fee." This man goes to Europe nearly every year and is a con"fctaiit fee giver. Many Americans feel the as he does. They don't object to giving or a Rhillinor when in tlie mood and

when they feel they have been well served. They do object to giving in response to unadulterated cheek, and wtfl not open their pockets upon its demands. It issurjta-feing what fine looking fellow* some of these waiters are. At the Royal hotel in Edinburgh and the St. Enoch's in Glasgow there are men acting as waiters who would not seem out of place as guests at a fashionable party or at a scientific meeting. The head waiter is, ns a rule, a plump, middle aged man with a face shining with good living and having an air of dignity and good humor combined. He might pose for a retired nabob anywhere else, and you feel at first afraid to drop a fee into his hand, which he so well knows how to curl behind his back or at his side.

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BOWING FOR A FEE.

There are about 13,000 cabmen in London and about 1,000 'bus drivers. The cabmen have fixed rates for passengers, but they expect a penny or two additional with every fare. The hansom cab is the great vehicle here, and its rates are for two persons -about a shilliug or twenty-five cents for a two-mile trip. It is a two-wheeled one-horse affair, open at the front, and the driver sits behind and drives with his lines over the top of the cab. They do not obstruct the view and they make excellent time. These cabs are owned largely by capitalists, who let them out to the drivei-s at so much per day, and their pay is in what they can earn over this. The hansom was for years peculiarly a London institution, but it has been lately taken up in the United States, and Washington, Philadelphia and Now York are adopting it.

Speaking of restaurants and eating, it is wonderful how much meat these English people eat, and what good meats they havfe. The English grill room has an international reputation for its chops and steaks, and all over England you will see the sign "Grill •Room" tacked to the walls of many restaurants. The grill room is apart of the restaurant where the meat is broiled in the same room it is eaten, and where one can pick out his own steak or chop and have it cooked for him. It differs from other restaurant rooms chiefly in the grilling part, which consists of a wide fireplace at the end of the room, built into the chimney, about as high from the floor as that upon which the blacksmith's fire burns. Upon this fireplace are masses of red coals, and over them grates of iron and spits, on which, with an appetizing odor, are broiling meats of various kinds. A cook in white cap, white waistcoat and apron presides over the grill, and at his side are big counters, upon which are laid out all kinds of raw chops, steaks and birds. You can pick out your own piece of meat, and see it put on the coals. In ten minutes, or less, it will/ be brought, smoking hot, to you, and you will find it delicious. If you are an Englishman you will order a mug of beer with it, and about a quart of heavy beer will be handed you in a big silver mug. You also have potatoes or other vegetables if you pay for them, and you close your repast with a bit of old Stilton or Gorgonzola cheese, which looks as old as a cathedral ruin and as moldy ns a damp, unused cellar.

There are numerous old and noted restaurants in London. I came across one the other day called the Faletaff restaurant in the vicinity of Mark lane, and on Fleet street there is one at which Nell Gwynneusedto dine which dates back into the Seventeenth century and has the sign "Nell Gwynne Tavern, founded A. D. 166G," upon it.

The Cock tavern near by has been noted among lawyers for years, and it is a little six-teen-feet wide building of many stories, sandwiched in between more modern structures. It has a golden rooster for a sign, and it looks very old. It is the restaurant that Tennyson speaks of in the beginning of one of his poems:

Oh, plump head waiter at the Cock, To which I most resort. How goes the time? Tis five o'clock.

Go fetch a pint of port, But let it not be such as that You set before chance comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat -1

On Lusitanian summers.

I dropped into tho Cock yesterday. The grill eating was going on in stalls, while a very pretty maiden presided over the bar. I took a glass of port for the name of the thing and found it very good indeed, but whether it was of the Lusitanian kind or that for chance comers I know not.

Among the noted London restaurateurs of the present, Spiers & Pond stand very high. They have restaurants with silver gridirons and lots of colored glass all over London, and you find their establishments connected with the principal theatres and the railway stations. They are Australians, who have introduced French cookery into England, and many of their restaurants furnish meals on tha Duval plan. Duval was a French butcher, who has founded restaurants all over Paris, at which everything is sold at the lowest remunerative rates, and everything is charged for even to the napkins. A bill of fare is given you with the prices attached to each dish, and you pay for just what you want and no more, except a fee, perhaps, to the waiters. These restaurants of Spiers & Pond are higher in price than the Duval establishments of Paris, but their service is excellent.

There is a big one in Fleet street, near the new law courts and in the locality of the large newspaper offices of London. It was in Fleet street that Dr. Samuel Johnson lived, and this restaurant is not far from where Isaac Walton's house used to stand. I have dined in it many times, and am always able to get a good dinner for about fifty cents. Everything

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have hero costs something.

