NOTES AND QUERIES.

Evening Star, Issue 7247, 25 June 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Acupuncture.— Puncturing or pricking with a needle is a very ancient remedy, and one practised extensively in the East for the cure of headaches, lethargies, and other complaints. In Europe it is principally employed to relieve neuralgic pains and chronic rheumatism. Steel needles are made use of set in handles. Their insertion is accompanied by no pain except the first prick. The relief to pain by this simple operation is sometimes astonishing, and the wounds are so minute as to be perfectly harmless. The needles are sometimes used as conductors of the galvanic current to deep-seated parts, and are sometimes made hollow to allow of a small quantity of some sedative solution being injected into the tissues, by which oven the terrible pain of tic doloreux may be almost immediately relieved.

Call of the House is an imperative summons to every member of Parliament of either House on some particular occasion, when the sense of the House is deemed necessary. When the House of Commons is ordered to be “ called,” it is usual to name a ■ day which will enable the members to attend from all parts of the country. The order for the House to be “ called ” is always accompanied by a resolution “that such members as shall not then attend be sent for in custody of the sergeant-at-arms.” On the day appointed for the call, the Order of the Dayis read and proceeded with, postponed, or discharged at the pleasure of the House. In the Wrong Box.—George Lord Lyttelton was of a rather moody disposition, and of restless habits. He used to go to Vauxbali, and frequency said that “he always got into the wrong box,” for the folks in those next to which he sat were always merry enough, but he felt dull and melancholy. In a printing office, when a letter is found in the compartment appointed for some other letter, it is said to “ be in the wrong box.” Intoxicating.—The word, in its present sense, was probably introduced into the English language by Milton, who says C Tetrachordon,’ 1664): “If the importation of wine and the use of all strong drink were forbid, it would clean rid the possibility of committing that odious vice (drunkenness), and men might afterwards live happily and healthfully without the use of these intoxicating liquors.” The word “ intoxicate ” is derived from the Latin toxicant, the poison in which arrows were dipped. Isinglass.—A corrupted form of the German name of sturgeon, hausenblas. Isinglass made from the bladder of the sturgeon. It has probably its English name from some improper association with the the word icimj, and the French glace (ice). Qlla Podrida.—A Spanish term generally employed to designate a favorite dish of the Spaniards, consisting of different kinds of meat and vegetables stewed together. It has also come to be figuratively applied to literary productions of very miscellaneous contents. The French equivalent is pot-pourri, and the Scotch hotchpotch, both of which are also employed in a figurative sense. Pot-pourri is in music a selection of favorite pieces strum; together without much arrangement so as to form a sort of medley. Quakers. This name was originally applied by a Derby Magistrate to the members of the Society of Friends, because George Fox, its founder, admonished him and those present to tremble at the name of the Lord. —Haydn. Quarrel. —'Ihis word was formerly used in the sense of “ a reason for,” an excuse. Lord Bacon says: “ Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will (Essay viii.). Holinshed has; “ He thought he had a good quarrel to attack him.” The Bubble Act is the name given to an Act “enacted,” says Blackstone, “in the year after the infamous South Sea project had beggared half the nation,” and which public fraud this Act was intended to punish. “Bubble” is defined by Blackstone “ as an unwarrantable undertaking by unlawful subscriptions, subjecting the parties who originate and put them in operation to severe penalties.” Hence the term bubble companies. The Greek Calends.—“ ‘The Calends’; that is the way they speak of New Year’s Day now in Greece,” says a modern traveller in that country. “It was, of course, a holiday, for there are more holidays than work-days amongst the orthodox Greeks. Amongst other quaint sunoundings, we found we were living in accordance with the Gregorian, and not the Julian calendar as our friends at Home ; and this is the reason why they refused to adopt the new style instead of the old when the rest of the civilised world did ; for to change their calendar would have created such a vast upheaval amongst saints’ days and fasts that things would never have got straight again. The women, in their quaint costumes, were clustered together in the narrow lanes, gossiping as women always will. Their sleeves and underskirts were heavy with many-colored silk embroidery; over this was cast a loose, bright Turkey-red dress; round and round their heads were wrapped brilliant orange handkerchiefs ; their ears were distorted with heavy rings. On their backs were strung their babies. Never did uglier women form more picturesque groups. Some were knitting, some were singing lullabies; and, as we passed by, all wished us many years. The customs of the Calends are most distinctly classical. The evening before we had listened to the Calend songs, sung by children who went from house to house with a trophy something like a Christmastree, giving their good wishes to each householder, and getting baskets of eggs and figs in return. Christmas-boxes are not the fashion; in fact, Christmas to them is not half so considerable a feast as Epiphany, Easter, or the liaising of the Cross. But every Nisyriote, however poor, gives a New Year’s gift for ‘good luck,’ they will tell you, if you ask them why. Strange to say, these gifts are called by a Greek word which we find Athemeus, who wrote three centuries after Christ, telling us is a translation of the Roman word strena; which still exists in the Italian strenne and the French etrennes, and signifies New Year’s gifts. Even as the Romans gave thfeir gifts, so did the women of Nisyroa bring to us on this morning orages with pinks stuck in them and gilded apples as presents for ‘ good luck,’ and in receiving them we felt we were acting the part of Roman patrons, whose clients brought them such things on this day. In one of the houses we visited we remained some time to watch the quaint ceremony going on. Every one who came to visit brought a trifling present and a hearty good wish. Generally, the presents were dried fruits, adorned with a little gilding; sometimes a piece of soap, sometimes a copper coin ; and these were all set out with pride by the housewife on a table. In return she gave to each a glass of rakki and a handful of things from her store cupboard. As it was in Rome amongst the poor, so it was in Greece to-day. In the Eternal City on this day clients gave handsome presents to their patrons, slaves to their lords, friends to friends, and the people to their emperor. Caligula, as we know, was never a rich man ; and, wishing to dower his daughter as she should be dowered, he made known that he would receive gifts on the first of the year for this object at the palace doors; and, standing there, he walked barefoot on piles of gold. The vice of giving New Years in Rome grew as rampant as that of ours in giving wedding presents, and had to be checked by sumptuary laws, and the early Christian divines railed at the evil. St. Augustine even went so far as to call New Year’s gifts • diabolical,’ and Chrysostom preached that • the first of the year was a Jewish feast and a Satanic extravagance.’ Then, as the cunning divines in the earlier days of Christianity were wont to do, they tried to substitute Christmas for New Year’s gifts ; in other words to Christianise a pagan festival, just as the valentines of to-day are a harmless survival of the ribald jokes played at the Lupercalia. The effect of this attempted change is still felt among us; and this accounts for the double-barrelled liberality with which paterfamilias has to put his hands into his pockets at this festive season. In the East Christmas gifts are unknown. They are an institution which Western Christendom alone has adopted ; but there exists no one, however poor, in Greece who does not give and receive gifts on the day of (he Calends.”

