The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1894-06-28
CHEAP LIVING IN PARIS.
Many students in the Latin Quarter Get
Along on Fifteen Dollars Month.

Along on Flftoon DOlofe q month.
One charm about Paris life is the
fact that living in certain quarter
can never give to one certain caste.
In France one can never judge the size
Of a mans purse by the size Of his
apartment or his position in society by
the position of his street. This state
of things has arisen partly because the
blue blood of France-the old nobility
of the second empire, whose estates
have suffered confscation or who gave
their wealth uncomplainingly for their
lost cause, the proudest aristocracy of
France-are poor. At one time some
of them were wretchedly so and now,
says writer in the New York Press,
their pride still makes palaces of their
tiny salons. Besides this the bour-
geoise, whose favorite proverb is
Thrift covers wealth." admire close
management, and to them living in
cheap quarter is as much an evidence
of money as of the lack of it. The
cheapest section of Paris where one
can live respectfully is the QUARTER
Latin, where the students congregate.
This, in return for it's cheapness, is
stuffy, dirty and touseled, and is, in
general, smutted by it's atmosphere,
which, speaking euphemistically, lacks
decided moral tints. And yet many
and many young couple start married
life in Paris in this way in the Latin
quarter, and couple, as the students
know too well, can live here wonder
fully well if they are content to throw
away pretentions and live a letudiant.
The prices of the Latin quarter are
low because the students are poor.
Most of them are on an allowance, and
some live on as small sum as fifteen
dollars a month. This requires close
living, it is true, but it can be done,
and there is still enough left over to
pay for the cup of coffee and the music
of the cafe in the evening, and an oc-
casional boat ride down the river.
The majority of the students live, all
told, upon thirty dollars month.
Here comfortably furnished room
rather near the stars. it is true, but
then, what student minds that, except
when his equilibrium is a trifle diff
cult TO maintain?-may be rented for
the ridiculously small sum of thirty
francs (siX dollars) month. 1t must
be remembered that this sum includes
bed furnishings, the care and OCCASION
al sweeping of the room, and for this
sum the young couple who are living
thus cheaply may find their shoes
polished outside the door in the morn
ing.
For the couple who live thus, in a
single room, there is no choice but to
live out at restaurants, but this need
not be expensive. There are numbers
of cafes along the Latin quarter boule-
wards where the evening dinner costs,
with the walters pourboire, one franc
twenty-five centimes twenty-five
cents). The dinner consists of soup,
hors d'oeuvre, entire, entremet and des-
sert, with pint bottle of red or white
wine. There are a hundred and one
little winding streets running in every
direction from the two main boule-
Yards, where dejeuner-the Partisan
breakfast may be bought for the
French equivalent of ten cents. These
two meals suffice, for none think Of
eating more than two meals day in
Paris. One may buy cup of cafe noir
on the boulevard for the sum of two
cents. 1t will not require mathema-
tician to arrive at the conclusion that
life in the student quarter does not re-
quire a princely salary.