"WESTWARD THE STAR OF EMPIRE TAKES ITS WAY"
"WESTWARD THE STAR OF EMPIRE TAKES ITS WAY" |
The boot-blacking facilities of Sacramento are unsurpassed by those of any
city in the world I should judge. There is a boot-blacking stand in front
of every saloon - which is to say, there are boot-blacking stands all along.
All these prominent localities which, in other cities, are usually sacred
to the peanut interest, are here seized upon and held by the boot-black. These
mute facts tell the stranger that Sacramento, which is now so irreproachably
cleanly, has long and fearful attacks of alternate mud and dust. In further
evidence of this, I remarked that out of the one hundred and eighty-four gentlemen
who lounged about the front of the Orleans Hotel when I came down and asked
for breakfast at ten minutes past 12 o'clock to-day and didn't get any, a
hundred and seventy had their boots blacked. The other fourteen were undergoing
the boot-blacking operation in chairs backed up against the neighboring walls.
Now there was not a particle of dust in the air, and no mud under foot; and
nothing but inveterate habit could have made these people all go and get their
boots blacked with such singular unanimity when there was no real necessity
for it. I never saw a place before where everybody, without exception, had
their boot blacked. Every time I noticed, to-day, that my boots were attracting
attention, I went and got them blacked. And I learned something. I learned
that a Chinaman has no talent for blacking boots, and makes a miserable job
of it. When you desire the services of a real artist, always choose one of
the three naturally gifted species of boot-blacks - a freedman, or a colored
citizen, or a nigger. They understand the business.