How Working Men Live in Europe smd America.

[By Lee Meriwether, in ‘ Harper’s

for April,

( Concluded.) IN THE UNITED STATES,

It may seem odd, yet it is true, that an investigation such as I have interested myself in is attended with much more serious obstacles in the United States than in England and on the Continent. lu Europe the men seemed willing even anxious—to talk with me. They told of thi i • low wages, their hard struggle, and listened in return to the stories I told of America. But at home I have often found it difficult to win their confidence. The recent labor agitations have served to make them suspicious, and it is not until they are thoroughly assured that no harm is meant that you cau learn anything from them. Once, as I was leaving a large New England cotton-mill, where I had gone to secure the names and addresses of some of the operatives with the purpose of calling on them at their homes, an old woman came running up. “If you please, sir,” she said, “I think I would like to have my name back again.” I gravely read from my note-book the name and address she had given me, upon which she returned to her loom apparently completely satisfied. Afterwards, when I called upon this woman, she was considerably surprised, since I had “ given her back ” her name, that I lemembered her and knew where to find her house. There were nine in the family, which represented all sizes, ages, and sexes. The father was a laborer in a coal-yard; the mother and two of the children worked in the worsted-mills. The father 7dol. LI 9s 2d) a week ; the mother, 5 dol. (LI 0 lOd); the eldest daughter, 4dol, (16s 8d) ; the daughter fourteen years old earned 3dol. 26 cents (13s Total weekly earnings, 19doI. 25 cents (L 4 0 2id). They averaged forty-eight weeks a year, making the total yearly earnings of this New England factory family 924d01. (L 192 10s). Their home consisted of five rooms on the first floor of a crowded tenement-house. Two of the rooms were decently large, about fourteen feet square; the other three were mere closets, no windows, dark and close, and hardly large enough to contain a good-sized bed. These rooms the family rented from the mill company at a reduced rate—six dollars (255) a month—the lowest figure for rent, I should mention, that I have yet found in America. The average amount paid for a habitation like that mentioned is is nowhere else less than ten dollars (L2 Is 8d) a month. This family, which may be regarded as typical of a large class, get up in the morning at half-past five, eat a breakfast of coffee, bread, butter, and potatoes at six, and by half-past six are at the mills. There they remain until half-past six at night, an hour being allowed them at noon for dinner. The investigator, who knows how small are their wages, and sees their uninviting surroundings, is surprised to learn that wage-earners of this class arc most fastidious as to the quality of the food they buy. They will go in threadbare clothing, will live in dark closets, may oven limit themselves in the quantity of their food, but in the quality, never. “ No one can say that I do not give my family the best of flour, the linest sugar, the very best quality of meat.”

This is the boast of the coal laborer earning seven dollars a week. The family of the lawyer or book-keeper, with an income of‘2,ooodol. (L 466 13s 4d) a year, will often content themselves with a cheaper grade of flour, a cheaper sugar, and cheaper meat; but such ecomomy is too petty for the family of the poorer workman to grasp. He wants “ the very best,” and spends his very last cent to get it. Very good butter was selling in the market at 25 cents (Is per pound, but the coal laboier’s family were using butter costing 29 cents (Is 2£d). The clothing for the entire family of nine cost lOSdol. (L 22 10s) per year; the sum spent for meat was nearly half as much again—--156d0l (L 32). The mother did all the cooking for the family after seven o’clock, upon her return from the mill. The principal meal was in the evening, that at noon being a mere luncheon. A few of the large New England mills provide dining halls for their operatives. At twelve o’clock an army of men file into these halls, each one carrying a bucket with