Sand! Here’s your nice white Sand!
Sand, O! white Sand, O!
Buy Sand for your floor;
For so cleanly it looks
When strew’d at your door.
This sand is brought from the seashore in vessels, principally from Rockaway Beach, Long Island. It is loaded into carts, and carried about the streets of New York, and sold for about 12½ cents per bushel. Almost every little girl or boy knows that it is put on newly scrubbed floors, to preserve them clean and pleasant.
But since people have become rich, and swayed by the vain fashions of the world, by carpeting the floors of their houses, there does not appear to be so much use for Sand as in the days of our worthy ancestors.
Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation was published in Philadelphia by W. Johnson in 1836. Issued nearly a century ago, it is still enshrined in our hearts. Although there were many editions issued in America, few have survived the tooth of time and the voracity of these youthful readers. The Philadelphia edition had perfect pictures properly painted, and it is one of the most charming morsels ever devised “to please the palates of Pretty, Prattling Playfellows.” Two quotations are given in order to bring us all back to the time long ago when Peter Piper meant so much to us.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?