The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 10, 1897, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1897. MA WELL-TO-DO BACHELOR’S ROOM iple of rooms to | is if dey will IN©OLD MONTGOMERY BLOCK. | comfort. I glanced I saw all kinds of furnishing. Some were only bare rooms where boxes and barrels did duty for household uten-| sils and others were fitted up with the greatest taste, almost bordering on ele- gance. But somehow they all breathed of one thing—economy. All of the young men on whom I called were engaged in some occupation when they answered “Come in” or “Enter’’ in response to my knock. A number of them were reading, | and I saw many good books laid open for | pernsal. The first of the bachelors’ quarters into which I was given a peep was in the Win- ters block, and there I did not get a elimpse of the bachelor. “I'il show you one of the young gentle- men’s rooms, if you like,” the janitor, George, said, when he saw I was inter- ested. *He ain’t home just now, but I don’t suppose he’ll care.’” | Up three flights of stairs we went and | then down a long ball. “Disis one ob de nicest rooms inde buildin’,” said George, proudly, as he in- serted a key in the lock and pushed the door open. And it really was a nice room, or rooms, rather, for there were two of them. One | was the kitchen and the other a sorto! lounging-room and sleeping apartment. At a glancs they would give the im- pression of being in the care of a most perfect housewife. Everything was spick and span clean. The kitchen stove was | blacked to perfection, and the pots and | pans fairly shone with the polishings they had had. The oilcioth on the foor | was as clean and smooth as scrubbing and | rubbing could make it. In a corner of the room was a cupboard | filled with pretty dishes and glasses, and back in a dark nook 1 caught sight of | some bottles of rare old wine. ery- | thing that this young man bought was of the best. | The lounging-room was the picture of | A few books, the latest maga- | zinesand a box of tobacco and some pipes | occupied a place on the table. Here also | was an account-book wide open, so that I | could not help reading a few items. One | entry on the cash side of the book was: “Month’s wages, $45.” want dem for oflice uit you. Did yo use or bachelor q ters? I asked. | all de rooms in dis | bachelors. Young | Does all dere an’ mendin’.” | arly nted to hovu How long has that been going on?”’ I | ar or two. Up todat | rent rooms nohow. | Now we's nearly | ed up wid All dese oder buildin’s roun de same wa Never seen so m lors in my life. And many bache! George, the janitor of the Winters block, on rs in my li | itturned out that I never saw so l Mont- | | gomery street, near Ciay, was my in- formant in regard to the abundance of ! bachelors in that neighborhond. I de- | to investigate, and after a couple | ng stairs in ail sorts of | ings on the edge of the Latin Quar- | ter found more b: elors than I cuuMJ‘ count. I must have seen over a hundred and di d ere are many time that numper occupying rooms in the vicinity. | The result of my investigations brings | to light a most interesting sociological fact—it showing completely that if the | w woman can get along without a mas- e helpmate the ine portion of | humanity can get along without feminine ce. | Here is also an interesting point. While the women of to-day are taking more and | e to club life the men are taking to | king homes for themselves. Lonely ces, it is true, but still homes in one | e of the word and much more com- | fortable than any boarding-house could be. In their lonely little rooms these bach- are as independent as they can wish. | ey can and go as they please, , economize down to the this increase in the number of | ling, and surely there | for it. s m rnia Franciscc e ditions and consider themselves wise to be able to keep house and avoid board bills. Five years ago| In my conversation with most of these y men *‘batching | men one fact came prominently forward— as there are right now | ‘I cannot afford to marry.” Nine out of And furthermore these ten of the bachelors with whom I con- pleased with their con- 1 versed were men of more than average in- well i POOR BACHELOR’S ROOM 1 telligence, while a few might be classed as men of brains. All of them had evi- dentiy given much thought to the sub- | showed me around the rooms. IN BUILDING ON CLAY STREET. | l | L “Now dis young man takes care of dis place all by himself,” George said, as he | “He gets | ject of keeping house before attempting | up about ha'-pas’ 6 ebery mornin’ and | it, and, since retting into it, were satisfied | makes bis own breakias’, washes de dishes | for the electric company and take any- | that they had bettered their condition. and goesto work at 8. He always comes | ines. | Grub costs what I can pay. N MUST MEND HIS CLOTHES AND COOK HIS MEALS at night he gits his dinner. He don’t go out verv much evenin’s, but reads til ’bout 9and goes 1o bed. Dese rooms cost him $9 a month.” As I looked about the roomsI saw