The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-22
IN THE BOARDING HOUSE.
Holly and MistIetOe, Together with
Carols and Company to Dinner,
Makes the Day n Festival Even in
the HumbIest HOsteIry.


Makes the Day "A Festival Even in
the HumbIest Hosiery.
New York. Dec. 20.-Christmas dinner
at the boarding house. like many other
-opics popular with humorists and car
toonists. is not always as black as if
is painted. Perhaps in no city of the
Union are there so many people who
are forced to call boarding houses home
as in New York. Exorbitant rents and
the eternal serVant-girl problem have
driven hundreds of families to this
mode of living.
Particularly in the northern part of
the city there are scores of quiet ho-
tells and boarding houses whose land
ladies do not object to children, but
actually boast that they offer special
inducements to large families. Here
one finds d family occupying an entire
floor, with sitting room and bath. and
having in the dining room a private
table on which their own fern dish
and silverware are used. Or perhaps
a group of clerks and stenographers
have dubbed together and made
nook of their own in the midst of
many boarders.
In such houses as this does a real
Christmas atmosphere prevail The
landlady forgets the inevitable rent
day, lost spoons, broken dishes and
even delinquent boarders. She takes
the initiative and the parlor first bris-
ties with holiday suggestions. The
piano lamp is decked with new and
particularly gorgeous shade in GRIM
son wreathed with holly. The pardi-
Mere for the rubber plant is swathed
in ruby crepe paper and tied with
satin ribbon. Down in the basement
dining room the long suffering man
f-all-work, usually a darkey, takes
genuine pleasure in draping the ever
green festoons. Later on he SNUG
giles in small trees for the families
with small children, makes SUPPORTS
and boxes for these same trees, and on
Christmas morning reaps his reward
I in the form of real cigars and shining
quarters.
All the servants from the cook to the
chambermaids are reasonably sure of
being remembered on that day and the
air in the servants quarters becomes
genial. The landlady, if popular with
her guests, comes in for her share of
presents and-trouble. For instance,
if Mrs. A., who has been her star
boarder for five years presents her
with an embroidered doyley and Mrs.
b, who has been with her four years,
selects a doyley done In renaissance
or Battenberg there arises the awful
question of giving the two gifts equal
prominence in the parlor.
At one large boarding house last
year the young women gathered in the
lower hall at day break and sang car
OILS, filling the house with that indefin-
able Christmas presence which carried
many a man and woman back to their
childhood and home" A delightful
old bachelor who has boarded eight
years at a Seventh avenue house, TOOK
pains TO discover the fad of each of
forty boarders, and on Christmas
morning they found suggestive little
trifies at their breakfast plates. An
other, with neither family nor imme-
diate kindred to entertain on the fes-
tival day, gave a jolly dinner party
TO six clerks from the store where he
was employed.
In a dining room where individual
tables are used there is much rivalry