Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1920-06-15
ARTICLE XXXVI.

oxford, Eng, May %, 1920.
Anywhere in the world, life is hard
for those who must board. l don't
think anyone who has ever tried it
will disagree with me. l have board
ed in various ways, only thinly dis
guised, or the last eight years-in
college, in arm camps, and in Ok
ford. The last is undoubtedly the
worst. If ever l get back to America
and find place where my wife can
keep house, l shall never leave that
place. Do these sound like the raw
ing of a dyspectic? All right, let it
go at that.
There probably was once time in
college towns when there was some
choice of places in which to live.
But nowadays, in England as in
America, a college town is like the
games We used to play as children.
where there was always one less seat
than there were players. Once there
was some thin veil Of consideration
for the f cling of the poor boarder
("Lodger" they call him here)' but
now there is none. 1t is rather a
question of not offending the land
lady for fear she will turn you out
into the street.
The three requisites. as l see them
of a decent place in which to lodge"
are good cooking, good temper, and
reasonable pricees Never but once
have we found them all in the same
place, and that was in a remite cor
ner Of the Isle of Wight, where they
did us precious little good. Gu first
lodgings in Oxford taught us what the
requisites are, for they don't have
any Of them. The prices were high
the food was bad, and the temper of
the landlady and her family was both
high and bad Her husband was
rather pleasant. but of course, he was
worse off than we were.
So we moved. That was quite an
achievement in itself We had dis
civered that the high prices and the
bad food were not caused by the cost
of living. as we had supposed, but
were paying much ito handsome
profit. AS is proper at the outbreak
of war, we delivered an ultimatum,
which was not complied with. 1t
would have been difficult to dislodge
the enemy from it's own territory,
$50 we retreated. Now tits notorious
that in cases of hasty retreat an army
does not always find the country to
its liking. The landlady into whose
arms we retreated lives in a rickety
old house belonging to St. Johns Col
lege, which is undoubtedly the worst
landlord in the world, but we felt we
could hardly blame her for that
OF course we did not find all the
virtues summed up in her, either.
She could cook we'll enough, but she
wasn't very strong on dishwashing.
which. indeed, is not one of the COM
moner virtues in England. Although
her prices were reasonable, her tenn
per was exactly the reverse. We
seemed to get in all wrong with her
anyway. When l offered to carry a
heavy bucket Of coal up the steps for
her she found out that did not be-
long to the upper classes. and had
no respect for me afterwards. Be-
sides. she was looking for a single
gentleman who would take all his
meals in college Che doesn't EXIST.
Altogether, all parties were glad to
agree to part at the end Of the term.
Meanwhile, we had little time
to look about for another place. We
found that some other Americans
were leaving at the beginning of the
next term, and we're fairly we'll salts
fed with the place in which they were.
Poor folks, their standard wasn't
very high). For a month we nego-
tiated with their landlady. She was