The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-26

Very we'll clad men are the rule. and. though 1t would be too much to say that the cheap Bowery lodging house does not lie directly upon the tramp's highway. 1t is evidently yet at eon- siderable distance from the railroad ties.
 The secret of q possible 2o-cent room. so fiauntlngly offerd as a frontisplece on the outward wall of the house, will be found on examination. From near the center of the large reading room one discovers long passage which runs entirely through the building to the rear wall, and on each side of this pas sage. at a distance Of less than four feet from each other he observes line of door knobs. These are the handles of doors that open outwardly, admit ting the guest to his sleeping room. But the rooms. 1t must be confessed. are good deal of fiction. They grat- fly fairly well the instinct for seclusion In sleeping apartments. but they are rather stalls than rooms. In the first place. the partitions do not reach the ceiling. They only rise so high that they would be difficult to climb over, and. in the next place. the dimensions are almost lnfinistesimal in their dimen- sions. A bed barely more than two feet wide Is fianked by a space hardly more than one foot wide, and these are pro- portions hardly to be dignlfed with the name of room. But everything is we'll arranged. A small closet no more than foot square, with hat shelf at the top, furnishes place for hanging clothing at the head of the bed, and the bed itself is as clean as 1t can be made by freshly laundered sheets and pillow case. True. the pillow needs to be set on end and carefully adjusted when used to make 1t comfortable but 1t probably requires some such manip- ulatory exercise to suggest to the im- pecunious guest that he should expect hip1eslf to get his head higher As to the toilet and bathing apartments they are reached through an opening to the left, between the stalls, and this Is the general arrangement through which thirty or forty sleeping rooms can be furnished on a floor not greatly more than 20 by 50 feet in dimensions
 AS to the guests in these cheap lodg- ing houses. they are study within themselves very much more interesting than the house. They are so varied that 1t would be quite impossible to give them general classification. Among them are to be found men of all trades. mechanics and horny handed laborers, unable to obtain, if willing to forego luxurious beds and roomy quar- ters for the sake of the economy of obtaining shelter and convenience of a large, well-warmed and well-lighted reading room, practically open all night, for less than s1.50 week. But it is al- so clear at glance that they are very largely composed of gentlemen on their uppers. Even the younger sons of the English nobility, those who are so often compelled to seek their patrimony abroad. are not unknown to the Bow cry cheap lodging house. AS to com- mercial travellers and other airy gen. tlemen of the sort, the recent panic and current depression have been exceed ingly favorable to their initiation into its mysteries Then, again, there are to be found among the guests, stranded students, inventors who can invent anything but panacea for impecunios- ity, poets, painters, actors and journal ists. to whom the world has either grown or has always remained un- sympathetic, and an occasional politi- cal economist. no doubt fl
 As to the habits of the guests of the cheap lodging house, they seem to be generally unexceptionable. Pipe smok- ing, with an occasional cigaret in the fingers of some dainty youth, form the chief indulgence. But the extravagant habit of cigar smoking is practically unknown, and of drunkenness there ap- pears to be very little. Occasionally, in the wee sma hours. some hilarious truckman. or fellow of the sort may wander into the reading room and stumble against the stove in a futile effort at lighting his pipe, but in any such case the disturber is soon got out of the way.
 Whatever the recommendation of the cheap lodging house. however, and no matter how refined may be the instincts of some of its patrons, 1t can never be popular. The architect has been skill full in planning for the seclusion of guests; but it is not perfect seclusion. The nasal profundo of somnolency comes floating over the partition to dis turb slumber. and none but the most practical sleepers can retire before mid night or 1 o'clock in the morning and be permitted to exercise his talents. I