But, as Charles Johnson pointed out, this was a new experience to most of them, and not necessarily a pleasant one.
However, there was one drawback; meals were taken at the several boarding houses in the city, and as these were substantially all run by Germans, Belleville being largely populated with people of that nationality, the taste and fumes of garlic seemed to permeate every article of food on the table. It was, of course, in all the meats, in many of the vegetables; but every man would have taken oath that it was in the bread and butter, if indeed, not in the coffee and sugar as well.
