Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1893-07-09

furnished by the Germans. Scattered
about at the tables, they sit In family
groups, father and mother and sons and
daughters, watching the stage with more
or less intentness and drinking their
beer with a placid matter Of course air
that the American does not always at
tain.
Another interesting element-but to
enumerate would be to fill pages instead
or column or two. 1t is enough to say
that at the loof gardens you will ind
sail sorts and conditions OF men," But
that is not quite true afer all, for the
poor never 90 there. 1t takes money to
go to the roof gardens, and the poor DO
not have money.
"You have no idea," said a student
of metropolitan life 10 me day or two
ago, "how much money is expended on
the roof every week, and neither have l,
but 1 have made little calculation that
may give an inkling. Suppose that, al
lowing for bad weather, the nightly at
tendance at all the gardens is Only $50.
Let US fix upon so cents as the portion
of the price paid for the ticket OF ad-
mission to the theater that Is allowed to
the garden. This would amount to S425
night or So, e75 week OF seven perform
ances. Say that an average OF so cents
is paid out for drinks and cigars Tor
every person who visits the garden-and
this is not Highland there is another
like sum. The total weekly receips then
would be So, $50. The Fresh Air fund
is noble charity, and this sum given to
it to expend in taking children into the
country, allowing the expense TO be 81
for each child, would give nearly 5000
children a taste Of rural life one day In
every week. You see, he went on, that
we Americans are getting so that we
spend a good deal Of money all the while
in ways that our sturdy forefathers
would hardly have approved"
But when 1 asked him what he pro-
posed to do that evening he said he
thought he should take in one OF the
roof gardens.
l have said that you may meet all
classes but the poor at the theatrical
rool gardens. And that IS true, but the
peor of New York have their own roof
gardens with most OF the accessories OF
the expensive ones OF the theatres.
These roof gardens are on the tops OF
the tenement houses and, as In the case
OF the theatres, no admission Zee Is
charged If you have a place In the
house below. There are rarely chairs
or tables, but stools and boxes and
cushions and old blankets serve in
stead for resting places. Maybe the
decorations are confined TO mapping
clothes hung on the line to dry.
The music perhaps is evoked from
wheezy accordion by young girl
dressed In a ragged cotton gown, and
she probably plays such classics as
"The BowerY" and Maggie Murphy's
Home" Her auditors very likely help
her along by singing with such sem-
blance of harmony as they can COM
mand.
There is drinking, too, at these poor
mems gardens as we'll as at the thea
tiers, and the beverage consumed is
mostly beer. Lemonade is at dis
count, and "shampaginy water"-Very
few of those who keep cool on
these roofs know how it tastes.
And because they have not been
so carefully trained as the better
dressed jewellers up town these men
sometimes fight and are lugged away to
the station by policemen. But, then,
there are sometimes dlsorderly persons
at the theatrical gardens, too. The
roof gardens OF the poor are occupied
later than those Of the rich, for when
the nights are very hot it is almost inn
possible to sleep in the sitting little
rooms OF the tenements, and the people
roll themselves up in their blankets
without removing their clothing, and
sleep till morning calls them to begin
the struggle again.
There is no reason why the rich OF
New York should not initiate their
humble brethren and establish private
roof gardens on their own houses.
Some who do not leave the city during
the heated term are said to have done
this already, and on the night OF the
Fourth of July just past and on
many previous Fourths thousands
of housetops were temporarily