The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-19
CONCERNING HOUSEHOLDS.
A Method of Summer PIeasuring That
Is Becoming Popular.
ork Commercial Advertiser.

New York Commercial Advertiser.
Few realize to what extent houseboat-
ing has been carried in the West. There
is hardly a lake. or river on which at least
one is to be. found, especially along the
Mississippi and its tributaries. A good
example is the Idler, on which Lafayette
Lamb, of Clinton, Ia, spends several
months each year with his family and
friends. 1t is over lie feet long and twenty
wide, and has saloon Okla feet, with four
teen windows and double door. State
rooms with marble basins and running
water, spacious silver, china and linen
closets, Oriental rugs and hangings, and
a canvas-covered upper deck eighty feet
long, are among the things which make
the Idler agreeable residence. There is
small boiler on board, which drives the
altering pump and works the electric light
and steam heating plants, but the motive
power is in the Wanderer, stern wheel
steamer built especially for the purpose.
The Wanderers bow is always at the
Idlers stern, ready to push her wherever
she wants to 60 There are plenty of house.
boats anchored all the time in San Fran
cisco bay, and the business men of st.
Louis are especially fond of having house
boat in the middle of the big river, where
they can go nightly to escape the heat and
mosquitoes of their town.
Boats of the variety described cost forty
fifty, sixty. seventy-five thousand dollars.
But inspired with the desire for a summer
cottage on the water within reach of the
elevated or surface cars of New York.
many people have tried houseboat life oil
the English plan. Every summer sees a
cala 0f hoo
and another at Gravesend, and there is al
ways third and larger one in the Shrews-
bury. That at Sheepshead is reached by
the Ocean avenue surface cars, with quite
walk at the terminus, while the one at
Gravesend is approached by the Il" and
several surface lines. At the latter place,
also, there are hotels handy where one
can get an occasional meal, consideration
in houseboat life, wherein the women of the
family must do all the work; for no self
respecting servant will stay on house
boat, unless he be Jap or a Chinaman,
at $40 or SIS a week.
The boats in these colonies are all with
out motive power. Wonderful tales have
been told of houseboats built up on old
scows, at a cost of 500; but no one ever
acquired a houseboat IN which he was will
ing TO trust himself over night on the water
without paying 500 up before it was
There are elements of humor In sum-
mering in houseboat colony. The man
his wife upon the bay may not find them
when he gets home at night The boat
may have broken from its mooring and
gone wandering away, driving before the
wind. One such boat started straight for
Europe one day, with a weeping wife and
daughter on board, and the distracted hus-
band and father had all the tugs on the
coast chasing il before the runaway
caught. Again the houseboat, possessed of
seven evil spirits, may break away in the
night and go humping around the colony.
1v inc ~ rrIf re oh
the sides of every other boat therein. Ii
is said by those who have had personal ex-
perience of such an incident that one house.
boat seems to become a million on such
an occasion. 1t is able to hit every other
boat in the colony simultaneously. and the
entire houseboat population is awake and
afoot, wandering about its habtations In
wild CONSERVATION, momentarily expecting
to be stove in.
Then perhaps the man gets caught aboard
in storm some morning, when he doesn't
dare to put off to land in a rowboat. and
perhaps he is kept prisoner for a day or
two with the pleasing sensation that they
office under the impression that he has
aosconded. Or perhaps he may be unable
TO row out when he comes down from
at one OF the shore hotels, with his wife
imprisoned alone on houseboat on the
raging main. And If they should happen
to be thus imprisoned on board they would,
of course, have to live on canned goods as
they could not go ashore for supplies. No
deliveryman is brave enough to breast the
foaming pillows TO bring them a fresh
steak Moreover. they would probably have
to eat pork and beans or French peas
straight out of the can, as IL isn't safe 10
have a fire in the stove when the boat is
rolling around enough to overturn a stove
at any minute, and you can't have the
stove fastened down, for 1t must be ready
to pick up and throw overheard In min
ute, in case anything does catch afre.
HOUSEKEEPING after the English fashion In
New York waters possesses elements of the
picturesque and the unexpected which lott
erers on the PLACID reaches of the Thames
can never hope 10 enjoy. But these very
elements recommend IL to the American
mind. which breads nothing much as
monotony.