Hootchy-Kootchy; Wiener Wurst; Slumming; Mensh (?); Monkeys

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HOOTCHY-KOOTCHY

     The RHHDAS has "hootchy-kootchy" from 1890.  Some guy named Gerald Cohen
did a study of it.
     From the NEW YORK DISPATCH, 9 November 1884, pg. 4, col. 5:

     The Chicago News says that Mme. Theo is "very _chic_, very _todt_ and
_tres-ha-ha_."  We admit all these, but in justice to the famed actress it
should have added, what perhaps everybody knows, that she is also very
_nifte_, very _bonhomie_ and _hoochycoochie-yi-yi_.

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WIENER WURST

     July is National Hot Dog Month.  The National Hot Dog and Sausage
Council has a new spokesperson (where is Janet Riley?), but it still spouts
the same old line that "hot dog" was coined by Tad Dorgan in the early 1900s.
     From the NEW YORK DISPATCH, 1 November 1885, pg. 7, col. 3:

     _CHICAGO FREE LUNCH._
_CHEAP SPREADS WHICH ARE SET OUT IN SALOONS._
(From the Chicago News.)
     "Do you ever serve dog for lunch?"
     "Me?  Who said I did?  Was it dot Dootchman on der gorner?" was the
counter-query of a West Madison street saloon-keeper.  "Yes, I dot vos him
guess.  He says allus such dings of mine blace.  But you yoost vait; I'll
dell you vere he gets his cats' meat for lunch and his horse sausage."
     "Well, tell us about it, then."
     But the saloon-keeper did not feel like betraying trade secrets when the
question was put to him thus plumply.  He contented himself with the general
statement that there was a good deal of cats' and horses' flesh used up for
stew and sausage in this city, mostly to be dished up for lunch in saloons.
He said there were several dealers who made a specialty and a good deal of
money out of cats and horses, once they are dead.  An Italian is a basement
on South Clark street, he said, supplied raw meat of this sort, cut into
cutlets, chops and roasts, for his countrymen, and sausage out of cat meat in
exact imitation of salami, which consists mostly of donkey, and which found a
ready sale.
     "Did you ever use such goods on your customers?"
     "Vy, no," he said, indignantly; "my gustomers von't shtand it, but dot
fellow acrost de stritt, he do."
     In answer to further questions, the informant said that, as far as he
knew, no dogs were cut up for lunch in the saloons, although he has heard it
said occasionally.  Mostly, he declared, they used pickled pigs' feet,
schwartemagen (a tough kind of sausage, in shape about like a saddle-bag),
calve's-foot jelly, wiener wurst (meaning Vienna sausage--a misnomer), cheese
of various kinds, stews, together with lettuce, horse radish, pickles,
onions, and other "fruit" in their season.  (...)

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SLUMMING

     From the NEW YORK DISPATCH, 18 January 1885, pg. 1, col. 2:

     _SCOURING THE SLUMS._
Society's New Amusement--Imported Direct from Dear Old London.
THE PEEP SHOW OF VICE.
Aristocratic Callers at Dives and Opium Joints.
THE SPORTING SWELL.
(Continued on Col. 3--ed.)
     "This is the latest and dizziest society racket I know of.  They call it
'slumming,' because it is visiting the slums, and I never have less than
three parties a week.  It pays me, but I tell you it's tiresome.  They will
try and dress so as to let every one know they're the howlingest kind of
swells, and the consequences is everybody fights shy of making a show before
them.  I advise them always to dress plain and put on no airs, but I guess
they can't help it.  They were born so."
(Continued on Col. 4--ed.)
     "Slumming," by the way, is of English origin, as might be inferred from
the popularity with our best society.   It came into vogue in London a couple
of Winters ago, and the fashion reached here in due course.  The proper way
to go "slumming" is to make up a party, go to dinner and the theatre, then
meet a detective by previous arrangement, make the rounds, and go to bed when
all the other places are locked up.  It is also proper to put something in
the detective's hand when you say "good morning."  Twenty dollars is the
usual sum, but even fifty is not despised by him.

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MENSH (?)

     From the NEW YORK DISPATCH, 17 January 1886, pg. 5, col. 4:

     _He Called Her a "Mensh."_
AND SHE BROKE HIS HEAD AND A PITCHER.
     Catherine Zanner, of No. 476 Ninth Avenue, was discharged with breaking
a pitcher over Gustave Stern's head.  Gus said he was going up to dinner, and
she was coming down stairs.  She asked him why he didn't close the front door
after him.  He said she could close it herself.  She then hit him with a
pitcher on the head.
     Catherine said they met at the foot of the stairs and she requested him
to shut the door when he came in.  He turned on her and called her a _mensh_
(prostitute) and other bad names.  She replied to the insult, and he followed
her and was about to strike her, and she put her arm up and "his head struck
the pitcher."
     Robert Deale, residing on the first floor, said: Coming up from the
basement he found the two quarreling in the hall.  He called the woman a w--.
 He then saw Stern raise his hand to strike her, and she got in the pitcher.
He had hard work to separate them.
     Discharged.

     Mensh?  Mensch?  Wench?

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BARREL OF MONKEYS

     What could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys?
     Perhaps it was inspired by a famous counting rhyme?  This wonderful
article is from the NEW YORK DISPATCH, 4 October 1885, pg. 2, col. 6:

_"COUNTING-OUT" RHYMES._
SOME OF THE THINGS WE KNEW WHEN LITTLE BOYS.
     H. Carrington Bolton, of Trinity College, contributes to the Boston
_Journal of Education_ the following specimens of "counting-out" rhymes
collected by him from children and by correspondence.
(...)
(The collection is quite incomplete.  What Western forty year old boy or girl
does not recognize the following:

     Intry, mintry, cutry corn.
     Apple seed and apple thorn,
Weir, brier, limber, lock, three geese in one flock,
     One flew East and one flew West,
     And one flew over the cuckoo's nest,
     One, two, three, out goes he.

     Dickery, dickery dock,
     The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one, the mouse ran down,
     Dickery, dickery dock.

     Monkey, monkey, barrel of beer,
     How many monkeys are there here?
     One, two, three, out goes he.

     The favorite in Milwaukee at the present time seems to be: "Eny, meny,
miny, mo, catch a nigger by the toe; if he hollers, let him go--eny, meny,
miny mo."  Doubtless the list could be indefinitely extended.--PECK'S SUN
MAN.)