Connecticut western news., 1890-03-19
CHEAP LODGINGS.

| CHEAP LODGINGS. HOW THE POOR IN LONDON
 SLEEP.
 Scenes in Some of the Homes of Poor Men.
 Most of those who resort to the com mon lodging houses are driven thereto by stress of circumstances. The av- craze lodger is a man whose worldly possessions are covered by the hat he wears, which last is pretty sure to be in shabby condition. The man with 1 a good hat keeps out of the common lodging house; he has still position | in the world, or if he has lost it, is not | without hopes of recovering it.. The l lodger, as rule, has lost everything. He may have had q comfortable home, . pleasing wife, and loving children. The home was broken up; the wife is dead; the children in the workhouse there they may stay for him; his miyfortunes have deteriorated him. | The parish officers are looking for him | but it is not difficult to evade them. In many cases drink has worked the ruin; but we may find those who have never given way 10 any excess, and yet have fallen thus low; nothing l. easier than to fall; the chasm is ever waving for it's victims, and how few are they who struggle once more to the surface. And yet the aspect of the kitchen of decent lodging house is anything but lugubrious.
 Here is an interior which is unde- niably bright and pleasant cn a cool winters evening. An enormous kitchen, at the either end of which blazes magnificent fire. Lodgers are coming in; they have paid their shot, | and are sure of warmth and comfort for another night. The deal tables are well scrubbed and clean, the gas jets flare cheerily, and men gati cred about the 1replaces are busily cooking the provisions they have brought with them. Potatoes are being boiled, saus- ages are frying, and chops and steaks arc broiling on tse long grid that stretches from end to end of the fire place. That red-faced man who occu- pies the post of honor on the be ch nearest the fire, and who smokes his pipe while he exchanges airy badinage with the people cooking their victuals, is an old habitue of the house. The old hands call him doctor, and treat him with respect, and he can generally hold his own with new corners who are disposed to slight his presidential authority. Only the parson ventures to engage him in a serious battle of words-a tall, thin man, in a long, black coat, who is frying sausagcs over the fire.
 The parson, according to general re- port, has rich wife, and g fine house somewhere down in the country; but he prefers the freedom and license of a lodging house to the gilded chains of home; and it may be said that when- ever he opens his mouth he brings the conversation down to still lower depth than before. Still, apart from such accidental pre-eminencc, spirit of equality reigns; and as the crowd of lodgers thicken, individua' charac- teristics are lost in the general hustle and movement. There are lockers all around the kitchen, where the regular dodgers leave their little table requi- sites-a plate or two, knife and fork, and, if happy enough to possess one, Q teapot. But there is a friendly give and-take among the lodgers generally. But Sunday is perhaps the time to see the lodging house in full swing, as the bells are ringing for church, and we'll dressed people are thronging the streets on their way to their various temples. l The proportion who attend church, or any other place of worship, from tho lodging house, would require for it's statement decimal point and a very long row of noughts, before any substantial figure was reached. The lodger lies in bed as long as he can the deputy is polite enough to call him up, and insists upon his obeying the call, about 10 A. M.-and from that time till noon the lodger occupies him. self in cooking what may be termed either 8 late breakfast or an early din- ner, and in washing his shirt. It is rarely that the lodger has more than one, and while that one is hanging up to dry, he lounges about in the air;est of costumes smoking his pipe, and giv- ing finishing touch to the fry or the broil. By noon, or thereabouts, our lodger's shirt Is dry, and he puts it on, and bringing out any little adornment he may possess in the way of scarf, he dresses, and with some fellow-lodger turns out jauntily into the street.
 This is when the streets are most thickly crowded with pedestrians; and the comparative absence of wheeled traffic makes the scene all the more re- markable. Lodging houses, model dwellings, rows of workmen's cottages, empty themselves into the streets, and the crowd, mingling with the streams of people from church, fill up the broad causeways of the main thorough fares.
 l As o'clock strikes the crowd sud- denly becomes thinner the public houses have opened, and the prome- made ends with visit to the pump room, that glittering and friendly bar. the attractions of which have helped SO ably to land our friends in the common lodging house.
 ~ Christine Nilsson.
 Christine Nilsson, say some one who recently met her walking in the Rue I de la Paix, has grown positively obese. The once ideal Marguerite stalked pom derously along, stopping now and then to gaze into the shop windows, and