The record-union., 1898-03-11
FREE LUNCHES, DEAR BEER.
Furnishing Everything Free to the
Lazy Folk.


We stopped and read the sign over
two or three times; not that it was
new, but that it seemed more multitu-
dinouS than of yore 1t used to be
characteristic of the lowest dives, out
somehow it now appears in various
forms or shapes even at Fashionable
cafes and hotel bars. Along the river
it flourishes in rank luXuriance. but it
is no longer confined to the resorts of
the longshoremen or the dens of the
| levee. The Free Lunch" placard in
all its frank shamelessness or in vari-
Gus eUphemistic DISCUSSES invades the
avenue as well as pervades the Sums
and the back alleys.
And one can but be astonished at the
variety offered in this altruistic bill of
fare. 1t is no longer a cracker and a
pickle that is set out, but cold meats
and hot vegetables. with slices of pala-
eozic pie. Reading it all over one is
impressed not SO much with the BEN
evidence of the saloon-keeper as with
the costliness of his beverages. The
demands of the GROWER must keep
a mans pocket pretty we'll drained. if
it be true that he has not enough left
even a plate of genuine and nourish-
ing soup.
AS ne walked on the thought kept
turning itself over in our mind. We
could not help feeling that life for the
many is getting to be mostly a mat
ter of free lunches and dear beer. Here
we nave 165,297 church organizations
in the United States, in every one of
which any one of our 10 100000 citi-
zens may find the Gospel without mon
ely and without price; but if the multi
tude really should be asked to support
the church there would not be enough
left to pay for the theater, and the
clerk and the stenographer and the
messenger boy must go to see "A Tin
Soldier" or "A Brass Monkey" what
ever that may cost. 1t was only the
other day that the manager of one of
our most gracious charities. home for
underpaid young women working at
various employments in this great city,
told us that they expected to close the
home, since they found that what their
girl boarders saved upon the cost of
their living they blew in" at the vau-
deville theater around the corner. Here
Were twenty wealthy and benevolent
ladies giving money and time to help
a hundred wage-earners get a little
ahead in the world In order to do
this the managers paid part of the cost
of board out of their own pockets and
begged a good deal of the rest from
their friends, and wrestled perpetually
with q deficit in their kitchen accounts.
only to find at last that they We're fur
nishing free lunches to the very girls
who spent their extra cash upon variety
performers and skirt dancers
If there is anything in America upon
which we pride ourselves, it is our ma
tional system of free schools Our boys
have their education in grammar arith-
metic and bookkeeping free; but they
have several million dollars a year to
spend upon dime songsters and Yellow
Kid Weeklies and High-Muck- "a Muck
cigarettes. In a number of Western
States the authorities have added to a
free education free books; and they are
now agitating free meals between the
morning and afternoon sessions of the
schools. but the young storekeeper
aruond the corner is forced to replen
ish his stock of confectionery and chew
ing gum with astonishing frequency
One OF our papers this morning print
ed the protest of a medical society
against the dispensary. but the dis
pensary is here to stay. Medicine is