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The oddest corkscrew is the left- handed one. The first one was made for a left-handed
barkeeper, and it suited so well that the Newark firm now keeps them constantly in
stock. Another Newark firm made 300,000 pocket corkscrews a year. The question
naturally arises what is done with them all? Lots of them are broken, of course, and all
saloons keep dozens of them on hand. Large restaurants like Delmonico's, the
Brunswick and the St. James, buy corkscrews direct from Newark, and get them by the
hundreds at a time. It is no unusual thing for the big hardware houses in New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cincinnati, and the big Western cities to buy
10,000 corkscrews at a time. If the corkscrew is any sign of the prevalence of
intemperance, and of the drinking habit in general, then prohibitionists have good
cause to be disheartened. If one firm finds a market for 150,000,000 a year, how many
bottles do they uncork? Certainly one corkscrew will open at least a dozen bottles
before its usefulness is ended. If that be true, then the Newark firm referred to
furnished material for the opening of 1,800,000 bottles.