a couple of suits of good clothes and several pairs of shoes. Altogether this young man was very comfortably fixed, and all on $45a month; and most likely he was saving some of this. Thex I calculated to see if he could get ‘he same amount of comfort in any other way for the same woney, and found that he couldn’t begin to. Whereat I suppose he must be con- sidered to be a wise young man. But the next bacuelor’s rooms that I went into wasin the strangest contrast. Up under the eaves of an old building on Montgomery and Jackson streets I found him among several others in the same buiiding. In a way the room was com- fortable, for the sun shone in and made it warm and gave an air of life it noi cheer- tuluess, to the dreary-looking surround- There was not a stick of what might be called furniiure in this room. Tne bed was a mattress spread on the | tloor, a large dry-goods box answered for | atable and a small one for a washstand. A couple of butter-tubs answered for chairs. When I entered the room in response to his “‘Enter” he was seated on one of the butter-tubs broiling a piece of meat over a small fire burning in the grate. For a proiler he used a piece of wire. “Oh,” he said, in tones of surprise, “I thought you were the young fellow next door. Sit down.” I took the proffered tuband while he | coutinued his broiling asked him why he was batching it. “Because I would starve if I tried to live any other way,” was his answer. “Is this way so cheap?” I asked. “Indeed it is,”” he answered. ot one quarter of what it would cost me if I tried to board or live in restaurants. In fact L couldn’t afford to live that way as things are. I tried 1o for a long time. and 1 often went without food and walked the streets at nignt for want of a place to sleep.”” “But why are things so bad with you?”’ I asked, as I noticed that he was a bricht- looking fellow and very cheerful in spite of his hard lot. *God knows,” he answered. ‘‘And sometimes I wonder if they will ever change. They were not always this way, though. Iam an electrician by trade and five years ago was making $130 a month. The business is knocked out though now. First my wages were cut down little by little until I only arew §60. Then I was | discharged because the company wanted to save money. ‘At this time I was not dead broke so managed to get along for several months | until I gota job looking after a dynamo. That paid me $50 a month. Itdidn’t last long though. The company concluded that the engineer could do my work and I was discharged. “Tnen my troubles began and I scarcely know how I lived through them until I struck this place. Now I am compara- tively comfortable, even if Iam awfully poor. How much do you think it costs me a month to live here?” “About §25,” 1 answered, purposely put- ting the estimate low.” “Twenty-five dollars, nothing,” he said laughing. *“I just wish T did have $25 a montn. Why sir, I live here for $6 a month and ¢ne month I did live for $5. Perhaps you don’t believe me.” *Of course I believe you, but I would like to know how you do it.” “Well,” he answered, “in the first place. this room only costs me $2 a month. See this piece of meat. there cost me five cents and will last me three dav-. Corn meal, flour and pota- toes are cheap. So is rice and cotton-seed oil. Vegetables and fruit I do without un- iess I can pick them up on the wharves. That is where I get all my wood and coal. I onity have coffee once in a while and a pound of the 15-cent kind will last me a’ month. Altogether, 1 don’t think ‘my grub costs me over $2. The other $2 of my | $6 I spend for clothes, soap and things to | cook in."” “How do yvou get the money you do have?” I asked. ©Ob, in different ways. I do odd jobs thing 1 canget. Some montbs 1 make | Among the dozens of rooms into which | home at noon an’ gits his own lunch, an’ | $15 or §20, but other months I don’t make ' First 1| got into debt; then my credit gave out | Well, it and that raw piece over | a bean. During a certain four months last winter I made only $3 and if I hadn’t | saved I should have starved. I have just been out in the country picking fruit. Was gone three months and came back | with §30. That may have to lsst me all winter. It's pretiy tough, but it aint near as bad as going without grubor a getting into debt.”” “Don’t you ever expéctto marry and have a home of your own?' I asked. “No, those things are not for me. I have been this way for over two years and don’t ever expect to get up again. I am willing to do any kind of work that I can | met, but as I can’t getit I suppose there must be something wrong with me.” In the old buildings in the vicinity of | Jackson and Montgomery streets I saw | about a dozen strong healthy young men living just as this one was; all had about the same story to tell and seemed com- = | i Preparing His Dinner. | paratively comfortable and bapvy. A few | earned more than $6 a month, but not | much. The highest that any of these young men earned was $10. |” Down near Clay street I found a more | esthetic 1ot of