The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1896-08-12
HIS $4,000 A YEAR.
HOW A YOUNG NEW WORKER souAN-
DERS THAT AMOUNT.

He Does IL With Comparative Ease and
Has Nothing to show For It-He Has
Many Friends, but They Will Last Only
While HIS Check Is Good.
How to live on $50, 900 a year seems
simple enough-cruelly and sarcastical-
ly simple TO the thousands Of toilers
who are now living on IS week and
newspaper tables d'hotes. but how to
live on $50. 900 year and have nothing
to show for it at the end of the ~
months except a tangled retrospection
and nine months refusal on little
hollow chested grave in quiet corner
of lovely cemetery is another question
"a question which, it is safe TO pre-
sumo, would keep Butte Smashmore and
other biscuit brewing scientists guess
ing for a long time. But it can be done,
and is being done today right here III
New York city. by round faced, boy
ish looking young man who has been
spending $50, 600 year for the last %
months, and who has succeeded so well
that he has not even a pair of bicycle
stockings or a golf stick to show for his
investment.
Fifty thousand dollars annually Is a
pretty snug sum. 1t is what the Van
derbilts pay Chauncey M. Depew for
governing their enormous railroad in
terests, and il is the amount that Uncle
Sam gives each year to the president OF
the United States for running this re-
public. Both DR.. Depew and President
Cleveland have managed on their salary
to lay up little for rainy day, and
they have lived reasonably we'll besides.
But this young man, who scrapes along
ON half hundred thousand each year,
has not put one talent in a napkin, and
from the viewpoint of the ordinary citi-
zen he has not lived so very we'll either.
His income is something more than
$136 day, and the sun never goes down
or rises, rather, for he does not retire
until other people are getting up-when
he has not spent it all, or near enough,
so that he can readily catch up the next
day. 1t is not such difficult thing as
it would appear at first sight either
not when you know how.
His % months apprenticeship has
made him terribly proficient. He began
reaping that which he did not SOW upon
the death of relative who left for
tune large enough to make perceptible
cavity in the national debt If he had
chosen to apply it for that purpose. The
young man, however, is making hole
in it rapidly, and he hasn't even any
one to censure him.
His first step in his efforts to live up
to his income was to get bachelor apart
ments in swagger building in the Ten
derloin. For those he pays 81, 200 a year
rent and probably 500 or more for light
and water The chief item of furniture
in this apartment is his valet, which
costs him $50 month, or, allowing for
what the man can borrow when his
master is not looking, 500 monthly.
AT this rate it can readily be seen
that he would fall far short of fulfilling
his mission, but that is only the corner
stone. He has a suit of rooms in big
up town hotel for which he pays $500 a
month, and in order to help along he
fails to appear at either the bachelor
apartments or the hotel about three
times a week and spends between $40
and $50 for his forgetfulness. He does
not keep a stable, because he can get rid
of more money and with less trouble by
patronizing liveries and cabs. His livery
bill for January and February was 81,
500. With these excellent opportunities
for filling a pauper's grave he is not
content, and so he has called to his aid
that noblest spender of them all, the
soubrette. Not night goes by that he
does not send a bouquet costing from
$40 to $50, according to his caprice
That item of flowers alone stood him
So, 600 last year.
After the theater there is dinner, at
which he is invariably the host, and
sometimes the soubrette and a few of
her friends are his guests, and some
times the entire company of which she
is a member. The check rarely falls
short of $25, and is never less than $l5,
so that with her assistance and the as
sistance of her friends he gets on very
nicely.
1t is hard, fast pace this young man
has to go to spend $50, 900 year, with
his limited resources, and it requires
many stimulants. In the haggard green
of the dawn he goes home-or gets home
somehow-and sleeps the sleep of the
heavyheaded until IL o'clock a. m.
Then he awakens, or rather opens his
eyes. The awakening process is accom-
plished by aid Of a stone jug, which his
man invariably places at the young
mans bedside each morning. The little
jug holds the best quality of rye whisky
that is distilled, and it requires between
10 and IL long pulls at the jug before
he is in training and fit to begin the
days programme.
At noon he gets dressed and breakfasts
at the Waldorf, Delmonico's or the st.
James. Then there is an hour for medi-
tation, in which he endeavors feebly to
recall the engagements of the night be-
fore. Generally, they consist of a drive
in the park, with frequent tarryings at
McGowan's Pass tavern and the Casino,
where the gloom of the morning is dis