The use of the washroom to clean your hands and face costs sixvcents, and for ths you get afresh towel, wrapped up in a sealed paper, to show that no one else has wiped upon it, a "brush off" by a waite», and as much hot and cold water and soap as you want The dining rooms are above this and on a level with Fleet street. Tliev ar- olecrantlv fur­

nished and filled with a hundred or so of little tables, covered with the whitest of Hmm You enter them through a wifle hall, and as you pass the policeman at the door you are given a ticket or bill, on which what you eat will be set down by yoor waiter. The boy who gives you this is in a sort of a pen in the middle of the doorway, and you cannot p»aa in without getting it You select your table, and your waiter takes your order. All of the waiters are girls of from about 18 to 85 years of age, and a very pretty, l&dy-like and agreeable lot of girls they are. They have one costume. It consists of a gray stone-col-ored dress, a white aixron, low slippers a gauzy lawn cap, which daintily covers the top of the head. Upon the' arms, tcom wrist to elbow, there are pairs of white oversleeves tied at the elbow with black bands, and each girl fastens her collar with a round nickelplated brooch the size of a trade dollar, upon which is enameled her number in plain figures. Number 5 waited on me to-day, an-l i* while she was standing bgside me I made a hasty sketch of her and her badge. She was very pretty, and though sho appeal ed delicate sho was strong enough to dislodge with her iy corkscrew a rcfractory wine cork with aloud report. The corkscrew is a part of each of these girls'attire, and it is tied to their waists by a black string, and hangs

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half the way down the dress like a lady's fan at a party when not in use. Number 5 gave me NUMBER FIVE. a napkin, for which I paid two cents: a piece of bread, two cents butter, two cents, and then my dinner as per order. Everything was nicely cooked and the service was of the best, though the prices were no less than those in the better class restaurants of New York, where cheapness is made an object. The prices of eating in London are about the same as in America, and when you figure up the total of your hotel bills you find that they amount to at least $3 or S4 per day at the better hotels, and more than that at the best. Their prices appear cheaper from the fact that everything is itemized. Tho total, however, is a continual astonishment,. Take a fixed price per day per room, say $1, and this is about tho lowest for which one can get a room at the better hotels in the West End, or fashionable London, and you find at the close an additional charge of one shilling and a half for service and one shilling for lights. The price of your room is now $1.62, and the waiters and boots will expect something when you leave. A room on any except the top floor will be higher, and the total daily rates will count up about as follows: $3 a day for the fourth floor, $0 for the third, $8 for the second, and about $10 for a room, including board, on the first floor. In all European hotels the ground floor does not count, and in most of them the floor above this is called the "entresol." The first floor is what would be the third floor in an American hotel, and there are few Amur, ican hotels which charge as much as the above rates.

Of late years a number of penny coffee houses have sprung up all over England, and you find them in every part of London. These coffee rooms give a fair cup of coffee or chocolate for a penny, or two cents, a pat of butter for two cents and a piece of bread or roll for the same. Cold meats, pies and cake are. also sold. There are no waiters at most of them, except those behind the cash counter. You go to the counter, ask for what you want, and carry it to one of the marble tables in the room, and, taking a seat, eat your lunch at your leisure. I have patronized these coffee houses several times when I wanted only a "snack" and have found them good. I understand that they are very paying institutions and that they do a great deal in the way of temperance reform, as no liquors are sold at them.

One of the finest restaurants of London is the Holborn, which from its table d'h6te dinners, accompanied by music, has acquired an international reputation. Here the furnishings are more gorgeous than those of Claude Melnotte's ideal palace, on the Lake of Como.

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THE HOLBORN.

There is ablaze of gold carvings, fine marbles, beautiful tiles, rich furniture, cut glass and silver plate. Flowers and plants there are in profusion, and every surrounding is that of luxury and wealth. The dining room is a great court, roofed with paneled carvings of gold and white, and with tiers of wide galleries looking out upon it and rising one above another. It is as large as a good sized theatre and in decoration does not look unlike one of the best of theatres. The band is in one of the galleries. It is an excellent one and it renders the finest music during the dinner hours, which last from 5:30 p. m. to 8:30 p. m. Tho dinner is a table d'hSte, and it takes about one hour to go through its various courses. Between 500 and 1,000 people, I judge, were dining ini it when I took my last dinner there, and the crowd was a well dressed and fashionable one. Each party had a table to itself, and many ladies were among the number. This dinner costs three shillings and six pence and three pence for the waiter, which is included in the bilL This makes a total charge of eightyseven cents for a fine concert and an excellent dinner, which you will agree is not dear.This does not, however, include wine, and as every one drinks here, the dinner amounts to as much more as the drinking tastes of the diner demands

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THE TERRE HAUTE WEEKLY GAZETTE.

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Tho dinner from the joint is a favorite meal with Londoners. It consists of soup and a cut of roa$t beef, lamb, or veal, with Vegetables and cheese. The Albion, Simpson's, the Rainbow and others are among the oldfashioned* English restaurants of this style.' At Simpson's I have had many a good saddle of mutton, and I like the way it is brought to tho table. A table on rollers with afire burning upon it, and over thii the great platter on which rests a big roast v«r fish, is rolled up-to your table, and a cook droned all in white cuts off the smoking slice before your eyes and lays it freshly cut upon your plate. A good dinner from the joint costs about seventy-five cents, and for this you get all the meat and vegetables you can eat. It is the dinner for a hungry man or a Dr. Tanner. The quality is good and the quantity is unlimited, as you can repeat your order ad libitum without increase of price.

