Peculiar Possessions and Collections

1900

Many people make collections of articles more or less interesting, but possibly few go in for such bulky objects as those chosen by a gentleman of Pontefract, in the north of England. Old doors are the object of his desire and he has a most curious collection. His doors come from old houses, castles and abbeys that have some historical interest. Household Words is responsible for the statement that not long ago he offered as much as five thousand dollars for a door through which, during the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Danton and Robespierre passed to the guillotine.

Not quite as interesting in a general sense, but in all probability of quite as much interest to the collector, was a curious collection of corks owned by a Frenchman who died a few years ago at Paris. A fairly good history of his life was to be read on these corks, for he saved every one drawn for the delectation of himself or his friends, and on each he inscribed the date and particular occasion upon which the bottle was opened.

Probably nobody of to-day has a strong desire to bring together a great variety of teas and snuffs. Lord Petersham, however, a noted dandy in his day, had a hobby for collecting various kinds of tea and snuff. All round his sitting-room were shelves, on the one side laden with canisters of Souchong, Bohea, Congou, Pekoe, Russian and other teas, and on the other bearing handsome jars containing every kind of snuff the collector could lay his hands on.

Queen Margherita of Italy is the owner of a curious collection, one that has in it the interest of association. It comprises the foot- and head-gear of royal and imperial personages of different periods. It is said to embrace a sandal worn by the tyrant Nero, a pair of white slippers which belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, shoes worn by Queen Anne and the Empress Josephine, and gloves that were once the property of Marie Antoinette. — Youth's Companion.

Old American Bottles

1902

In early American glassware the history of our national art progress has been written. Choice and precious indeed are the crude blue-green and brown amber bottles made early in the nineteenth century — the portrait bottles bearing busts of Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, De Witt Clinton, Zachary Taylor, Kossuth and Jenny Lind.

Local decorative subjects on many lines of idea were treated by the first American bottle-makers; and the most exquisite Venetian bottle cannot outrank in value, to a patriotic American collector, the primitive old flasks ornamented with Indians, Masonic emblems, the eagle, stars, flags, log cabins, cannon and steamships, or such outdoor themes as the seasons, birds, fruits, trees, sheaves of wheat, the fisherman, deer, the gunner and his hounds, and the first bicycle. The earliest American railway, with a car drawn by a horse, is historically celebrated on a glass flask, as well as the bold Pike's Peak pilgrim, with his staff and bundle. — The Century.


Frog Farming

After laughing at the French people for their frog-eating proclivity, the United States is doing very well in that line, for the Food Commission estimates that we catch in this country about 2,000,000 frogs.

These frogs, which have been hopping for years more and more into gastronomic favor, are sought for in all parts of the country, furnishing a paying industry, not only for the hunters of them in their natural haunts, but for scores of persons who have frog farms and raise them as they might raise chickens. To these persons the frogs mean an annual investment of $100,000, according to the report of the commission, and that means $150,000 to the consumers.