Dining in Chicago

eing the one most generally accepted. This concerns an American innkeeper of the nineteenth century who was proud of his daughter and of his big prize-fighting rooster. One day the bird disappeared. He offered his daughter in marriage to the man who would find it. A young cavalry officer brought it back. The innkeeper was highly pleased. He brought out the materials for drinks.

"His daughter," continues Robert, "either by accident or from excitement at the sight of her future husband, mixed whiskey, vermouth, bitters and ice together. Everybody liked this delicious concoction so much that it was christened 'cocktail* right on the spot." Robert goes on to tell how the cavalry officer told his fellow officers about it and soon the whole American army took it up.

That the cocktail was known over a century ago in the United States, and that it was used at that time as a vote getter, is shown in the following quotation which Robert takes from The Balance, an American magazine, under date of May 13, 1