Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-19
INDEPENDENT WOMEN
Have Great Difficulty in Finding
Living Accommodations.
TRIBULATIONS OF HOTEL LIFE.
The Appointments of Garden Spot in the
Oasis of New York.
A CHANCE FOE THE CAPITALISTS
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPAToH.I

| WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPAToH.1
| Educated sensibiiities are not without
their sufferings. With this introd uction 1
leave you to the reading of the following
letter which bears New York date, pre-
missing, however, that all Its statements are
the barest fact, as most women will know
without question:
"As women come 70 confession to you. al
low one of tine homeless to pour her story
into your ear. 1 freely own to you that I
am one of the homeless, not far from starv-
ing, though no Board of Charity would ever
admit me to its bounty or class me in the list
| of deserving or undeserving poor. My in
come, every dollar of which earn by the
sweat of my brow, or my brain, is sufficient
for all the comforts and some of the taste
full things Of life, at least it would be if the
city afforded me and such as me anything
| like home. Business compels my presence
in the city, moreover my health, just begin
ming to wear, demands baths and treatment
| not to be found outside of it, otherwise had
rather work in Hoboken market garden or
Peter5 Henderson greenhouses than live in
town.
In High-Toned Loneliness.
| ST usually begin my city sojourn in one
of the uptown hotels, where cleanliness and
quiet are domiciled, but S4 a day for the
comforts of bedroom 10 by IA and water
hygienically frozen in the decanter, three
stories over the heads of several millionaires'
families, does not exactly suit an artists re-
sources. A week of this high-toned loneli-
ness usually sends me to one of the lower
priced hotels, where my friends have been
in the habit OF stopping the last quarter of a
century.
"No longer in the highway of fashion and
business, these houses begin to show wear
and hardly keep up to their reputation.
The restaurant will be good, but the rooms
show sad want of housekeeping. I should
not mind the threadbare Brussels so much
if it were only, clean; the water bugs under
the washstand rather dismay a nervous per-
son, while the sewer gas and the leaking
gas fixtures disturb the mind of the educated
one. never turn down the sheet, prefer
ring to leave the mattress to imagination;
blankets I can't help seeing sometimes, and
they are enough to spoil woman's rest.
| Might Profit by Continental Example.
"Will our hotels ever attain the conti-
mental refinement of bare polished floors,
with washable rug at the bedside and slip
covers for the mattresses or will they ever
have the common sense to adopt the sponge
silk blankets, which can be washed more
easily than the sheets? freely own that it
\ is difficult to keep bedding clean after
| promiscuous travellers who turn 10 with the
CRIME of weeks travel about them or 90 to
bed in their boots next the blankets. But
this does not m axe it any more agreeable
for woman to occupy the room after them.
| add to this the necessity for wearing a
| severely scrupulous visage outside your own
| loo half hrad cbo raoI
| general invitation in your glance, the cease
less suspicious surveillance of servants, and
| the position is sufficiently removed from
| comfort. It was in no second-class house,
but one of the choicest and most scrupu-
lously kept of high-priced family hotels
that friend of mine had bad fright. De-
tanned in New York over night on business,
she was awakened in the small hours by
| racket at the lock, and the immediate
! presence in her bedroom of hall boy and
a traveller with his luggage. The porter had
| blundered, thinking the room vacant, and
the lock was out Of order, hence the in
yasiop, which was folio wed by pungeDt re-
buke from the lady and demand for
another room whose door would stay locked,
to which she had her things removed in the
middle Of the night.
| Things the Lone Woman Hears.
"This is al exceptional experience proba-
bly,. 1t is more common to be kept awake
| by neighbor who retires at 2 A. NJ. in high
| spirits, having taken more than was good
| for him, and conyerses in a key clearly
audible and speech which leads to speedy
! closing of near transoms. A honeymoon
squabble is hardly less obnoxious, and the
| conversation of two business men over pa
tent or q sharp trade Is equally uninterest-
ing The entertainment is varied by the
political suppers OF ward clubs, at which the
singing is as bad as the wine, and prevents
sleep on several floors long past the smallest
| of the hours.
"Tired of such amenities used to hurry
into boarding house, taking the lists of
the Sunday papers. 1t would require
longer letter to recount the drawbacks of
| boarding, which, l think, combines all the
mseries of life with greater success than
any other civilized form of existence. Be-
tween poor food, and too little OF it, and bad
| air from ingenious mismanagement, 1 have
nearly lost my health. Of the risks in
volved socially, of the spiritualistlc and
faith cure humbugs, the prying suffrage
cranks the highly dressed adventuresses one
| meets in the average boarding house will
speak some other time.
First Impression Favorable.
| "But, taking my fate in my hand, asked
| for boarding house bureau which used to
| exist on U MON SQUARE. IL naQ cl0Seu, as all
such conveniences do, after years trial,
but would find bureau for ladies not far
west of Broadway. There, in the rain, I be-
| took myself.
"That the house was respectable in ap-
| pearance was a gratifying surprise; that it
was clean, bright and tastefully appointed
within was a greater. A page in buttons
| opened the door; cheerful drawing-room,
| decorated in white and gold, was charmingly
warm that raw spring day, and light, easy
| chairs in place of the regulation stuffed
furniture, drawn about table OF late papers
| and magazines-does not this sound pleas
ant, my homeless sister? 1t is some siga of
| progress that New York holds the nucleus
of a woman's hotel, where women OF inde-
pendent income can find comfort at tolera-
BILE prices. Transient lady guests engaging
| rooms are met at the train by most gentle
| manly escort, who to their baggage.
Their comfortable, fresh rooms have all the
privacy of home as none but their own sex
are admitted as dodgers, while at the same
| time they are free to receive gentlemeu's
| visits in the pariors as they would be at
their own houses, and go to theater or con-
| cert evenings, sure that some one will be up
| to admit them without frown ii they are
| out later than 10 o'clock.
Freedom of n Well Bred Home.