The Portland daily press., 1893-07-10

daughters, WduCAiiiS Gn0 Stage WIN moro
or less intentness and drinking their beer
with placid matter Of course air that
the American does not always attain.
Another interesting element-but to
enumerate would be to fill pages instead
Of column or two. 1t is enough to say
that at the roof gardens you will find
1all sorts and conditions of men," But
that is not quite true after all, for the
poor never go there. 1t takes money to
go to the roof gardens, and the poor do
not have money.
"You have no idea," said student of
metropolitan life to me day or two
ago, show much money is expended on
the roofs every week, and neither have I,
but | 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 admis-
sion to the theater that is allowed to the
garden. This would amount to $425
night or $2,975 a week Of seven perform
ances. Say that an average Of 30 cents
is paid out for drinks and cigars for
every person who visits the garden-and
this is not Highland there is another like
sum. The total weekly receipts then
would be $780, 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 taste of rural life one day in
every, week. You see, he went on, that
we Americans are getting so that we
spend good deal Of money all the while
in ways that our sturdy forefathers
would hardly have approved"
But when asked him what he pro-
posed to do that evening he said he
thought he should take in one of the
roof gardens.
I have said that you may meet all
classes but the poor at the theatrical
roof gardens. And that is true, but the
poor Of New York have their own roof
gardens with most of the accessories of
the expensive ones of the theaters. These
roof gardens are on the tops of the tene-
ment houses, and, as in the case of the
theaters, no admission fee is charged if
you have place in the house below.
There are rarely chairs or tables, but
stools and boxes and cushions and old
blankets serve instead for resting places.
Maybe the decorations are confined to
Tapping clothes hung on the line to dry.
The music perhaps is evoked from a
wheezy accordion by ayoung girl dressed
in ragged cotton gown, and she prob
ably plays such classics as "The Bow
cry" and Maggie Murphy's Home"
Her auditors very likely help her along
by singing with such semblance of har-
mony as they can command.
There is drinking, too, at these poor
mems gardens as well as at the theaters,
and the beverage consumed is mostly
beer. Lemonade is. at discount, and
''shampaginy water"-yery 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 disorderly 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 impossi-
BILE to sleep in the sitting little rooms of
the tenements, and the people roll them
selves up in their blankets without re-
moving 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 hum
BILE 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
made roof gardens. In no other way
can the fireworks with which the New
Yorker always celebrates the day be
seen to such advantage. If you are ever
in New York on Independence day, you
should in some way manage to secure an
invitation to roof from which you may
watch the rockets and roman candles
and other projectiles that are patriotical-
ly fired in the direction of the zenith.
The effect is wonderful. It is as if myri-
ads Of rainbows were broken into little
pieces and showered over the town. It
is sight which once seen will never be
forgotten. /. d. MARSHALL.
Americans In France and England.