The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-08

WinuoW-cienner, man. huokS the ends of the thick leather belt faafen- ed about his waist to stout Iron sta pies driven in the outside window casing. and. planting his feet on the sill. nonchalantly. though swiftly. for he has scores of windows to clean. shines the plateglass as If he were standing upon terra firma instead of a marrow strip of wood a hundred feet or more up In the arr.
 There's a deal of cleaning to be done. but It's done In a jiffy-per- haps in ten. perhaps fifteen or twen- ty minutes, according to. the size of the office. A squad of cleaners. we'll trained and disciplined. can put in apple pie order in about fifteen min- utes a much filtered office. with floor surface equal to that of the average seven-story house. and think nothing of n
 Cleaned by Piecemeai.
 Tn this fashion the janttors corps of cleaners snatch chances to work rom s till [ o'clock. Then they quit, necause good cleaning cannot be done by electric light. and resume where they left off at o'clock the next morning, working in a mad whirl of dust and debris for three hours. when the advance guard of tenants sends ihem scurrying. but not before every office has been made fresh and clean for the day's work.
 In this snort space of five hours they do a great deal more than put the offices shipshape. The corridors are cleaned. and to clean corridor In skyscraper Is no small undertaf. ing. Also. the smirs are rubbed down. generally with kerosene. Ten flights. twenty, thirty-no matter how many all are polished. Also. the elevat- ors and tho shaft are looked after: a man. perched upon the roof of cage. dusting the shaft as the eievat- or Is gradually lowered from the top story by a runner. And everywhere outside the offices. as we'll as inside. ever square inch of woodwork. the walls and ceilings are rid of the accumulation of a days dirt and grime.
 The Jnnitor's Force. To do all this work, the janitor em. ploys a seemingly ridiculously small force. A twelve or fourteen story building Is cleaned usually by a dog en women and half as many porters- generic title for men who mop Floors and stairs, wash windows and brush walls and ceilings. Each succeeding story makes another woman necessa- tWu StOTttS, dHOtubT pOTltTs so that building twenty-five stories in height employs, for strictly clean Ing purposes. thirty-seven persons at the outside Three less than two- score to upt 1 norder the equivalent of 125 dwellings, which. when cleaned, take up full working days time of t25 housewives and nearly as many servants-2.5o0 hours against the ls5 spent In brushing up a twenty-five story "scraper."
 The cleaning squad constitutes. of course, the major portion of the sky scraper superintendents force. but his responsibilities do not end by any means when he has cleaned the buiid. Ing. The entire physical well being of the immense pile Is delegated tC him and is his ceaseless care during his waking and working hours Hence. he directs one or more electricians. from two to five painters. carpenter a. plumber; and has on his pny roll e watchman. chief engineer. three to four assistant engineers. the same number of firemen, and from six to fifteen elevator runners and a starter.
 Keeps Track of Everything.
 Do the electric fixtures in 1.O15 need repair? The superintendent makes a note of it. and sends the electrician
 
 in 2.407. Or a new tenant has moved In. Note: Wants the partition changed Send carpenter to s3s.'" Or he observes the paint is wearing off on the buildings exterior. and the iron work of the stairway needs re- silvering. Straightway the "scraper" painter is set to work on the Iron work. while a half dozen men are en- gagged to daub hundreds of dollars worth of paint upon the great walls the while they dangle high in the air on a swaying scaffold. The superin- tendants tasks are as varied as the ants.
 To keep a skyscraper in first class condition requires an outlay of mon- ey that would have been considere a big fortune In the eighteenth cen- tury. The help Tn a certain twenty. five story building in New York re. ceives in wages $3.600 a month, or $43.200 a year: an engineer gets $S5 a month; a fireman, $60; the electrician, SIS: scrubwoman. SIS; a porter, $40: an elevator runner $45. and so on. On this same skyscraper $76 worth of cleaning apparatus Is worn out every thirty days--broom, dusters. cloths. mops. ddsters. Hundreds of gallons of paint at $1.75. are swallowed up by woodwork. brick walls and iron work; and not one of the least ex- penses Is that of coal. the monthly bill running all the way from s1,00c to Sl.500.
 It's no easy matter to be a house. cleaner on a gigantic scale and physi- cal manager of a skyscraper both In one. Let the good housewife reflect on the skyscraper superlnteHdent's lot et he ~te he at An of cleaning day. Then, perhaps she will not think her lot Is cast In such hard places ofter all.