Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-12-11
NEW YORK LETTER.


NEW YORK LETTER.
Special Correspondence of the HraAIu.
Beng of philosophical turn of
mind, il has occurred To me to search
into the very unsatisfactory results
arising from that coDglomeration Of
boarding houses usually called New
York. These few words therefore
are especially devoted TO an investi
CATION of the character aud aims Of
our
BOARDING HOUSE KEEPERS.
The fact which stands forth most
prominently, is that before settling
down to this last and peculiar avoca.
ton, they had been failures in every
thing else. In other words, board
ing house keeping is the last resort
of incompetency. Every boarding
house keeper / know, had BEEN some.
thing else and had failed Broken
down dress makers, shopkeepers, lit
erary characters, society ladies', spir-
ituai mediums and widows are only
some of them. Then there are bro
ken down wives whose husbands are
dead failures and who in this last
throw OF the die. content themselves
with alternately eating and sleeping,
or contrawise are perpetually in
in mischief, undoing everything that
their better halves can do in the way
of getting along l once knew a
broken down DOCTOR whose chief
amusement was to bake gingercakes.
After having made them as small
sized as possible be seated himself
at the head OF the table and kept
guard over the plate, les, any board
er might get more than one of them.
Everything else in proportion. His
poor little wife looked on trembling
ly, and concluding Of course that he
must be in the right, initiated his ex,
ample at the other end. Bat IN gen.
eral, boarding house keepers become
transformed into veritable
IsHMAELITEs.
Their hand IL against everybody,
and everybody's hand is against
them. They are in as continual q state
of warfare and alarm 90 a trapper OF
the frontier ana their countenances
are stamped with the characters
thereof. OF course, however ii is OBJ
ligatory on them to be smiling they
understand that they must be pleas.
ant and this is how they accomplish
it. Some smile ferociously, others
feebly, others mechanically, others
idiotically. others spitefully They
all smile hypocritically. If you ask
me why that eternal smile. l answer
because the beams from their counte
nances fail perpetually on new
boarders" If you ask me why on
new boarders, l answer because that
new boarder takes the place of an
old one who has just gone. If You
ask why the old one has not kept in
preference to having the new one
come in, you ask me q question |
have frequently asked myself and
which have never been able to an
-wer. But going back to that board
ing house keepers smile, l ask you in
turn, could you smile in any other
way than ierociously, ieebly, mechan
ically, idiotically, spltefully or hypo
critically when you knew that your
best paying boarder and that the
one who professed the most friend
ship to you was doing all sorts OF
things to your furniture and to your
carpets, tampering with your servant
girls, telling the other boardeIs all
so'ts of things behind your back, and
burning your jets OF gas till mid
night | certainly could not smile
in any but horrld kind of a
way under the cir umstances; heith.
er my good friend do / believe that
you could. So after all there is some.
thing to be said for these wretched,
incompetent. unprlncipled, poverty
stricken creatures. They are indeed
fshmaeiites-their hand against every
man and every mans hand against
them. Perhaps then it might seem
that their common misfortunes might
bind them in bonds of
FRATERNITY
ore with another. Now indeed you
have made the greatest mistake OF
all. Badly as they hate their board
ers, their servant girls, their land
lords, they hats each other more.
The generality begin the day by
looking out Of their basement win.
.dows to see if any of the boarders
opposite are "golng )" they keep a
lookout till ten O'Clock at night in or
der to note anything untoward which
may be happening to any of their
comrades on either side OF the street,
and for such purpose they are to be
seen continually stretching their
neoks in every direction. Yet in the
morning, at market, the loving and
confidential confabs which take place
between them while clustered around
pieces of meat and heads OF cabbages
is something wonderful. They speak
10 each other without introduction
for it is as easy to distinguish that pc
cnliar physioguomy as TO tell hired
carriage from private one. 1t is
not surprising that the phrase aboard
ing house keeper" has significance
here which is inexplicable to any one
but New Yorker.
Lucy CARTER.
WASHINGTON. d. g., December s
The sub committee on Privileges