FRANK GEORGE CABPKNTOTI.

WORK OF THE PARODISTS.IS

*Pat Bolivar'* a Lineal Descendant ot Young Loclilnvar. Now Pat Bolivar's beat his way from the west, Of all the ride-stealers his schemes were the best To "bilk" a free passage—for cash he had none— O11 the lightning expresses or freight train's slow run Most grimly he'd board and hang on to each car, 0 there ne'er was a tramp like Pat BoH-var!

He cared not

to. vrakemen

stones,

and dodged all their

As he crouched t.pon trucks which shook up his bones But when he alighted at York City's gate, His garments were tattered and cindered his pate "Fer a vag., betwixt whales can't kirn fram afar, An' luk clane as a jude," quoth Pat Boli-var.

Sometimes laid out straight on the top of a coach, A ''lift av tin moiles" in the night he would poach And again underneath the headlight in front Of engine he'd sit, 'till the cowcatcher'd bunt A bull off the track with a terrible jar— Yet still to the loco, stuck Pat Boli-var 1

Ah! many a kick from the conductors he got And also big scaldings through hot water shot From steamcocks, by firemen—when caught at his tricks But, nevertheless, "like a thousand of bricks. Undaunted he journeyed from wild Omahar Clear east as a deadhead, sly Pat Boli-var.

You bet he's arrived! Oh, the autumn campaign Will find him a-begging through Jersey again And while he's meand'ring around on "Shanks'

Mare,"

He often will chuckle o'er paying no fare On that trip when he proved himself as the "Star" Of all railroad "sneakers"—flip Pat Boli-var! —"Jef. Joslyn" in Texas Sittings.

THE UMPIRE OF THE NINE.

An umpire of the league nines, Lay dying at the plate, And the gory rocks about him

Told the story of his fate,

He had made a rank decision. And the crowd, in firnzy Had shuffled off his mortal

By rocking him to sleep.

The catcher stood beside him As his life blood ebbed av.-i-And swung his bat with vigor

To keep the crowd at bay.

The dying umpire beckoned, ,V And the captain of the nine -.1,. Bent over him in sorrow, -A

For he feared another fine.

But the umpire'a words came feebly As the crisis was at hand, His dimmed eyes were soon to open ».

In a brighter, fairer land.

Then he whispered, low and sadly, "Call the game, it's getting dark Let it end on even innings,

So the last run do not mark.

"I have finished watching bases I am numbered with the slain, And the cry of 'rats' will never

Echo in my ears again.

"Place my hand upon the home plate Let me have my little mask Frame a set of resolutions

This is all I have to ask."

The dying umpire faltered, His face turned toward the sun, One gasp, and all was over

It was his last home run.

They buried him at twilight In a hole they quickly made, And no stone marks the lonely spot

Where the weary umpire's laid. —Detroit Free Press,

MARIAR.,

On a fence by my dwelling a little torn cat Sang "Maria, Mariar, Mariar," And I said to him, "Thomas H., why do you that,

Singing 'Riar, Mariar, Mariar?' Is it just feline nature, Thomas?" I cried, "Or are you all hungry and vacant inside?" With a switch of his body, the Thomas replied, "Mariar, Mariar, Mariar.''"

He howled and he whined in a desolate way, "Mariar, Mariar, Mariar,'" And all he appeared to be able to say

Was "Riar, Mariar. Mariar." He howled and he wailed this singular cry, With a sob in his throat and a tear in his eye, And I started to see if a bootjack was nigh "Mariar, Mariar, Mariar."

And that was the last time the Thomas cat cried, "Mariar, Mariar, Mariar." For he dropped from the fence to the ground, where he died,

Singing "Riar, Mariar, Mariar I picked up a bootjack of seven pounds weight, I aimed at his head and I threw very straight, And all that he said, though its strange to relate,

Was "Riar, Mariar, Mariar." —St. Louis Whip.

Examples of Tenderness.

Fogg—I really beg a thousand pardons. I fear I stepped on your dog. Little Migg Marigold—Oh, it doesn't matter! the dog isn't mine he belongs to the other little girL

TOUCHTN-O DEVOTION.

Estelle—And are you going to leave me so soon, Augustus? Augustus—My love, I would willingly givfe ten years of my life if I could stay longer. But if I don't go I shall be fined for being late at a card party.—Chicago Rambler.

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HOG CHOLERA SPECIFIC.

In the many cases in which this Specific has btien nsed,t has been pronounced the best remedy on the market. It has been tested beside other popular remedles and in every case it has proved its superiority: it has been used in cases where it seemed to be a waste of material to give anythingand in every as the hog recovered:

As preventative it is unexcelled fed from one to three times a week, it not wards off the

disease, but creates a good appOtito, which is indispensable in all stock. Refer to H. Hanker, Dairyman, J.W.King, Jno. McBride, Cloverland, W. Craig, Seeley ville, Henry Zimmerman, below Prairieton.

CHARLES ZIMMERMAN. Drnsgtet. Thirteenth and Main.

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