Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-04-05
AGRAND ENTERPRISE
ITS ORIGIN AND SUCCESSFUL DEvEL-
 OPMENT DUE TO A WOMAN.

Fisher and the Home HoteI-Its Found-
 ing, Policy and Guests.
 A modest little card tackled to the
 front door of handsome brick house in
 St. Ann's avenue, near One Hundred
 and Thirty fifth street, announces to the
 world the existence of hotel which ,. embodies woman s idea and d-efforts in tightening the burdens of other persons.
 Among refined and congenial surround
 ings the guest of this house, which is
 called the Home hotel and is open to
 both men and women, may have 8 cozy room and good fare for very little more money week than an orchestra chair at theater costs, and if she happens to be struggling against fate with an empty pooketbook she may have the same ae- commodations for nothing at all until fortune smiles.
 Yet the hotel is not charitable in- stitution. A moro valuable possession than money is required to give you en- try there. You must have brains, and they must be brains, moreover, that are refined and polished by education and culture, for the hotel is conducted for authors, musicians, teachers and mem bers of other professions who find tenn porary difficulty in wringing dollars from an unappreciative world, and for those who are ineapaeitated by age or illness from earning money.
 A courtly old gentleman opens the front door to the needy brainworker who comes for the first time and bows the caller into the parlor, with the in. formation that Miss - will attend her presently. A very pleasant first im- pression of the hotel is received while waiting here. These parlors seem in- stinet with informality and sooiability. The plain, substantial furniture; the piano, with it's loose and apparently oft turned sheets of music; the we'll thumb ed magazines and books, the portraits and engravings, combine to remind one of an old fashioned country house where hospitality and simplicity dwell and ostentation has no place.
 The door opens softly. and a sweet faced woman enters. In a manner full of charm and tact she asks the necessary questions, and the caller is invited to come again on certain day. Mean while her credentials are carefully in- vestigated. If the result is satisfactory, warm welcome awaits her on her sec ond visit, and she becomes one of the little company whose ambitions in art or literature have not yet been realized or are worn out with the efforts of lifetime She pays whatever she can af- ford. from $1 week to $7, and sympa thy and material aid, where possible, are extended to her in her work.
 Professional persons over 65 may be- come life guests by the payment of $500, which is raised by relatives or a church society, and sometimes by the patrons of the home. There are at present about 50 guests in the four connecting houses, to which the hotel has been enlarged They are not all without means. 4 number pay full rates for board, and Hive in the hotel because of its society of clever, interesting persons and the at mosphere of refinement and homeliness
 The founder of the hotel and the pres ident of the association, which includes among it's members many prominent New York men and women, is Miss Mary A. Fisher.
 "Our hotel. as was told to report CT in visit there, Occupies a field of usefulness all it's own. There are au- thors' and actors funds and charitable organizations, but we do not feel that we are conducting charity We are simply providing home for brainwork CTS who have earned q rest, and for am bilious educated persons whose present means might not otherwise enable them to live amid congenial surroundings
 "A beautiful house in Hampstead, England, where governesses, grown old ill their profession, could live out their lives in peace and restfulness, suggested the idea of tho hotel to me. And after ward, here i'll Now York, it came to me again with striking force. Tn wretch ed room in tenement house found an aged musician and composer ill his last | illness
 ]" Don't send me to an almshouse, he begged. Let me die here. l am used | to the cold, and those old bundles of | music, pointing with trembling fin ger to the rude shelf above his bed filled | with his manuscript music, 'are com- panions. They are like children to me.
 ''On another occasion friend wanted | some writing done. and publisher rec commended an author and his wife whe wrote for a livelihood. In East Eleventh | street, amid almost squalid surround ings, we found these cultured people They were called successful writers, their special field being biography and history, but they accepted the work eagerly, on any terms We asked no questions. None were necessary. The pinched look on their ohilds face and their own pallor told the story of priva- tion.
 These and similar experiences open- sd my eyes to the great need of hotel like ours, and after many discourage ments l started. It was eight years ago years that have given me wealth of experience and shown me some of the strangest and most pathetic phases of human nature. Around my table have