Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-04-24
Life in a Flat.

Some of the mysteries as we'll as mis-
cries of life in fashionable apartment
house have been made public in the
story o; the binding ana gagging of
Miss Harvey in the Sloane flats, at
Broadway and Thirty second street.
The testimony of her neg assailant, to
The eject that he had been domici'ed in
The servants room for three days, re-
calls siuilar revelations by lola in
reference to the styl sh apartment
houses of Paris, and lends pecul az en-
phasis to the imported title applied to
the New York tenement houses of a
fashionable grade, viz: French fats.
Apartment-house life in New York is
modern method 6f living, and its
pecul arities would surprise the people
of other cities who have not yet been
crowded into such way of living. In
the first place it banishes the idea of
home AS in the French language
there is no word significant of home IN
its English sense, SO in the French flat
there is no need or room for such
word. People only eat and sleep there,
and, indeed, do not always eat where
they sleep. They occupy corner of
an immense caravansary, quite as pub
lie as hotel, but cheaper and less ex-
acting n the matter of perpetual dress
ing for meals. They neither know nor
care who may be living under the same
roof and in contiguous rooms. Money
which opens the front doors of the
'palatal apartment-house to its
"guests" and money is omnipotent.
Clergymen, gamblers, brokers, grass
widows, adventures OF all sorts ALI may
find shelter there if they can pay in adj
van e for rooms and keep up the pay
ments promptly. People who ha
money and want to en- oy life secure
apartments in a fashionable quarter,
board their horses at livery, dine at a
restaurant, and proceed to enjoy Ii e
without its troubles. Perhaps they do
en- oy divesting themselves OF the cares
as well as the com ort of home, butt
is a sad thing for their children, if they
have any. The young people grow up
without the restraints as well as the ten
der, loving atmosphere of a home; they
make all sorts of acquaintance in the
balls and on the stairways O. the vast
nest that enroofs twenty or thirty fami-
lies, aud they understand the myster es
OF life before their parents realize that
they have fairly outgrown the limits OF
the nursery and school. That possibili-
ties of vice and crime may be presented
to their eyes is seen in the story of
apartment-life tragedy with which the
newspapers have been ringing this
We k. A dear price is paid for the hole
in-the-cOrner pretense OF home. Ten
ment-house rooms-or, rather. suites of
rooms rent Tor $40 a month down:
French flats range from $40 to $50;
apartment house suites range from
RIO 0 to $1,000 or $1,000 a year, &C
cording to the style of the structure and
proximity to fashionable avenue. The
cheapest garnet in one of these fash
ionable dens will bring 500 month
and people will pay it, and go half
hungry rather than remove out of So
ciety's limit. 1t is wretcbed sort of
life for all concerned. aud so .iety eal-
ICES it by finding that the do lar is
mighty beyond family lineage, reputa-
ton, or brlliancy of intellect.-M Y.
Cor. Phl{Gu e[Dhaa Record.