Chocolate City (DC); Package Store; Lawn Tennis

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

CHOCOLATE CITY

     This is not in the RHHDAS.
     Mike Ellis's new SLANGUAGE, pg. 131, has only "WASHINGTON, DC _Nickname_
District of Crack," and pg. 133, "_DC_ what people call the city (District of
Crack, after the infamous episode involving the mayor)."
     Jim Crotty's HOW TO TALK AMERICAN, pg. 387, has "_the Chocolate City and
her Vanilla Suburbs_: George Clinton's telling description of Washington,
D.C. (80% African (Pg. 391--ed.) American), and the surrounding Maryland and
Virginia towns that supply most of the federal work force and are
overwhelmingly white."
     From the WASHINGTON POST, "DC: A Tapestry" by Colbert I. King, 2
September 2000, pg. A25, col. 1:

     This week's front-page story "More Whites Are Making D.C. Home" was an
eye-catcher. (...) And in a piece of dubious history, it stated that the
District is a "place long known as the Chocolate City because of its African
American majority."  "Long?"
     There are tons of folks in my generation who remember a District in
which white people were the clear majority.
     Yes, beloved, over half a million white folks lived in the city as
recently as 1950; roughly 65 percent of the population.  That changed sharply
over the next two decades.  But the truth is, the city has only had a black
majority for about 40 years--and the numbers have been declining for the past
10 years.

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LA-LA LAND; TINSEL TOWN

    I previously posted a "Tinsel Town" here.  "La La Land" is in the RHHDAS,
but I could probably get a 1970s cite instead of 1980s.  Not this holiday
weekend, though.

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PACKAGE STORE

     This is from the LITERARY DIGEST, 30 May 1891, pg. 137, col. 3:

_THE LIQUOR ISSUE._
_THE ORIGINAL-PACKAGE LAW SUSTAINED._
     _Mail and Express, New York, May 26._--When the measure known as the
"Original Package Bill" was before Congress Judge Edmunds upheld the
constitutionality of the proposed act, and Judge Reagan denied it.  It was
passed by both Senate and House in its final shape as follows:

     That all fermented, distilled or other intoxicating liquors of liquids
transported into any State or Territory or remaining therein for use,
consumption, sale, or storage therein shall, upon arrival in such State or
Territory, be subject to the operation and effect ofthe laws of such State or
Territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers, in the same extent
and in the same manner as though such liquors or liquids had been produced in
such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being
introduced therein in original packages of otherwise.

     The law went into effect August 8, 1890.  THe next day one CHarles A.
Rahrer, of Topeka, Kan., was arrested by the Sheriff for selling in the
original package liquor imported into the State from Missouri.  He claimed
(Pg. 138, col. 1--ed.) that the law was unconstitutional.  Beaten in the
CIrcuit Court he carried up the case.  THe points made by Rahrer's counsel
were that this law delegates to the States a power that belongs to Congress
alone; and that, even if this power be upheld, it was necessary, after the
enactment of the law by Congress, for the State to re-enact its prohibitory
legislation.
     The Court holds that it was simply the absence of a national law on the
subject that rendered the prohibitory law invalid as against original
packages under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution:

     The law of Congress did not use terms of permission to the State to act,
but simply removed an impediment to the enforcement of the State laws in
respect to imported packages in their original condition, created by the
absence of a specific utterance on its part.  It imparted no power to the
State not then possessed, but allowed imported property to fall at once upon
arrival within the local jurisdiction.  No adequate ground is perceived for
holding that a re-enactment of the State law was required before it could
have the effect upon imported which it had always had upon domestic property.
 Jurisdiction attached, not in virtue of the laws of Congress, but because
that law placed the property where the jurisdiction could attach.

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LAWN TENNIS

    Greetings from New York, home of the U.S. Open.
    The OED has an 1874 citation for "lawn tennis," but does not cite the
"little book" by Major Winfield.
     From TEXAS SIFTINGS, 12 September 1885, pg. 6, col. 2:

     _The Originators of Lawn Tennis._
     How few lawn tennis players know who originated the game and where the
first game was played!  This excellent pastime has now been in existence for
ten years, and it has probably been a greater source of amusement than
anything of the kind ever invented.  The originator and inventor was Major
Walter Winfield, of her majesty's body guard, who, in 1874, wrote a little
book, compiled a set of rules, and coined the outlandish name "Sphairis
tike."  The first game every played was in 1874 at Colonel Naylor Leyland's
house in Denhighshire.  The first public game ever played in this country was
at Prince's ground, in the summer of 1875, the players being Major Winfield,
Mr. Clement Scott, Capt. Alfred Thompson, and Mr. Albany Erskine.  It was
openly jeered at by a crowd of racket and cricket celebraties (sic), who did
their utmost to ridicule the game in every way.  But in less than one month
two courts were taken at Prince's for every hour in the day, and the racket
players and crickets had to "slug (illegible--ed.) small."--_London Truth_.