Show t QUEER THINGS Vf AMERICA W Waldorf Astor Sends a Knowing English Girl to Explore Boston Since Mr Astor assumed the ownership i owner-ship of the Pall Mall Budget that i publication has been ostentatiously ig I > jnorant on all American subjects his vant of knowledge it now r at 1mowledg appears f t is to be amended since In its last issue i publishes a letter of a special t correspondent from Boston The letter y1 reads if it had as been carefully compiled r com-piled from a book on America so conscientiously con-scientiously are all the old British T pdaplalnts in regard to ice water and Ptre polishing of boots brought up again This is the information the Pall Mall offers When 1 i engaged my state room in i the comfortable steamship Catalonia a for Boston I had never heard of the famous brew of tea in Boston harbor f in seventeen hundred and something I but I have often thought since that it was perhaps a punishment i for that shameful waste that America ha never succeeded in brewing good tea v j v 1 t 1 1 nor had I heard of Crispus Attudks the martyred colored gentleman i whose elegant statue stands in Boston park Nor indeed did I know that in that free country colored gentleman is the American for African nigger In fact I do not as the Yankees say know enough to come in when i rains On that memorial voyage I learned three things first that you must not call the southerner a Yankee secondly that you must not call the Canadian an American and thirdly that the sooner I found out how I like America the better I was night when I got to my hal room as the small room in a boarding board-ing house over the front door is called in America I was dreadfully sleepy and I suppose 11rs G noticed this for she said kindly in her New England Eng-land soprano Why my child you look real tired wont you go right to bed Yes indeed I would but I looked in vain for the bed the entire entre furniture of this hall room was a beautiful birds eye maple piano at least what I thought was a piano a pretty chair writing bureau and a rocking chairLet Let me fix your bed for you and from the ledge of the supposed writing table she produced the magic wand and in a trice unwound my bedspring bed-spring mattress and all but the piano had disappeared likewise my writing table had revolved into a charming washstand with a clear flow of water from the deep tank behind which formed form-ed the solid looking upright of the bureau bu-reau The Irish help presently brought me a large jug of ice water and some crackers and asked if I would like some lunch I thought she was a trifle previous still I reflected that in this rapid land they might have adopted Alice in Wonderland system of breakfasting at afternoon tea and dining on the following day but I afterwards learnt that any meal served after 10 p m is termed lunch When r was left alone I took off my walking boots and deposited them at the back of the door and proceeded to do my hair Presently Mrs G came along and knocked at the door Excuse me but would you mind taking in your boots I cant be responsible for them out there I explained that I wanted them brushed Oh my but Im afraid youd wait awhile my help wouldnt brush a pair of boots not for the president himself I youll take my advice youll put these black leather boots away and wear a dress kid pair of half shoes with patent leather tips I soon fell asleep on the comfortable piano and dreampt that I was surrounded sur-rounded all over the bed clothes by little dishes of Boston beans succotash succo-tash and cream toast and that I must not move or the piano would play j Home Sweet Home When I awoke the first thing I did was to pull up the blinds and have a look out The street was not a long one and quite straight There was an ice cream and drugstore drug-store right opposite and in large black letters on a white ground over fbf > entire lenrth of the building ran Black eyes mended here At the corner sat a colored gentleman and his sign read thus Prof Monday shine 5 cents varnish 10 cents He wore a tall pearl Derby hat and a frock coat and was reading Town Topics so he must have been a man of culture I said that after lunch I would like to go out shopping my companion at table dhte offered to come with me and show me around As she had some commissions to do for mamma and a she could not come out till haf past three he Ipnt me the local paper to study as she said there were wonderful mark downs going on When my friend had finished all her commissions for mamma and I had done my shopping we went to the drug department and there perched perch-ed on a high stool we along with hundreds of others drank ice cream soda through a straw She declared that she had just the right change in her pocket book n and insisted that I should not pay for my first American Ameri-can drink I was most amused when we took the elevator up to the boot and shoe department to buy rubbers to see the American men take off their hats in the elevator when ladies were present it seemed almost absurd as they retain them in the stores and surface cars The goods are displayed dis-played much more attractively in America than with us their enormous plate glass windows which dwarf our largest show off the rich brocades and illuminated silks to advantage In a large store in New York they had a I an advertisement at Christmas time the whole history of Columbus in life size tableaux in the windows this store which is the largest in New York takes up almost the whole of Fourteenth street it must have paid if only the enormous numbers who would go in to have an iced drink at 10 cents Inside the stores the goods are displayed on long low tables with the prices distinctly marked you can meet your friends and look around without being molested as to what you want by the aisle manager shop walker I is an excellent plan for if you are left alone a you pass the notion no-tion counter you are sure to purchase some trifle The American bricabrac is irresistible There is another capital institution in a large dry goods store up town Mothers taking their babies there can have them checked on entering enter-ing along with their umbrellas and rubbers rub-bers and leave them in good hands in a large room arranged for the purpose When the mothers have finished on showing the number of the check the baby is produced This pays well as mothers are often driven out of a store I by a crying baby |