2G2 



THE AMKIil' AN BKi:- KKKPI-Jl 



September 



DRUGS BEHIND THE BAR. 



Mixed With Otlier Stimulants and Served 

 to the Customers. 



Nowadays the bar iu cities has lieenme, 

 with regard to its stock aud the character 

 of its concoctions, almost as complicated as 

 a drug store. As a matter of fac:t, most 

 of the bars about New York have in away 

 gone into tlie drug and prescription busi- 

 ness. Bel.ind Iheir mahogany counters 

 and lined up in front of the French plate 

 aud ranged upon their shelves are to be 

 feeu a hundred different liquors and cor- 

 •Jials aud d'ugs. Jars aud bottles aud 

 ^jroniides and bitters and powerful drugs 

 of various descriptions decollate the side- 

 boards. All of these enter into the daily 

 consumption of those who more aiid more 

 often seek the saloon rather than tlie drug 

 store for their medicinal remedies. The 

 prescription business of the fashionable 

 bar is a very big and growing liusiness. 

 Men with Iieadachea, stomach aches, colds, 

 coughs, consumption, that tired feeling, 

 loss of appetite, lassitude, etc., i-ely upon 

 the bartender rather than upon the doctor 

 or drug clerk. The implicit conlidence is 

 often amusing to the bartender hiint-elf, as 

 well as to thosti who are drinking for the 

 fun of it. Anybody who has ever pati-on- 

 ized a bar for beverages must have seen 

 aud heard the men who approacli it for 

 their medicine. 



"I feel miserable right here, " i^lacing 

 his hand on hJs stomach, perhaps. "What 

 ought I to drink?" 



"Oh, I"ll fix you up," says the bartend- 

 er, grabbing a small bottle in the rear. 

 He pours a little into a gla^s; then he 

 grabs anotlier bottle and pours something 

 else on top of it, and squirts in a jet of 

 bitters and a .iet of absinthe, and stirs 

 them up in a glass of ice and strains the 

 concoction off into a cocktail glass. 



Meanwhile the customer pays little or 

 no attention to this, but promptly swallows 

 it when it is ready. He doesn't know 

 what it is or whether it is injtn-ious or 

 beneficial to him. But the powerful stim- 

 ulating quality of the mixture probai)ly 

 "sets him up" in a few minutes. In the 

 middle of his conversation he is conscious 

 of this, and when the next round is or- 

 dered ho promptly says he will take an- 

 other of the same sort. 



"That stuff seems to make me come 

 around all right," he remarks. "What do 

 you call it?" 



"Oh, I don't know," responds the bar- 

 tender, with a smile. "It's a 'pick me up' 

 we're on to." And he straightway pre- 

 pares another. He knows it is not a bev- 

 erage, but his customer asks for it and the 

 responsibility is at once shifted. He will 

 mix half a dozen of them and see them ab- 



sorlied witn that calm inuirterence wnicn 

 is the ha])it of his protcssion — it is t'"^ 

 other felliiw's stomach and brain aud ner . - 

 ous organization. — Pittsburg Dispatch. 



Charms, Ancient and 3Iodern. 



A belief in charms must be reckoiaed 

 among those strange things that belong to 

 the mystic border land vviiere the finite and 

 infinite meet, savs the writer of a clever 

 article in The Minster. 



From time immevnorial charms and 

 aniukas have lieen sought by all nations, 

 and while the rich have set their beliefs on 

 gold and jewels the poor have contented 

 themselves with coarser mediums. If you 

 cannot have a turquoise to give yoti good 

 health you n)ay at least avoid courting ill- 

 ness by dipjjing a courtesy to the new 

 moon. No doubt the health thus secured 

 will scarcely be of the double distilled tur- 

 quoise kind, but it will serve your pur- 

 pose. 



It has become the habit to make useless 

 little appendages of gold, coral, jewels, etc., 

 and to call tliem clir.rms. The fashion 

 dates from the Rue Eivoli, like many oth- 

 er flippant imitations. It is absurd to 

 suppose that chavms can be created by the 

 gross, aud it is sheer want of reverence to 

 expect to purchase them for 25 centimes 

 each. 



"All kinds of magic are out of date and 

 done away vrith except iu India," writes 

 Rudyard KipliufT, "where nothing changes 

 in spite of the shiny, top scum stuff people 

 call civilization." 



An Indian silver amulet, "unnunt, " is 

 worn by women to secure the accomplish- 

 ment of their wishes. This is not the first 

 time that we have heard of feminine 

 charms insuring that effect. 



irreverent. 



"What do you know about gold and sil- 

 ver?" asked tlie aged farmer of the irrev- 

 erent youth. "You are too young to un- 

 derstand auything about the coinage ques- 

 tion." 



"Oh, of course," jeered the youth, "I 

 guess I am t<io young to be a safe man to 

 sell a gold b" ick to." 



The allusion was painfully personal. — 

 Indianapolis .Joiirnal. 



We are apt to be kinder to the brutes 

 that love us than to the women that love 

 us. Is it because the brutes are dumb? — 

 George Eliot. 



A Safe Rule. 



When an IS-year-oid girl says her moth- 

 er won't let her accent an invitation to a 

 party, it is certain that the wrong person 

 has asked her to go. — Atchison Globe. 



