The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1886-09-08

LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.
How Young Men With Small sal
aries Ends Level,

LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.
How Young Men with Small sal
aries Ends Level
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 aver
age, 1t is always something of mystery
how SO many young men, on salaries Of $l2
week, or from that to $1S at the outside,
manage at all times to keep dressed in the
height of fashion and find leisure to air
themselves 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 mer
of the city. They are bill clerks or messen.
gers or under bookkeepers in the big mer.
camille houses, or "ladies' men" in the
drygoods houses, or young men who do any
thing that passes for work without involv.
ing actual manual labor. They are always
rugged out in the latest cut clothes. They
never seem in hurry. They loiter
through the avenues and the parks, which
are their favorite resorts on Saturday after
moons and Sundays, and hover about the
theatre doors at night, like gnats around
the electric lights. To all appearances they
are young men of elegant leisure and un.
limited resources. How do they manage il
IN $40 week?
will show you; come upstairs mo-
nent," said a renter of rooms on Eighth
venue near Forty-eighth street the other
day She is matronly person, 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 a hall room. The room WAS
small but clean. Its furniture consisted of
bed, 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 beareau. In the corner of the room
behind the door was plain pine box, like
an ordinary soap-box. On 1t stood small
oil-stove.
The young man who rents this now"
said the old landlady, lis clerk in one
the most fashionable retail dry goods houses
on Sixth avenue. In personal appearance
you couldn't tell him from millionaire (;
but he gets only $l1.50 a week. He pays
me SO 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 80. so.
What is the secret II is contained in this
pine box"
She removed the oil-stove and lifted the
box lid. Inside were small frying-pan q
miniature coffee-pot, cup and saucer, tive
spoons, a knife and fork, aud several paper
packages.
L" Here, you see," continued the landlady.
% is little housekeeping outfit. With j.
and the oil-stove the young dry goods clerl
practically boards himself is, he gets
his own breakfast and supper every day,
md no one is wiser. Those packages in
the box contain what he eats. In the morn
ing he makes a cup of coffee for himself,
which is an easy matter with the oil stove.
He also cooks little rice, an egg piece
Of bacon, on, sometimes, small piece OF
tanning 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 con do fully as we'll az / can at
the stores. He will buy piece of bacon,
enough for three meals, for 8 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; a half
cents sugar for n week, 10 cents potatoes,
nine or ten big ones, that will suffice for
not less than four meals, for a nickel. II
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 is,
20 cents n day for the two meals, to which
add 10 cents that he spends down town for
lunch, and you have 80 cents day, OF
$2. 10 week, as the cost of his board. His
washing costs not over % cents n. week, az
he is neat and careful 80 that his actual
living EXPENSES, including the $3 room-rent,
are $685. a week, or, allowing the odd Is
cents for oil 10 burn in the little stove 1.-TWO
cents worth will last nine hours in it), his
total expenditure is $3.50 week, which
leaves $6 from his salary TO be spent ON
clothes, or whatever he chooses. That, sir,
is the way hundreds, i might even say
thousands and thousands, of young men In
New York live and manage to keep up ap
pearances"