luncheon, generally of beans, pork, bread and butter, and pie. In pleasant weather they eat rapidly, and in fifteen minutes the greater number are through, and out on the grounds to pass the remainder of the dinner-hour in walking, chatting, and breathing the fresh air. At five minutes to one the whistles blow, and the operatives scamper back t < the doorways, hurry up the steep flights of stairs, and by one o’clock are at their looms and spindles. Of the eleven factory girls whom I interviewed at Olneyville, Rhode Island, there was one earning Sclol. (LI 13s 4d) a week, two earned 6dol. (LI ss). two earned 9dol. (LI 17a fid), six earned 4d01.,50 cents (18s 9d) a week. Of these eleven girls all but one lived at home. Some paid their mothers 3dol (12s 6;l) orSdol. 50 cents (14s 6d) board, but the majority gave in all wages, and the family expenditures were made in common. The one girl who did not live at home was from Ireland. She earned 6dol. (LI ss) a week, five of which she spent on herself, saving the remaining dollar to send to her parents in the old country. The mills where girls worked employed 1,900 operatives, of whon 1,021 were women. A large number of these unfortunates live in a perpetual night. They -are at work before it is fairly day, and during the twelve hours that they remain in the mill it is night to them. The great halls crowded with machinery are dark and gloomy. In those parts of the mills work is done by aid of electric lights from dawn till dusk. Spending nine-tenths of their waking hours in that close, heated atmosphere, it is difficult to see where the condition of the average factory-hand is superior to the condition of the penitentiary convict, who at least is assured of wholesome diet and reasonably comfortable quarters. The convict is deprived of liberty, hut so is the factory operative. No one can leave the mill during the day unless for sickness or some other imperative reason. In the large American cities, as New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, etc., wages appear to be slightly higher than in the small towns, though not sufficiently so to compensate for the greatly increased cost of living. In New York it is simply impossible for the average working man to live in anything like comfort. Rents are high, provisions are high, everything is high. Few workmen get off with less thanlOdol. (L2lsßd) a month rent, and it may safely be said that any habitation in New York city would be, at that figure, of the most miserable and squalid description. Considering its size and proximity to New York, rents in Brooklyn are surprisingly low—low even as compared with small towns. I found a skirt and lace embroiderer on Lexington Avenue, in Brooklyn, in a brown stone house which might easily be taken for the residence of some wealthy merchant or retired banker. The young lace embroiderer paid 50dol. (LlO 8s 4d) a month rent. She sublet the first floor for 20dol. (L 4 3s 4d), and the third floor for 14dol. (L2 18s 4d), making the rent of the second floor, which she occupied with her grandmother and cousin, 16dol. (L 3 6a 8d) a month. The front room, overlooking the elevated railroad, was handsomely—even elegantly—furnished with pictures, carpet, piano, etc. The cousin paid 4dol. (16s 8d) a week board. On this and her wages of 10dol. (L2 Is 8d) a week the lace embroiderer supported herself and grand-mother in comfort and style. . A very comfortable two-story frame house may be rented in Brooklyn for 20dol. (L 4 3s 4d) a month, I called on the family of a carpenter living in such a house. There were double parlors, a bath-room, closets, and other conveniences. The house was nicely furnished, and the family looked intelligent and dressed well. The father, a master-carpenter, earned 900dol. (LlB7 10a) a year. Two daughters in a straw-hat factory earned, the one 400dol. (LB3 6s 8d), the other 312d01. (L 65). A son twenty-two years old was clerk in a wholesale house, and received 2ldol, (L 4 7s fid) a week. The total income of the family of eight was 2,854d01. (L 594 Is 8d) a year. Their expenses fell short of this amount by about 600dol, (L 125), and the father had a snug sum laid by for a “rainy day.” A few days after my oall I was at one o

