The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1886-09-30
The Devices of Young Men on Small Sal
aries to Live and Dress.

aries 10 Live anu DEess
To work-a-dav folks, who toll and
sweat year in and year out and barely
make both ends meet, even on salaries
above the average, it is always some
thing of q mystery how so many young
men, on salaries of S12 week, or from
that to S18 at the outside, manage al all
times to keep dressed in the hight os
fashion and find leisure to air them
selves and their clothes in conspicuous
ly public places. There is good-sized
world of these butterfly young men in
New York. 1t takes in over half the
young men in the city. They are bill
clerks, or messengers, or undertook
keepers in the big mercantile houses, or
ladies men" in the dry-goods houses,
or young men who do anything that
passes for work without involving act
ual manual labor. They are ALWAYS
rugged out in the latest cut of clothes.
They never seem IN a hurry. They
loiter through the avenues and the
parks, which are their favorite resorts
Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and
hover about the theater doors at night,
like gnats around the electric lights.
To all appearances they are young men
of elegant leisure and unlimited re-
sources. How do they manage it on $12
weekp
Il will show you; come upstairs
moment" said a renter of rooms on
Eighth avenue, near Fortv-eighth street,
the other day. She is a mauonly per-
son, and has a dozen or more young
men for roomers in her flats. She led
the way to the fourth story. At the head
of the stairs she opened the door to
hall room. The room was small but
clean. Its furniture consisted of a bed,
plain washstand, and two chairs. A
row of hooks on the wall opposite the
bed did service instead of a clothes
press, and the washstand drawer sup
piled the absence of bureau. In the
corner of the room behind the door was
a plain pine box, like an ordinary soap
box. On it stood a small oil-stove.
The young man who rents this now,"
said the old landlady, sis clerk in one
of the most fashionable retail dry-goods
houses on Sixth avenue. In personal
appearance you couldn't tell him from
a millionaire, but he gets only S11.50
week He pays me 50 a week for this
room. Out of the other $3.50 he boards
himself, pays for his washing, buys his
clothes-and he always wears the
latest styles-in fact, his entire living
expenses come out of the $3.50. What
is his secret? 1t is contained in this
pine box"
She removed the oil-stove and lifted
the box lid Inside were a small fry
ing-pan, miniature cofee-pot, cup and
saucer, two spoons, knife and fork,
and several paper packages.
"Here, you see, continued the land
lady, ''is little housekeeping outfit
With it and the oil-stove the young dry
goods clerk practically boards himself
that is, he gets his own breakfast and
supper every day, and no one is wiser.
Those packages in the box contain what
he eats. In the morning he makes
cup of coffee for himself, which is an
easy matter with the oil-stove He also
cooks little rice, an egg, piece of
bacon, or sometimes a small piece of
steak. Either makes a palatable and
sustaining meal. That is before he goes
to work. In the evening when he re-
turns from the store he cooks his supper
in the same way. He does his little
marketing himself, too, and he has be-
come so good at it that he can do fully
as well as can at the stores. He will
buy piece of bacOn, enough for three
meals, for six cents; rice for six meals,
10 cents; q can of condensed milk,
which will last not less than ten days,
for II cents; eggs at 2 cents each;
half-pound of cheese, which will last
week, 128 cents; coffee enough for ten
days, half pound. for 124 cents; sugar
for a week, 10 cents; potatoes, nine or
ten big ones, that will suffice for not
less than four meals, for nickel. If
you will figure the cost of one meal out
of this list you will find that, with va
riety limited only by the articles on
hand, the expense will not exceed 10
cents-that is, 20 cents day for the
two meals, to which add 10 cents that
he spends downtown for lunch, and
you have 80 cents day, or $2.10
week, as the cost of his board. His
washing costs not over 25 cents a week,
as he is neat and careful, SO that his
actual living expenses, including the So
roOm-rent. are S5.35 a week. or, allow
ing the odd 10 cents for oil to burn in
the little stove Gwo cents worth will
last nine hours in iO, MS total eXpendi-
ture is $3.50 week, which leaves So
from his salary to be spent on clothes,
or whatever he chooses. That, sir, is
the way hundreds, | might even say
thousands and thousands. of young men
in New York live and manage to keep
up appearances n-Ne,U York Wau and
E'GpreSS.