Waterbury Democrat., 1902-03-13
BLooMSBURY's BOARDERs.

The London boarding house is the residential hotel of the poorer middle class. To live in a good hotel with any comfort man and wife with one child must have an income of from $ 800 to a1.10O a year. But the met ropolitan boarding houses caters for the great class living on from 3Os to G6 a week.
 The character of these houses differs largely according to their locality. The cheapest of them are in the shab- by genteel suburbs, and there are houses at Finsbury park and at Streatham where you can be taken ill and done for' for as little as Is shll- lings or a guinea a week. But they are uninteresting and their accommo- dation is of a distressingly meager character South Kensington, the grsat home of the cheaper priced boarding houses, brides itself on it's gentility. Here fiourishes the paying guest' South kensington is declared by many in the great army of board CTS to be the region of extras and of poor fare. The landladies there make a brave show with very little. They are artistic (saye the mark after the manner of ten years ago. The ribbon trimmed banjos, horribly paint ed plates, amateurishly enameled dairymaid stools and the like abound in their rooms. But the man with q healthy appetite and hearty ways will scarcely find South Kensington satis- flying.
 For sheer human interest Blooms bury comes first. From the Huston. road on the north to New Oxford street on the south, and from Totten- ham Court roaa, to Gray's Inn road, the boarding houses are multitudinous. In several streets nineteen houses out of twenty are boarding establishments, and they have almost wholly replaced the old type of landlady who took ln lodgers. Here and there specimen of the old Bloomsbury dame is still to be found, but she must be searched for. The clean Scandinavian and the methodical Dane have driven the EDickensian landlady off the field, and the bright German waiter has replaced the ''slavey."
 Guilford street is the favorite cen ter. They are numerous in Upper Bedford place, where Americans are specially to be found. There are many of a still better class around Bloomsbury Square. Some of the cheapest of all are in the neighbor- hood of Keppel street.
 There are houses where you can ob- tain board of fairly substantial char acter for guinea q week, or hus- band and wife together for 30 shil- lings, but they are crowded and not comfortable The rooms are small and split up; there is a heavy air of cooking peryading everything, and the whole aspect of affairs is somewhat hot, greasy and stuffy.
 Thirty shillings for men is, gener- ally speaking, the recognized mini mum rate, and 25 shillings for ladies. From these figures you can go up to what you please. There are several establishments which give practically all the comfort of good hotels at about half their rates In many cases successful boarding house man. agers extend their premises till they become considerable hotel proprie1100ls There are several prominent instances of this in Bloomsbury and South Ken sington, and one of the largest and most fashionable hotels ill London to- day was started by an ex-butler in this manner. He is now a country magistrate and a great land owner.