The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-12-23
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.
The Devices of Young Men Small SAL
aries tn Live and Dress.

aries tn Live and Dress.
From the New York Mail and Express,
To work-a-day 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 a mystery how SO many young
men on salaries of Sl2 week, or from
that to SIS Mt the outside, manage at
all times TO keep dressed in the height
of fashion and find leisure to air them
selves and their clothes in conspicuous
ly public places There is a good-sized
world Of these butterfly young men in
New York. 1t takes in over half the
young men of 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 dv anything
that passes for work without involving
actual manual labor. They are always
rugged out in the latest cut OF clothes.
They never seem in hurrv. 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.
men of elegant leisure and unlimited
resources. How do they manage it on
$l2 a week?
81 will show you; come mp stairs q
moment" said renter of rooms on
Eighth avenue, near Forty-eighth
street, the other day. She is mat
ronly person, and has dozen or more
young men for rooners 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 bed, "a plain washstand,
and two chairs. A row of hooks on
the wall opposite the bed did service
instead OF clothes-press, and the
washstand drawer supplied the absence
of bureau. In the corner OF the room
behind the door was plain pine box,
like an ordinary soap-box. On it stood
small oil-stove.
"The young man who rents tn now"
! said the old landlady, lis q 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 Sll.50 a week. He pays me S3
week for this room. Out of the other
s.. 30 he boards himself. pays for his
washing, buys his clothes-and he al
ways wears the latest style-in fact,
his entire living expenses come out OF
the ~. 80. What is his secret? 1t is
contained in this pine box"
She removed the oil-stove and lifted
the box lid. Inside were small fry
ing-pan, miniature coftee-pot, cup
and saucer, two spoons, a knife and
fork, and several paper packages.
Here, you see" continued the land
lady, ais little housekeeping outfit.
With it and the oil-stove the young
dry-goods clerk practically boards him
self 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 a cup of coffee for himself,
which is an easy matter with the oil
stove. He also cooks little rice, an
egg, a piece of bacon, or sometimes q
small piece of steak. Either makes
palatable and sustaining meal. That is
before he goes to work. In the evening
when he returns from the store he
cooks his supper in the same way. He
does his little marketing himself, too,
and he has become so good at it that
he can do fully as we'll as L can at the
stores. He Will buy piece of bacon,
enough for three meals, for cents;
rice for six meals, 10 cents; can of
condensed milk, which will last no less
than ten days, for IL cents; eggs at 2
cents each; o half-pounl of cheese.
which Will last week, - cents; cof
fee enough for ten days, half q pound,
for l2l cents; sugar for week, 10
cents: potatoes, nine or ten big ones,
that will suffice for not less than four
meals, for a nickel. If you will figure
the cost of one meal out of this list YOU
will find that, with variety limited only
by the articles on hand, the expense
will not exceed 10 cents-that Isl, 20
cents day for the two meals, to which
add 10 cents that he spends downtown
for lunch, and you have 80 cents a
day, or 50. 10 week. as the cost of his
board. His washing costs not over %
cents week, as he is neat and careful,
so that his actual living expenses, in
Guiding the 80 room rent, are Sob n
week, or, allowing the odd 10 cents for
oil to burn in the little stove two cents
worth will last nine hours in it,, his
total expenditure is 50. 80 week. which
leaves So from his salary to be spent on
clothes. or whatever he chooses. That,
sir, is the way hundreds, L might even
say thousands and thousands, OF young
men in New York live and manage to
keep up appearances.