The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-10-05
BACHELOR GIRL s Wall
SHE DOES NOT LIKE COOKING
HER MEALS

Career, Leaving a Lovely Home Be
hind Them - Girls Contemplating
Trying the Stage Should Ponder Well
Upon 1t
In a recent New York paper there
was a wall from a bachelor girl who
had thought it would be so interesting
to live alone in one room and cook her
meals in chafing dish. This baehe-
lor girl business is all a fake, says
she. Il thought when left home that
was going to get away from all the
trivial and sordid cares of the true
sphere and here I've gone and DELHI
erately saddled myself with the worst
of them. So far as I can see. there
isn't any difference between washing
dishes in a sink in your own kitchen
and wash room, except that the first
is a great deal easier and more conven-
lent. I'm through with being bach
elor girl. I'm going to sell my chatting
dish and steam coffee pot and look for
a good boarding house
Now there is one girl who tells the
truth about the girl bachelor business.
We have heard great deal of 1t in the
last ten years, and we have some Of us
envied those independent young wom-
en- who went to New York and lived on
cents a day while they studied art.
And we have heard great deal about
their high ideals and how they strug-
gled but we have not heard much
about the lonely old father and mother
somewhere in the interior who were
living on scraps so that some artistic
young person should have career. 1t
aver there is no real reason why
young woman should not choose her
own way as much as her brother, but
well, will there not come time when
she will be hurriedly sent for to leave
her career" for a day or two to go
and stand by the dead body of her ia
Their or mother. and terrible regret
steal over her? Would 1t not have
been rather a good career" to have
stayed at home and cheered the last
years of her parents? If she married
that would be different matter.
1t is all very well to be artistic and
want to do things, but if one has real
talent or genius and is in earnest, she
can get a hearing even though she
should temporarily reside in Podunk.
New York and Paris are full of the
broken lives and hearts of girls who
left home TO do the bachelor girl bust
ness and found, too late, their mis-
take. We hear of these things, but Of
the tragedies enacted in the, humble
homes they have deserted in pursuit of
art we hear very little.
Perhaps one in five hundred of these
girls makes a success, and it is of
this small per cent that we hear. OF
the four hundred and ninety-nine who
fall by the way there is small record
save an occasional .scare head" IN a
yellow journal Found Dead" or
''Took the Acid Route" And yet an
nually thousands of girls leave their
comfortable country homes for the
city deluded with the idea that they
can live for next to nothing and make
a place for themselves. The article
written by the girl referred to above
will do great deal of good If it con-
vinces even one girl that life in New
York is no cheaper, no easier, nor as
SAFE as at home. The girl says fur
Their:
1.-The commonest tradition of the
country-and of the VESTS that a
girl can live comfortably and artist
ically and at the same time cheaply in
New York, and oh, but there is a
going on all the time! A girl can live
comfortably and artistically here in
New York, but she can't do it cheaply.
She can live cheaply, but she can't
do it comfortably and artistically. You
pay higher rates for comfort and art
here than you do any place 1 know Of
If you have to live cheaply, you might
as well resign yourself to the particu-
lar sort of 'bohemianism' practiced by
the Macawbers and admit frankly that
it's poverty and not art"
And while upon this subject it may
not be bad idea to say a word about
the offer made by the manager of a
comic opera company coming here this
week, to listen to the voices and
measure the histrionic ability of girls
in st. Paul who may have a fancy for
going upon the stage. Now, one thing
is certain, that many girls will take
advantage of this offer without the
knowledge of their mothers. 1t would
be well for those who have an inclina-
ton for the stage to get rid of the
glamour and look at the thing plainly
1t means the hardest kind of work,
poor pay at first, to be herded at
common little hotels with all sorts of
other girls, and temptations without
end. 1t is perfectly possible to live
we'll and Virtuously upon the stage,
and doubtless many actresses do live
so, but it is not so easy; and if you
are not hail fellow we'll met with men
and women alike, you are regarded as
prude and your life made accordingly
HllSefdOle. 10 say the very least, the
life of a chorus girl is far from ele-
waiting. and the young woman who
leaves a good home for the stage, I'M
less she IS possessed of transcendent
genius, is guilty of the greatest folly.
There is a something that a girl loses
If she goes upon the stage even if she
behaves herself as she ought She
lives in a way behind the scenes, and
after awhile she regards life from that
point of view. She loses, her ideals
and gets so that she does not believe
anything is as it appears to be. If
you contemplate accepting the offer
made by the manager, don't is the adj
vice of