The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-04-21

apartment houses are built like hol-
low square, with an interior court
yard. An apartment facing the court
is cheaper than one facing the wider
mean anything and cost any price. A
''grande appartement" may be expect
ed to comprise six rooms-aL salon. a
sale a manager, dining room, two bed
rooms, a small toilet room and a neat
cuisine.
The cost of this is regulated, first, by
the quarter of Paris in which the house
is situated.
If you hire an apartment you may
go to the quarter of the lower left
bank of the Seine, and here, in a de-
lightful locality of broad avenues and
fine buildings, within a stones throw
of the beautiful Champ de Mars and
the Eiffel Tower you can rent an
apartment of four or five rooms, front
ing the inner court. for 1900 francs
$24O. This includes water, fees to the
concierge, a compartment in the eel
lar and a little room up in the man.
sard for a servant If you have any.
But this is far too expensive for rigid
French ideas OF economy. If you go
back beyond the Latin quarter, further
from the Seine, you will come to the
high, clean, airy new quarter of Mont
Parnasse, with its art schools and it's
artists ateliers. Here rents are alb
normally cheap. A couple can rent a
''logement'-a apartment of only
three rooms-for $85 a year. This will
give no cuisine, but tiny oil stove
will suffice for the breakfast coffee,
and you can go to the cafe for the
dinner, the one serious meal of the
day.
The prices of the Latin Quarter are
low. You can live on as small a sum
as SIS a month. This requires close
living, it is true, but it can be done,
and there is still enough left over to
pay for the cup of coffee and the mu-
sic of the cafe in the evening, and an
! occasional boat ride down the river.
The majority of people here live, all
, told, upon $50 a month.
Here comfortably furnished room
| rather near the stars, may be rented
| for the ridiculously small sum of 80
membered that this sum includes bed
| furnishings, the care and occasional
! sweeping of the room, and for this sum
you may find your shoes polished out
| side the door in the morning.
For the couple who lives thus, in
! single room, there is no choice but to
/ live out of restaurants, but this need
/ not be expensive. There are numbers
of cafes along the Latin Quarter bou-
| levards where the evening dinner costs,
with the walters pouboire, one franc,
/ twenty five centimeS Twenty five
cents). The dinner consists of soup,
/ horS d'oeuvre, entire, entremet, and
| dessert, with a pint bottle of red or
/ white wine There are a hundred and
/ one little winding streets running in
/ every direction from the two main
| boulevards, where a dejeuner-the Pa
/ risian breakfast-may be bought for
| the French equivalent of ten cents.
| These two meals suffice, for none think
/ of eating more than two real meals
| day in Paris One may buy cup Of
| cafe noir on the boulevard for the sum
/ of two cents.
If you start housekeeping and rent
| an apartment the first thing to think
of is furniture. Papering of walls and
painting of floors will be done free by
| the proprietor, If it is made condi-
| ton of rental. You can buy furniture
| on the instalIment plan, paying a
| small percentage of it's price each
month, or you can rent it.
A. RIERDON REED.