The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-03
4 COLLEGE BUY AND NEW YORK'S GRAF I Undergraduate Sees City With
 Little Cost SEES OPERA AND THEATRE Also Has a Cab Ride-Misses Little Else That Was Free and Spent
 In All $5.52 In Six
 Days.
SEES OPERA AND THEATRE

New York, May 2.-"working New York's Honest Graft" is the latest Joyous educational pastime discovered by the fertile mind of the college un- dergraduate. The plan which consists in enjoying everything free in the me tropolis and utilizing the queer quirks of living possible to the man short of cash, Is said to be a direct outcome of some of the sociological expeditions taken to New York by college profess sors. Some of the students on these serious trips, while studying penal and charitable institutions and learning how the "other half lives" saw how they themselves could live and see other phases of city life for very lit tie cash. As result, at the midyear holidays, many college men are drifting into New York with five or six dollars in their pockets with which to spend a week of delicious prowling among all sorts and conditions of people. And by using all the free possibilities of the town, they get for less than dol lar a day, a broader view of cosmopoli- tanism than most people can enjoy for an expenditure of five or six times that amount. Here is an account of what one undergraduate did in six days for $5.52, including all expenses
 Arrived in New York Monday after noon with just $6 and a return ticket in my pocket. Went to the Mills hotel on Thirty-sixth street, block fro.n the Great White Way and in the heart of the threatre district. Got room for 30 cents a night. Took a shower bath, dressed and went out for a stroll down Broadway. Saw the afternoon parade along the Rialto and in the lower Ao Washington square, sat for while on a bench studying the rich and the old houses to the north and watching the children from lower Fifth avenue play ing with their nurses, and the French and Italian children from the slums below getting the air.
 Slum kids appeared to be the happier. About o'clock, just when the cross on the Judson Memorial gleamed out above the southern part of the square, I made my way to the other Mills hotel, on Bleecker street. Read the papers in the reading room, and little before ' went to dinner. For 20 cents had choice of two soups, of three kinds of fish or three meats, bread and butter. pudding or pie and tea, coffee or milk. After dinner asked a man what was to be seen He said I had choice of hearing a famous lecturer nearby at Cooper Union or of going to the all-night court. I went to the lecture first and studied the crowd, largely socialists from the East Side, and then, about 10:30, drifted into the night court in old Jefferson market. In 90 min- utes saw some 10 cases settled, mostly women of the under world. It was as in- teresting as a play. Finally I took a car to the uptown Mills hotel.
 Tuesday morning. I breakfasted we'll at the hotel for 15 cents. Took a car down to lower Broadway, saw the finan- cial district. visited the gallery of the stock exchange, watched the curb mar ket and finally went down to the Aquar- ium and Castle Garden. Watched the water front crowd and the shipping, and then went into saloon on Water street, where, for cents, I got glass of beer, a plate of good meat stew and some crackers and cheese from the free lunch. Bought a penny banana from push cart for 1 cent, and then, with pass I had previously written for, took the boat to Ellis Island and spent the afternoon studying the immigrants and particularly the method of excluding undesirable cit izens and sending them back to Europe.
 "Got back at 4:30 and went through the Syrian quarter on Washington street Went into a Syrian restaurant and had some Turkish coffee for 10 cents; talked awhile with some of the Armenians. Walked up Broadway to Park Row and then up the Row to Five Points and Mulberry Bend park; watched the Italian women and children buying stuff from the sidewalk