the Jersey sea-shore resorts. To my surprise, upon entering the parlor of the hotel, there was the hat-maker, daughter of the carpenter, in a white dress, her checks round and rosy. “I am taking my vacation,” she explained. “ I have something to ask you ” —hesitating. “You will not tell how you came to know me ? —not tell that I am a factory girl ? They do not know it here. They think perhaps that I am a school teacher. They would be unpleasant if they knew that I am a factory girl.” She was not at all ashamed of her work, but she knew the snobbishness of the world. I observed her during my stay considerable interest, Several of her friends came up from the city. One, a musician of no mean ability, was the son of a judge; another was a book-keeper; another, a medical student. The hat-maker sang well. Accompanied by the judge’s son, the hotel was treated to an excellent amateur concert.

It is gratifying to be able to report such cases as the lace embroiderer and the carpenter’s family, because they indicate the possibilities of thrift and industry in this country. Such cases can scarce be paralleled in any state in Europe, even among the exceptions. The reader, however, who imagines that any large number of working men live on as comfortable a scale as the two families just described will make a mistake. As far as I have observed, they are the pleasant exceptions to a very unpleasant rule. From the cosy home of the carpenter I called on a tobacco-stripper’s family. Six persons inhabited two fifth-story tenement rooms. The parents both worked in the tobacco factory, earning together 9dol. (LI 17s 6d) a week. They strip the tobacco standing, receivings cents (l£d) a pound for every pound of stems. Two dollars (8s 4d) a week went for rent; on the remaining seven the family of six clothed and fed themselves. Their diet consisted of little else than bread, coffee, and potatoes. There is one branch of labor in which the demand is far in excess of the supply ; that is the branch of domestic service. Any number of women may be seen waiting to be employed in a mill eleven hours a day, on wages of 7dol. (LI 9s 2d) a week, but the applicant for a good house-girl or cook, at the same wages and board, often goes a long time before the demand is supplied. The fact is, few working men’s wives or daughters know how to cook ; and if they did, they would prefer factory life, which, though more laborious and less paying, is yet, in their opinion, a more independent and honorable occupation. , In some cities cooking classes are becoming popular, not because the girls propose making that a business, but that they may be prepared to keep house more satisfactorily and economically. When American women shall have learned how to select nourishing food, and the best way to prepare it, we shall suffer less from dyspepsia, and the standard of living will become cheaper and better.