The Washington herald., 1922-03-10
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.DaY By Day
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NEW YORK. March 9.-Thoughts
while strolling around New York:
Little Italy at sunset. A drifting
hotsam of dark faces and flashing
eyes. Hooded women with suck
ling babes in doorways. Dreaming.
perhaps. Of Venetian canals of blue
and Florentine hills of green. Poly
chrome pastry. Huge circlet ear
rings. And old men with Punch
faces and stubble boards.
Shy olive-skinned maidens with
full red lips. Young beaux with
mountainous-toed shoes, the tops
vari-colored and bright. Ice cream
vendors crying their wares in per-
sistent monotone. The sickly
sweet ordor of cheap perfume.
Mustachios fierce and glistening.
And a din Of rasping monographs
playing Caruso songs.
Sordid clothes covering bruised
hearts. The children recklessly
brave death before oncoming autos
shrill shouts. All the crowds pause
longinly before the cheap jewel
shops. Seeking happiness and find-
ing dislllusion. Wonder II any >of
these: scowling fellows carry stilet-
tos. o, well! I was going up town
anyway.
Six minutes from the drab to the
gay. Lower Fifth avenue. There's
Kathleen Norris. the novelist. A
few old homes with brass knockers,
vestiges of Manhattan in the sos.
Peopled by venerable women who
ride every afternoon in shabby
landaus to Central Park. A cafe
terra where the famous Holland
House dining-room used to be.
My thirty-eighth birthday. And
the only gift got was a back
scratcher. Age has its laugh, but
youth has it's life. But I'd hate to
be 20 again. Middle-aged women
in flapper garb. One of the Froh-
mans. I don't know which. Candy
shops now have orchestras. Next
well have the soda fountain cab
aret.
Robert Henri. the artist. New
comes stage with p scat on top
the stroll ends here.
Employment agencies do not have
servant girls" in New York. II
one applies for servant girl the
attendant Corrects them. I'VE have
only domestics"-it is stated. One
attendant told me that it was a bit
Of psychology to rebuke the pros
pective employer for calling en-
ployes servants. 'They treat them
better il il is impressed upon them
that they arc domestics," she said.
The barber shops up around CO.
lubia University have as many wo-
men customers as men. The girls
patronize the shops to have their
hair bobbed and. whisper it softly,
they read the Police Gazette while
waiting their turn. And just a few
puff at cigarettes. Somehow the
sight is remindful of the East Side
parent, a push-cart peddler. who
wrote to a college inquiring II It
would cost anything extra if his
son was taught how to write a fair
hand and spell properly-as we'll as
how to row a boat.
The hardest working women in
Manhattan are the chambermaids
in the big hotels. They work eight
hours a day. seven days a week and
six hours at night every third day
for $25 a month. room and board
They must clean sixteen rooms and
sixteen baths daily. In the more
exclusive hotels the maids are from
England or Ireland. The system
of living in" makes it almost i'm
possible to make friendships out
side of the hotel and as they are
not permitted to receive callers
they have no social life whatever
However, many of them receive big
tips and most Of them are thrifty.
Each one has the dream OF RETURN
ing to her native land some day
and buying a home. The greatest
hardship. II Is said. is silently to
stand for the improper proposals
of brash patrons. which may not
be reported to the management on
the fixed New York hotel theory
that "the guest is always right
OF course. unless he fails to pay his