The record-union., 1891-01-11
HOV THEY LIVE.
Apartment Life of Bachelors and
Single Women.
LIGHT HOUSEKEEPING AND IT'S SEW.
ERAL FORMS.
1t is Not Bad for Young Married Folks,
and Would be Good for Bachelors
and Also for Groups of Girls, If Only
They Could be Persuaded to Try it.

and Also for Groups of Girls, If Only
They Could be Persuaded to Try it..
Light housekeeping has become almost
scandalous term, because of its abuse
here and elsewhere; but, nevertheless,
there is great deal of such housekeeping
in New York that is eminently respect
able, says writer in the Star. Some
times the partners are man and wife;
sometimes they are bachelors, and some
times, though more rarely perhaps, young
women engaged, as the census says, in
"gainful occupations = dressmaking,
shop-tending, literary work, or what not.
Most families of this sort breakfast at home
and dine at restaurants. Nobody believes,
of course, that dining at restaurants is any
cheaper than dining at home. In fact, it
is vastly dearer, unless the restaurants be
of the Is cents meal variety. But light
housekeeping dispenses with maid serv-
ant, hospitality and a good deal of rent.
1t is peculiarly well suited to those fami-
lies of two, in which both husband and
wife help to earn a living. As the wife is
out all day, she cannot attend to house,
hold duties of very eXacting character,
and as economy is the object, the family
cannot employ maid servant.
So two rooms, or at furthest three, are
rented instead of four, five or six; gas
stove is used only for an hour in the
morning; the s'house'' is heated by steam,
shared in common with other tenants,
and thus what is lost in the cost of restau-
rant dinners is saved in rent, fuel and
wages. Unfurnished apartments Of two
or three rooms in respectable parts of the
city may be rented at from So to $25 a
month. If a young couple chooses to
occupy apartments in one of the great
sanitary tenements put up for the respect
able poor, the rent viii fall considerably
below the smaller of these figures. The
cost of breakfasts is a mere trifle, and
really poor folk, who are willing to put
up with such an apology for home, may
live almost as cheaply in the heart of New
York as in the country. A clever woman
can make even such quarters as these coy
and attractive, and the possibility of such
a mode of life has hastened many mar
riage.
Bachelors living in this fashion manage
very comfortably, though, of course, at
greater expense, because few men are
content TO get their own breakfasts and
attend to their own apartments. The
homeless habit prevents most bachelor
housekeeping from going beyond the
''Gght' stage, though when once maid
servant becomes necessity, it is cheaper
to have all meals prepared at home. Few
young men, however, are content to fore
go the glitter and hum of the cheerful
restaurant, with its motley company and
varied bills of fare. Better and more
wholesome dinners could be prepared at
home for less than half the money, but
the charm of contact with the world is
lost, and there is always danger that the
absence of one partner may leave the
other to dine alone.
Women seem to find it difficult to keep
house together. Perhaps they are less
adaptable than men, or perhaps the strain
of constant contact from which men may
escape by going out into the world, makes
friction inevitable. AT any rate, there are
thousands of women living lonely lives
in boarding houses, when .'all the COM
forts of a home" are within their reach if
only they choose TO form q housekeeping
partnership. The dreariness Of boarding.
house life for women is a thing that men
would not endure. In some of the poorer,
but still respectable, boarding houses the
parlor is rented to q physician, so that
there is no common room where dodgers
may receive visitors. All the ugliness OF
human life shows itself at such places, yet
women of delicate sensibilitieS endure it,
because they fancy that they could not un-
dertake the task Of housekeeping with
other women. II don't know any girl
with whom rd dare try such an expert
ment,'' said an art student, when this idea
was suggested to her. Another woman,
who had established little home of her
own, confessed that she was very well
pleased that friend living in like man.
ner as herself had not taken apartments
in the same house. For the 50, So or IS a
week that each OF these four women pays
for the diScomforts of a boarding-house,
all could have cosy little home in COM
mon. But in this whole city there are
probably only a few score such homes.
Some charitable women in Brooklyn
discovered that nearly dozen shopgirls
We're lodging in one moderate-sized room,
where they prepared their breakfasts in
the morning and sat at night unless the
streets proved more attractive. Such
women earn from SO to 81 week. They
must present decent outward appear
ance; but it has been discovered that in
the case of the poorest the one visible gar
ment is almost the only scrap OF clothing
they possess. For the most part, these
girls have almost no skill as needlewomen
and little knowledge of the housekeeping
art. They simply manage to exist, and
that by constant hard work and rigid, if
not always intelligent, economy. 1t is a
cherished plan of the Young Women's
Christian Association of Brooklyn to
build a large lodging house, where these
women may live and carry on a species
of light housekeeping. The price of lodg-
ing Will De pldceu WltDlil reach Oh the poor
est girls, but each will pay something for
the comforts she receives. At the same
time the Associations classes in needle
work and general domestic economy will
give the girls an opportunity to learn the
arts necessary to the maintaining of a
home. 1t is said that already the instruc-
tion impaired in the classes of this Asso-
citation has promoted many marriages.
Light housekeeping for single women
ought also to be promotive of matrimony.
Light housekeeping in New York as
sumes many curious forms. The city is
so large that there is room for an indul-
gence of all sorts of tastes. There are
families that never meet except at dinner.
There are others that are together only at
breakfast. There are probably very few,
rich or poor, that take three meals per day
together. One anxious woman is the en-
thusiastic advocate of cooking in COM
mon, or, more broadly, cooperative
housekeeping. All sorts of ingenious de-
vices have been invented for promoting
this idea, and then when nothing else is
possible there is Edward Atkinson's
economical cooker, the contrivance with
which the statistician expects to help
solve the problem of poverty.