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MAKING TOYS FOR KIDDIES, OLD MEN, STAVE

OFF POOR FARM AND END DAYS AMID

CHILDISH SPATS (

The Old Men of the Toy Shop Making Animal Toys for Children.

BY B. J. O'DONNELL

New York, Xiec. 19. Come with

me for a Christmas visit to the Old

Men's Toy Shop down on Mott street

and 111 show you the close relation

ship that exists between the First,!

and i Seventh age of Man.!

Here, in an oldNbuilding where the

children of the lower east side once

were instructed in the three R's,

more than 40 men past the prescribed

three score years and ten are mak

ing Christmas toys so they won't

Have to go to the por farm.

. The Old Men's Toy Shop is a port

..i which rtiany human vessels, bat

tered and torn on life's voyage, are

seeking refuge from bitter winter

winds. Here the world's oddest

Christmas toys are being made.

The old men of the toy shop are

a Btrange crowd. Too old to do a

man's work, too proud to solicit char

ity, ambitious unto the end, they

come to pasB the evening of their

lives making playthings for children.

They earn 60 cents a day.

There's "The Captain," whd for 40

years piloted ships from the seven

seas into the New York harbor. The

taptaih is 75 now.

Next to- him sits "Brownie," who

boasts of a romantic past before the

footlights. Of course, he will tell you,

he was not a star, but well he re

members the days and nights when

he was one of the jury in "The Le

gend, of . Leonora," when Maude

.Adams-played the lead.

"I shook hands with Miss Adams

one night!" Brownie will tell you,

proudly, as he paints sppts on the

wooden leopards that are passed to

him by "The Professor."

"The Professor" is a book worm.

And because he- is and always has

been a book-worm, the professor is

one of the old men of the toy shop.

When he was younger and able to do

a full day's work in the little book