Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-12
HALL-ROOMS.
ANOTHER OF THE FEATURES OF LIFE
IN NEW YORK CITY.
Rosalind May Describes the People Who
Live IN Hall-Rooms, and Com
ments Upon Them.

LuulbeIS peluS pIOuSuI dpout ny tHS uc'
Quoting of one on the second floor at the
rear, for bathroom and in not few
cases, the dissemination of sewer gas in ad.
dition. 1t serves its purpose, nevertheless
and can be placed on the list of ''hall-
rooms" Thus, what one has left unful-
filled in mission disastrous, the other ac.
complishes. What of light and ventila-
tion is left free to enter by one is excluded
by the other, and between the two the
average New Yorker gropes an uncertain
and stifed way up and down, his or hel
progress illumined by glintings from a
pale skylight above, aided on dark days,
perhaps, by spectral illumination of low
turned gas jets on one side.
These facts hold good of handsome
dwellings alike with battered veterans
given over to boarders and lodgers, modern
draperies in the former, completing task
seemingly perfected and serving to hold
keep fast and retain for future distribution
any floating germs of anything going
especially from imperfectly severed bath.
rooms, of which, in private houses, there is
usually more than one.
Why bathrooms should exist in the
homes of the wealthy is a double commen-
tary on New York life, showing first how
impossible il is thought to spare even that
narrow space; in the second, the fashiona-
BILE love of darkness. Freely admitted
light might shine with tell-tale illumina-
ton on paint and powder, and ventilation
is found Objectionable lest fine things should
feel too keenly the breath of heaven.
In wealthy houses, however, bathrooms
are adjuncts only to the larger rooms
places for the bestowal of an over-stock OF
tinery, of some troublesome child, or per-
haps some yet more troublesome poor rela-
ton who must temporarily be harbored
At all events, they are not the sole
habitats which they become when, over
taken by the food of uptown progression,
the house is given over to money-makiEg
purposes.
In lodging or boarding house the exist
ence of the ballroom is easily explained.
Run on the principle of so many heads to
so many square feet, they grow valuable,
and it is food for thought that in New
York they are much more easily let and
more generally filled than the square rooms
beside them.
Their inhabitants rise before me, men
and women, old and young, chiefly the
latter, since ballroom life is not conducive
to longevity.
Usually they are early risers, for the
reason that in most cases they occupy
seven and eight o'clock in the morning
positions. and must be gone.
From what do they go?
A space of from eight to twelve feet in
length and from five to ten feet in breadth.
Within that compass is stored their clothes,
books, ornaments, themselves and such
furniture as the typical landlady allows
them. Some fag erd of carpet, single
bed, washstand, a chair, bureau, some
times small, battered table, and some
times two chairs.
y They come back to these things at night,
if boarding, in order to get their dinners.
If the inhabitant be a man, the meal over,
he generally goes again.
Why should he remain?
No cheerful fire in winter warns him;
in summer. hot breezes choke him. He
goes and Heaven knows where. If in an
apartment house, he may and probably
does return, not until bedtime, when he
turns in as an animal to its lair.
We read much of New York's poor,
where so many heads are crowded in such
a space, yet there is much unwritten
tragedy in the lives of these lone beings.
each in his narrow CELL"
In sickness, he lies forlorn; on rising, an
unwarmed atmosphere may send shivers
through him.
In the same category as the ballroom,
but of even inferior grade, comes a set of
apartments always on top floors. Without
windows and lit from above, the light falls
always unpleasantly-glowing down fierce
ly IN Summer, glinting gloomily in winter,
the prisoner within seeing nothing of an
outside world but what the sky, darkly
visible through dirty glass, can reveal. 1t
is almost invariably "him" who lives in
some one of these rooms. He lives there
because he calculates in general not to be
there. / once knew, however, of two
young men, brothers, who crowded together
in one of these rooms, the entire apart
ment hardly larger than a large closet.
also knew of young lad who occupied a
similar one in company with a drunken
father. The house was nice one; they
were all we'll dressed on the street; the
frst-named belonged to an excellent and
formerly wealthy New York family, and
numbered the Astors on their visiting list.
But this is depression, and the cases cited
exceptional.
1t is with the ballroom that we have
concern, and in general there is no greater
allotment than head to each. That
surely is enough.
In an apartment house where / am ac-
quainted it occurred to me the other day,
in view of writing this article, to note the
personal belongings of the three bathrooms
vacated during the day.
No. 1.-Two railroad guides, one news
paper, two theater programmes, a copy of
'Harry Lorriquer," picture of two cat.
No. "A newspaper, an almanac, a
copy of "She."
No. 3.-Tin rack with sponge, railroad
guide, an evening paper, theater pro-
gramme, dogs head on the wall.
Each room contained a small, battered
trunk. The small closet, I presume, held
articles of masculine attire, as also the
drawers and scratched and generally defaced
bureaus. The three tables and the three
chairs were in keeping.
From abnormal soil must come abnormal
growth. From mean and narrow quarters
come mean and narrow beings. They
walk the streets, libels on the human race.
Their misdoings, their amusements on the
mean and narrow order.
A proportion thus grows old. As year
by year, time steals along, they ossify
hopelessly Cut of from legitimate ex-
penditure of the affections, what of affec-
tion is left to them becomes more and
more self-centered, the weeks salary af-
fording them Just so much for self and
nothing more. The better class cling to
some pride of life; dressing reasonably
well and buying respectfully good seats at
theaters, to which of course they escort
none but themselves, or perhaps, some COM
rade who is expected to reciprocate.
A few grow morbid and begin to trim
up their little cells with an assiduity that
is astonishing. 1t was recently my lot to
see hall-room in which the entire sides
were covered with business cards pasted on
the papering and tackled on the wood
work. Imagine the caliber of man who
could find his status improved by such
surroundings. Another individual | hap
rened to know would have disdained such
IL u-.IJa-1or- of fsfFla