The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-29
EVENINGS IN LOBSTERIA

From the New York Sun.
 ES not our friend building quite too high
 a structure of theory upon certain ob-
 vious facts of common but probably unconscious snobbery and extrava gance in this town?
 "To the Editor of the sun-sir Is it the rich who are responsible for the high cost of living? Nol The rich are nearly all ways rich It is the poor, or just the sal ary making man who is responsible. He tries to emulate the rich. How foolish how absurd, how often in the end disas- trous. The theatres, the lobster palaces, are not making their money out of the rich; it comes out of the middleman. That's sol Look about you next time you are at a theatre or in a high priced res- taurant Study the faces, the dress, the manners of the men and women about you. How many give the evidences Of be- ing to the manner born?'
 These middemen and their associates will stint themselves, go a whole week living on the plainest kind of food, paying the smallest rent for their back parlors, and then some night will deck themselves in their gladdest clothes (often not paid for), shove their hard earned 'wad' in their pockets and sally forth to. show the ! 100 they are in it. Certainly, they are good spenders. The next morning they may have the price of their car fares 10. business.
 ''How such people manage to live, keep up appearances from year to year, is a mystery Some manage, many fail They pass out of sight and nobody cares. Tip a waiter for 90 per cent when 10 per cent is enough and note his smile and welcome the next time you appear Tip him for 10 per cent: he doesn't see you when you drop in again.
 There it all is in nut shell, from the proprietor down to the waiter. But wifi this middlenan ever learn his little lesson? No. he will keep up appearances so lons as he has credit: when that is done he is gone also, and he never will be missed What is the remedy? What is the cure? Let the sensible middleman, before it is too late, realize his false place in so- ciety' and get out of town for home in the country. F. $. G. New York, November 21'
 Neither the rich nor the poor are re- sponsible; not even the tariff that fell from heaven and is as high; and the poor Lobsterians girded at by this critic, how few they are compared with the great invisible, saving classes Indeed, is not
 poor Lobsteria saving? If a man and woman hoard their pennies through the
 week, living meagerly on delicatessen, in order to treat themselves to loud and triumphant Saturday night of evening clothes, theatres. dinner, supper, even
 "wine," ought we to blame them too se- verely? They spend, but they spare. They
 sacrifice necessaries to Iuxuries. They are poets, artists; they have a passion
 for representation; they love warmth, splendor, gaudiness, if.you will; they must have their little hour of strut and rave The Germans. the French, the Italians,
 order these things better and have little of that folie des grandeuTs which is not uncommon among Americans.
 ] Our friend forgets the pliers up of saw | ings bank accounts. the owners of shares in building and loan associations the millions to whom the insurance companies are providence. hated, perhaps, but they
 certainly do make us work and save; the
 modest homes innumerable where the passion for independence and the habit of economy prevail.
 1 And let us not be altogether dupes of 1 appearances Ayarice and frugality are punished together in the same circle of Dante's Hell; they often go together; the sporadic bottle of champagne is more than paid for by months of water. Let us re- member that nobody else gives away so much money as the Americans. If they l tip the waiter too much it may be because
 they seldom have to tip him and they are 1 a little afraid of him. If they spend too
 Uuch of an evening in Lobsteria, who