Smoke-Chewer & Once a Fireman (1884)

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Calipers" is good.

JL

Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
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Subject: Smoke-Chewer & Once a Fireman (1884)
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"NINE YARDS" CORRESPONDENCE
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As I recall the fifty-calipers in the P-51 were each equipped with nine
yards of belted ammo.

Mo Baker
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SCOTSMAN
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Yes, I subscribe for free to the Scotsman. I e-mail the publication about
the "nine yards" kilt story...Somehow, they now send me daily e-mails like
Newspaperarchive.
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ONCE A FIREMAN, ALWAYS A FIREMAN
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16 August 1884, The Fireman's Journal, pg. 131, col. 2:
Mr. Tarbell, who at present is a Custom House official at Boston, was, in
his younger days, one of the "b'hoys" you read about, and in him the maxim
"Once a fireman always a firemen" (sic) in heart if nothing more, is most
truthfully exemplified. He was a member of Frank Whitney's famous crowd that made
notorious old "Hero No. 6" the terror of "Nigger Hill."
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SMOKE-CHEWER
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25 October 1884, The Fireman's Journal, pg. 337, col. 1:
In the afternoon a game of baseball was played by a nine from the Easton
Fire Department and the New York Fire Department nine, which was part of the
visiting New Yorkers. The game resulted in victory for the New York "smoke
chewers" by a score of twenty to five.
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MISC.:
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This is much before my first "smoke eater."
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I didn't see "fire buff" in the three 1800s fire department books that I
went through. I also didn't see it in the Nineteenth Century Masterfile (NY
Times & NY Tribune), or in the handwritten index the NYPL has. I'll try to visit
the Fire Department Museum on Spring Street on Wednesday (tomorrow). I'll ask
where the Brentano fire collection now is; "buff" is surely there somewhere.
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THE FIREMAN'S JOURNAL in a national publication from New York. I didn't see
"buff," but the six microfilms was just too much for my tiny sliver of spare
time.
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I also looked through the Brooklyn Eagle for "Once a Dodger," without
success.

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