The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-21

 vernacular receives from $2 to $5 week and his grub. At first his duties are to rush the towels around, keep the shop bright and neat, learn how to take care of the razors and strops and how to father customers on busy days. After he has been in a shop for six months he begins to shave customers. Razors are put in his possession and he is allowed to lie in wait for unsuspect- ing customers who were never eX" pected to come in and who will cer~ tainly never come again after the tyro has completed his full course of atroc- ities. Never go into a strange tonso' rial parlor and permit a very young looking and eager faced man to lay your face under contribution. At the end of a year, and after he has learned beyond repair, the novice begins to cut
 to shave without mutiating his victim hair, and within two years, if he IS capable of learning anything, he should
 be a finished tonsorial artist. Then he begine to earn good wages.
 How much does he receive? From S10 to $15 q week. Tips are always to
 be counted on, although they some
 times turn out like the chickens which
 are counted before they are matched. But usually in the run of metropoll-
 tan shops tips amounting to anything from $1 to $15 a week. The usual tip the barber expects is ten cents in dfteen-cent shop. and it is in the ff- teen-cent shops that most of the tips
 are given You would hardly expect patrons of the three-cent and five-cent shops i'll the Bowery to show gene1os- ity to their shaVerS, would you? some customers give the artists who pleased
 them twenty-five cents, but such do- nors are rare. Generally quarter-tips are given only by men who have met
 with some particular bit of good luck,
 and their contributions are not as reg
 ular by any means as those of the men who give ten-cent tips.
 "Of course, the best tips go to the man has a chair nearest the door. Very often he is the proprietor of the establishment. The chairs range in
 value from the door to the rear end of
 the shop, you know, and the artists work their way up to the top Of the
 row, which is virtually the top of the
 profession, by favoritism or terms of service. Why, there is a time when made SIS and $20 a week in tips alone. That was downtown not far away from the Stock Exchange, and the time of this prosperity was time of great prosperity for lot of brokers and specuators who frequented my shop. It was seldom that any one gave me less than twenty-five cents, and two or three times a week I could depend upon $1 tips. Once broker who was particularly delighted at my delft and soothing touch, and likewise filled with rum, gave me $5 bill. But alas! those days are past. A customer who would rise up out of the chair and in gratitude for work well and faith fully performed fork over $1 note to the tonsorial artist would have homi- eide to answer for. Nowadays make S15 a week salary and get about $f week on tips That is because this is a non-union shop. In the union shops I couldn't make as much, by any means. Most of the tips come from strangers, as the people l use to shave and give hair cuts to don't patronize the shops I am working in at present, it seems.'
 "Where are the best paying barber shops?"
 Well, now, where would you expect to find them? Very likely you think they are in the big hotels uptown or in the great office buildings downtown. But I can tell you something which will prove that the tonsorial parlor in
 the big office building has not as much l late you imagine. In one particularly inn mense building which faces Broadway there is a gilded toneorial parlor of the most aristocratic cast Through the corridors of the building enough men pass every day to form an army, and you might imagine that would be a corking good place for a tonsorial par
 Tor But that would be mistake, if the word of fellow artist who works there is worthy of acceptance, and I think it is, because he has worked in many of the large shops of this town for quarter of a century He has owned five or six shops of his own. and is one of the few American barbers left in New York. This elegant shop, so far from paying it's proprietor q handsome sum every year, affords him hardly more than enough to live on. He is really not better off than his em- ployees
 "No, the best paying shops are not in the big buildings You find them tucked away in odd hooks and corners of New York, near the commercial and financial centers. They have small rent to pay and their expenses ahe light so there is a chance for the boss to accumulate a competency, although I never heard of but one tonsorial man who got rich. In the big buildings the rents are enormous and the incidental expenses such as light, heat, hand some fixtures, etc, eat up all the prof. its of the business.
 "Do not the prOprietors of the bar bers shops in the hotels make money?"
 AS a matter of fact I know of no tonsorial parlor in a leading hotel or even in a good second-class hostelry whose tonsorial parlor is owned by regular artist. The proprietor of the hotel is almost invariably the owner of the shop, and he employs a superinten- dent to look after his affairs. Surely the superintendent of the hotel shop has little opportunity to get rich, for 1 know an artist who acts in this capac-