The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-04-07
From az Mel0 York IEmes.

| AAhuB oA GOLbAS
POpuIatIon---The Effect Upon So
From the Nel0 York Times.
There has been within the last yeal
or two an enormous increase in the
number of eating saloons in New York
and a corresponding increase in the
number of people who live, or rather
| who eat, in these saloons. As recently
as 1850, one might count on his fingers
all the dining saloons there were III the
city. The few we had were located be
low Canalstreet-one or two in Broad-
way, two orgthree in the Bowery, and
Chatham street, and the others in yari-
Gus localities below the City Hall Park,
They were chiefly OF the cheap and
rHpfd order--the "siNpenny platet
style: and nine-tenths of all who ate at
these, as well as at the more expensive
ones, nerGly did so at the dinner hour,
finding it more convenient to take a
hasty meal or lunch at midday at these
places than to go up town for the pur-
pose 10 their homes or boarding houses.
Those who "lived" ut them wholly
We're limited to few hundreds.
Ayear or two after the date of which
we are writing, the city dining saloons
began to oincrease greatly in numbers
and improve largely in quality. a They
began to- appear ''up town.. that is,
above Canal street, and all over town.
Many people began totnketh break
fasts as well as their dinners; their sup
pers as we'll as their subsequent
"lager," in them, (for we may note the
fact in passing that the great develops
mentor the eating-saloon life of which
we are speaking was cotemporaneous
with the introduction, an has kept
pace with the growth, of the. use ofgthe
great Teutonie beverage.) The bache-
lor popu1ation-an uncommonly large
element in New York-which, used in
other times. 10. swarm in boarding.
houses, began, to adopt the system OF
renting rooms, a room, or a part of U
room, and obtaining their viet1als reg
ularly-or irregular1y, as the case
might beat these eating saloons. By
1850 there were at least ten times as
many of these places as there were in
1850, while we imagine the regular
hG 6itueS were forty times as numerous.
We think it safe to say that within
the last five Years the dining saloons OF
the city have again doubled, and their
patrons quadrupled. On Broadway,
between Twentieth street and the Bat
terry, there are short of a hundred res
tatirarts-from those where a plainfEet
without t.accompaniments costsa dollar,
and decent dinner without Wine live,
to those where "ruasta beef and pota-
toes" with desert and cetera, can be
one!of them that is not crowded to re-
pletion at the regular "feeding" hours,
and for every new one that is opened
there seems to- be hundreds of patrons
waiting, Along Chatham street and
the Bowery, too, are a score of dining
saloons, in which for hours, thrice every
day, every seat is filled and where the
clItter Of knives and plates, the shouts
orwafters, and the tumultuous rush to
and fro of people, make upa tout e1se1n-
BILE more exciting than lovely. i: is no
better, and quiteas bad, in the two score
restaurants south of the City Hall
though in most of the latter the "great
rusho is only at midday, aud there
abouts.
We but guess in making the estimate
but we Imagine it is an estimate that
will not be Thought too large by those
familiar with the restaurant life of New
York in all its varied phaseS-when we
say that not much short Of two hun
Cired Thousand people tntnety-tveN per
cent. of them the male sex) eat daily in
our City dining salOOns-one hundred
thousand (say) taking one meal per
diem in these Gregarious resorts, and
one hundred thousand living lin this
sensel in them entirely. Those who do
not know much of the subject,would be
astonished mt what they would learn in
this matter were they to make a sys-
tematic Investigation OF il.
The growth of the eattng-saloon
life does not seem to have reached its
maximum, but is increasing at this
time more rapidly than ever. The high
prices of rents and of board are driving
almost everybody to it, except those
who are restrained by family necessi-
ties. Young men and bachelors espe-
cially appear to be taking to it en- ndSse;
and we think that in no city In the
world do these classes equal the proper
tion to the entire population that they
do in New York.
What will be the effect of all this upon
society, upon manners and morals, re-
mains TO be seen. We do not agree
with IL veteran restaurant haunter. who
averred that all who lived in this way
either were "infidels" or became final
ly infidels, but if the ultimate philoso-
ply involved in the observation were
considered, it would probably be found,
on examination, that it had a,certain
basis.nW = i Z -''L IL. "a t5 ~
,SuCoEssFUL EDrToRs.-An English