The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-06-04
HIS is A MOVING TALE.
"A Man Who Lives in Flats Tells How "a
Acquired the Migratory Habit.


Acquired the Migratory Habit.
although it is little early in the
season." remarked a member of that
great army of human beings in Chica-
go who live in fats, ''that irresistible
impulse which comes on most women
as spring approaches, has taken pos
session of nay wife. I used to disbe-
1ieve that story about the wandering
Jew, but l am inclined, since l have
grown older and a married man, to
think there may be a good deal in it.
When one gets the moving habit it's
one of the hardest things in the world
to shake off. 1 disIiked it at first, but
now I am rather fond of it. have
been married ten years, have one child,
and have moved eight times. These
are my principal family statistics.
eve have traversed this town regu-
larly every year. like pair of migra-
tory swans, ever since we were mar
ried. First of all, we took a top
fat with two flights of stairs at
tached. My wife selected the top fiat
because it was so much lighter than
any of the others. AS the following
first of May approached. however, the
long journey from the street to our lit
tie eyrie proved too much for my wife,
and as she found a fiat on the ground
floor in another part of town which
suited her, we moved into that. The
place suited me first-rate and I began
to cherish a faint hope that we could
slide safely by the first of May into an
other year. But it was not to be. A
ground floor fat in a building across
the street was entered by burglars
along about the middle of April and
my wife remembered the next morn
ing that she had heard mysterious
noises at one of our windows the same
night
when I read the item at the break
fast table and she made that remark
looked at her with a sicl1ly smile. I
knew what was coming. She said
that that was the trouble with these
ground floor flats; a burglar could
raise window and step right in.
ventured that a good burglar could
raise a window and step right in any
where; could slip into the Auditorium
tower, steal all the weather predic-
tons for year ahead and hold them
for ransom from the agricultural de-
partment if he wanted to.
''Of course it did no good. We fold
ed our beds like the Arabs and took
away to make it an object for the
drayman. There we abode happily
until it occurred to my wife that the
baby ought to have little bit of out
doors to play in. I agreed, and we
went to the bottom again. My wife
hadn't heard of any burglaries in the
immediate neighborhood while we
were there, SO that this danger didn't
occur to her. During the winter one
of the children in another of the
ground floor fats was taken with what
the doctor said was diphtheria. He
said the disease had probably been
contracted in some way from some OF
the garbage boxes with which the al.
ley was adorned. OF course our baby
was in the same danger. My wife said
it would be better for her to run about
on a clean back porch than to be on
the ground where there were dirty gar
bage boxes.
$50 we took a top fat again. My
wife said she didn't mind the stairs
now. When the next year had rolled
around and my wife said nothing
about moving I had a vague sense of
pain which ] could hardly account for.
1 know now that the habit has grown
more pronounced, that it was disap-
pointment But it was soon over. My
wife found another top fat with a
larger bathroom and more closets.
served notice on our landlord of our
intention to quit.
Top flats, as my wife justly OBJ
served year later, are no places to
entertain in, and we slumped to the
bottom again. In 1898 we found them
too convenient for entertaining, how
ever, and besides the people overhead
made so much noise we couldn't sleep
early in the night, and we are now re-
ceiving in a sky parlor again. My
wife has just found a lovely cottage
with yard for the baby and a furnace
for papa, and we are going there the
1st of May. There are neither burg
lars nor bacteria to annoy or make
afraid, but there is that furnace. A
friend of mine tells me he used to
have to get up regularly to attend to
his every night during the cold spells
last winter.-Chicago Tribune.