, 1872-10-14
interior View OF Houses Where "Board-
ing by the Day or Week.
Is Obtained.
Effect Of the Great Fire Upon
Cheap Boarding and Lodg.
ing Places.
How the Keepers Balance
Their Profit and Loss
Account.

extremity, and clay at the other: or, to reduce
this to simpler form. fashionable people live
at one end, and questionable ones at the
other. To walk along one of these streets is to
run over the whole social scale, aud to pass, by
transitions sometimes abrupt, sometimes
gradual, from wealth to comfort, and from COM
fort to poverty. To mansions with marble
fronts succeed roomy, pleasant frame build
ings, standing back from the footway,
shaded with trees, and with lawns
whose only vegetation is croquet
hoops and esakes. These give place to cottages,
all varying in style, and whose tiny front yards
have flowers and almost invariably a bit OF rock
work, the result Of the yearning of the soul
after some change from the monotony Of
Chicago scenery. Then the sidewalk becomes
more uneven; now and then there are rickety
steps to be ascended or descended; tile houses,
diminishing in size sometimes face the street,
sometimes stand at an angle to it; the yards
have neither croquet hoops nor rockwork; If
there are flowers, they are apt to be sun-
flowers; what ground there is to spare is 81 ven
up to cabbages; the drying clothes, elsewhere
baaished to the backyard. are here Haunted
in front; the washtub is an honored article Of
furniture, often displayed on the doorsteps.
There are pools OF water in the cutters, aud
geese dispute the road with q passer-by. On
summer Sundays men ait On the steps, or lean
against the fence in their shirt sleeves, and
ssmoke. Through the open doors, one can see
clean sitting rooms, and the women Of the house
In their best attire. During weekdays, unless
there is strike, the men are invisible, but
the women appear in the front yards and discuss
the affairs Of the neighborhood in voices pitched
30 high that one begins to hear the dialogue be-
fore The takers are fairly in sight, At the other
end of the street, summer is spent in darkened
rooms. Here it iH passed in the open air. The
feeding and the correction Of children; the
preparation Of the daily meal and it's consump-
ton, ere all open to the eye. Further on, the
ihouses grow rarer. There are breaks in the
sidewalk, badly supplied by an occasional board;
The occasional dwellings sometimes stand
in front, show signs Of life only in the rear.
Their Inhabitants are the advance guard Of the
grand ar7uy of 1aborers and mechanics who have
Eaken possession Of this end Of the street, and
who live comfortably, though sometimes q little
roughly, under their own roof-trees. There are
entire neighborhoods where none live who do
not earn their bread BY the toll OF their hands,
corners Of the streets. Hera live the majority
Of the workingmen Of the city,
those who, have families. Their
houses and the lives Of the
inhabitantB are open to inspection, but there are
others, whose numbers have increased since the
fire, who either are unmarried, or who have left
their families in other places, and have come
here for the harvest-time Of high wages. For
them there is no domestic felicity. No crying
children come their knees to SHARE No wife,
with the frankness characteristic Of such, ex-
presses her views on the iniquity of beer-drink-
ing. No landlord, armed with writ, demands
rent or distrain.. They are driven to the ten
der mercies OF q clearinghouse for food and
Nothing is ever said concerning the boarding
houses Of the poor. There is no limit to, the
sober tests concerning those of more aristo-
T1Yof
has not three items on the subject in its column
Of swift and Humor;" that is an uneventful
week which does not have scandal in fashion
able South Side boarding house. The only refer
ence ever made to those Of the baser sort, is in
the novel, whose heroine, stripped by q forged
will, Or 3 designing villain, Of the opulence to
which abe is entitled, takes to ,Rewilg,
and tolerates ezatenff n.h5a IL tnrd0ass
her rent and turned out to etarve, her trunk held
to cover her debts, she happily meets the blonde
young man who stops her as she is hurrying to
the river WHICH is crossed by the Bridge Of sighs
The rest of the story is known This class Of
dwellings has not been gently dealt with by
the noTelists. It is the popular impression that
the coffee there is always muddy, and that the
forks are never OF silver. There are persons
who have gone as far as Western avenue, that
remote precinct, where the SUI sets, and the
West Side street car horses are stabbed: and who,
while waiting at noon for return car, have seen
the conductors take from tin pals hunks Of
60p9
and wedges Of pie slowed away in
higgledy- -piggledy fashion in tin pals, and have
formed unfayorable Impressions of the houses
where these gentlemen boarded. Occasionally,
rs We are roaming along the streets, there
comes eteatning up from some basement, luke
warm smell, with q certainty Of onion, and
nearly q certainty OF bad lard about it, and We
shudder aud hurry on: knowing it is boarding.
house.
Houses, like men, have their fates, and not
unfrequently degenerate from high beginnings
AS straight-out Democrats are left high and dry
By an onward current OF events which they are
houses, once in the vicinity Of fashionable dis
tricts, find their surroundings changed by the
advance Of buslneaR, and unwilling to become re-
spectacle stores,-useful members OF society,"
turn into boarding houses. They grow dingy;
q blind which falls off is never replaced if re-
painted, it is always yellow or brown !; and, as
It their appearance did not sufficiently indicate
nt n s eTsa g garne aGssf 9t p i s sqs pay tin On
Week" The person who Keeps one Of these
establishments, It woman, is called the board
ing-mistress; abe calls the boarders her men,
and not her gentlemen her idea Ct heaven is
world, the flesh, and the DEVIL which the
catechism bids us .renounce, are her
an expensive BUTCHER sa +.h5s and
which has generally rough profuaion Of meats,
is NOT infrequent1y without napkins. But, since
men must wipe their mouths, the edges Of the
cloth occasionally come to bear greasy stains.
Often there are no casters, but vinegar cruets
and pepper boxes supply their place. The prac-
tice OF changing plates between courses is not
- customary It takes time and crockery, and the
boarder is OF the opinion that bit Of bread
cleans plate as etectually as arinsing in greasy
7s no talking during meals, but much use Of the
knife and fork, especially Of the former.
The opening Of one Of those second-rete
boarding houses in neighborhood is inevitably
followed by that Of others, and yet others,
until the whole territory is given up to them.
As the first vulture which descends upon it's
prey is followed by scores; as the miner who
first strikes some productive .gulch has! it to
himself but q few days, go the first sign Of
ner Of dozen others. Thus they occupy GER
tain portions of Kinzie street, of Washington
and Ha1sted, for instance the houses are so alike
IN color; in signs and in dlapdaton that it is al
most as perplexing for q tipsy boarder to
find his own dwelling at night, as for q beTllder"
ed man to return to his berth in sleeping car.
Notwithstanding this tendency to concentration,
the boarding mistress is essentially an unsocial