Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-11-04
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.
The Devices of Young Men on Small Sa
aries to Live and Dress.

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 $12 week, or from
that to $18 at the outside. manage at all
times to keep dressed in the hight of
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 underbook-
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 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
II will show you; come upstairs a
moment" said a renter of rooms on
Eighth avenue, near Fortv-eighth street,
the other day. She is a matronly per-
son, and has 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,
a plain washstand, and two chairs. A
row of hooks on the wall opposite the
bed did service instead of q 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 small oil-stove.
1.-The young man who rents this uow,"
said the old landlady, ''is clerk in one
of the most fashionable retail dry-goods
houses on Sixth avenue. In personal
appearance you couldn't tell him from
millionaire, but he gets only $11.50 a
week. He pays me $S 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 secretP 1t is contained in this
pine box"
She removed the oi-stove and lifted
the box lid. Inside were small fry
ing-pan, miniature coffse-pot, cup and
saucer, two spoons, knife and fork,
and several paper packages.
"Here, you see," continued the land
lady, ''is a 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 a
cup of coffee for himself, which is an
easy matter with the oilstove. He also
cooks little rice, an egg, piece Of
bacon, or sometimes small piece Of
steak. Either makes 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 we'll as l can at the stores. He will
buy piece of bacon, enough for three
meals. for six cents; rice for six meals,
10 cents; can of condensed milk,
which will last not less than ten days,
for IL cents; eggs ut cents each: q