bachelors, but all young | men, who claimed to earn about $30 a | month. They were certainly very com- | | fortable, even if they did cook their own | | meals. | | One of these young fellows was cooking | a chicken when I entered his room. His | | table was spread with spotless linen and | shining glass. He was a young man of | refinement and culture and evidently | | fond of the good things of life. | “I work thres days a week for a whole- | sale house answering letters,” he told me | | when I asked him how he managed to get along so nicely. *‘Easy work, but rot enough of i Have been trying to get | | another job for three years, but can't, | { somehow. I am pretty glad of the job I| | have. Why don’t I marry? Ob, pslmwl} | Where would I be with a family on §30 a | month. ! able.” | Inarcom facing the south in the old | | Montgomery block I found a young man | of etegant refinement who was **batching it”” for economy’s sake. He did his cook- | ing in a chafing dish and served hisown | meals on Haviland china. Pretty rugs | covered the tloor and pictures covered | the walls. His bed was a couch ‘nicaly | ldrnped. From the ceiling hung Turkish | As it is I am pretty comfort- lanterns and other ornaments. Alio- | gether his 100m was as pretty a nook as | one would care to enter. He was seatea in the sunshine that poured tbrough the windows when I en- tered the room. In his hand was a copy oi Byron and he was smoking a Turkish cigatette that filled the room with a lan- guorous fragrance.? | “Sitdown,” he said, pointing to a small Chinese chair of some dark wood. | “Pretty comfortable,” I ventured. “Yes, a fellow can be if he makes good | | | | | 1 use of his money and don’t give it all to | restaurant and boarding-house keepers.” “But it must cost you considerable to | live here,” Isaid. “Nothing like what it would cost me to board. A room as nice as this in a board- ing-house and the same things that I bave to eat would cost me $100 a month. As it is it only costs me about $35, and I live mighty well. I do my own cooking and save the money 1 would pay to some greedy boarding-house keeper. Boarding is awful tough. The trouble is these women expect to make encugh money off of three or four boarders to support a family.” “But why don’t you marry and get a home of your own?” I zsked. “How can I do that when I only make $50 a month? Two of us would starve to deatk on that. I used to get $150 a month afew years ago and intended to marry, but a woman took my job for less money. Now Ido a certain amount of work for a lawyer and he gives me $350 for it. Times ain’ulike they used to be and I have to batch it in order to live decently.”” In an old building down on Battery street, near Pacitic. 1 found two men about 30 years of age each living in one room, for which they paid $3 a month They were not particularly intelligent, as the untidiness of their place of habitation showed. But they were former office men unable to get work and told the same old story of not being able to marry. Lnoticed among the bachelors I met that the majority of them had at one time been employed in offices and most of them complained that their positions had been taken by women. The yoang eiectrician was almost the only exception. I also met a number of students who were simply batching it to save money so as to get an education. They, however, were of no sociological importance, as the chances are they will leave their present homes as soon as they leave school. The important aspect of the bachelor life is that men are constantly being drawn into it. in many of the buildings I entered the janitors told me that bachelors had rooms there, but were out at work ana would not be home uutil evening, *Ivs cheaper for them to live this way than it would be to live in boarding-houses,” said one of these janitors. ‘‘At first some of them don’t like the idea of cooking and washing dishes, but tiey soon catch on and wouldn’t go back to the old way for anything.” And yet people wonder why boarding- houses are not prosperous and restaurants are failing all over town. WILL SPARKS. AY VOKES TELLS OF TOURING IN TEXAS T “There’s the young lady you came to see,’”” said my guide as we looked over the lelap or nod of approval, which | heads of tae laughing people to the well- serformer like a shower-bath, | lighted stage, “‘just going out there,”’ he quently great was my surprise | said, hurriedly. *See?” v hearing shouts of laughteras| And I canght a glimpse of two braids of I hair and two twisted teet disappearing be- e Baldwin audiences seldom show | iation by more than a digni- MAY VOKES IN HER LATEST MAKE-UP, ! hind the scenes. | Then I consulted my programme and discovered the name of Miss May Vokes | as a German maid, and followed my guide | as he ied me also *‘behind the scenes’ and | left me to my fate and an improvised | s eat. *Itisn’tas much fun as you think,” said Miss Vokes, rushing up to me wich braids a-bobbing and breath well-nigh gone, I looked down serenely from my perch | on the top of a pile of rugs at the side of | the Baldwin siage, and loitily questioned “What?” “Why,” shs said, ‘“‘traveling through Texas with your own company.”’ “Oh,” 1 exclaimed, looking at the stage- setting. She laughed. “This isn’t either run- ning in one enirance and out another ana looking like a fright. It wouldn’t trouble me so much if I could look differently off | the stage, because then people would say, | “Why, what a shame for her to make up so | ridiculously, but—'’* and she shrugged her snoulders, and the next moment the audience was laughing at her antics. She came back presently and climbed up on the rugs beside me and folded her hands, *It was this way in Texas—that's what vou want, isn’t it?”" She looked question- ingly into my eyes. I nodded and laughed, rudely I am | a'raid, but she did look so absurd in this | queer Duich zown and incongruous make- up which she uses in this play. “Awn’t I funny?” she said, jomning in the laugh—*“the funniest thing that ever happened ? But wait till you see my dog.” And while waiting she went on of Texas. “I’s a country devoid of everything but men who are dodging the authorities. I guess Texarkana numbers among its in- habitants men who have committed every crime on the calendar. They might build a prison wall around it and its inhabitants and they wouldn’'t go amiss, and the people inside would fight until there was nothing left but pieces. “I was in the Conservatory in Boston retting ready for the stage. They saia it woulid take five years ior me to go through the regular route up the ladder of fame. even to cet a passablv good engagement. That was too siow for me, so I conceived tne brilliant vplan of taking out my own company. And we were given the Texas route. Itwasn’t long, my dear,” she said, | looking impressively at me, “but it was quite satisfactory—that four weeks seemed | a year. “It was toward the end of our trip that | we arrived at Taylor. Just imagine get- | ting out of a train early in the morning, | tirel and dusty, and walking to the hotel along a sort of a street, with a crowd of wildly assorted men at your heels. Not mere lunatics, you know, but men to whom a life—yours or that of anyv one else—isn’t worth the bit of shot or powder it takes to deprive vou of it, and who | would as lief rob their next neighbors as eat their breakfast. Thney regarded us as freaks, and made remarks upon the whole eleven in general and in particular in such an alarmingly frank way that my nair didn’t l.y down again until we got | within the shelter of the hotel. “The hotel!” She laaghed a little, but 1 fancied the memory of it was not the brichtest thing that she coula think of. *““Why, there wasn’t a carpe: nor a curtain nor anything else, either under the head of a necessity or luxury. There was plenty of dirt, though. The proprietor coolly informed me that the lady wouid attend to making the bed in my room when she got up; so I waited around un- til she came—a big black negro woman, and as savage as you can believe. [ in duced her (0 hang a piece of cloth over the window and make the bed, whicu she did very reluctantly. “Did 1go to sleep? Not a bit of it. The beds were already tenanted, so I went for a walk until evening. *“I'he town was the center of a large cat- tle-raising district, and you ought to have seen the crowd that gathered around the saloon and hotel in the evening. They were the roughest-looking characters 1 have ever seen, and things were the live- liest I bave ever known.'” . Just then the little actress was called away, and Ileaned forward on the pile of rugs and thought of what she had told me. Of the strange country, with its wildness and vastness, and the etrange human beings, with a weird sort of bravery to whom fear is an unknown thing. Desper- ate, of course, they are—it isonly fear that makes men cautious—not that fear isa bad thing always, to the contrary, and of what she must have felt to face the audience with the knowledge of their atti- tule toward the actors and the outside world full upon her. She came back and stood while she talked. “We played a plece that night that was A TYPICAL PLACE OF strictly sentimental and I trembled, but to our surprise the love passages won storms of appiause, especially from the gallery. After the second act a gentle- man, who had lingered too long at the bar, came in bearing a huge cabbage, which he had obtained especially for me. He was persuaded to send it to the stage entrance instead ot over the footlights, and straightway fell asleep, much to my delight. Thero were two fights ouly, after that—it was a very mild night—they said people were quite peaceable; but if they called that peace I don’t care to see war. As Istood on the stage and looked across that surging crowd of humanity, and heard the lond voices, and saw the flash of pis- tols—for, of course, the play had to wait until they had finished—the most of the audience had their backs to us, and when the combatants cot ready to listen they turned #nd ordered us to go ahead. *'We did, with one more such interrup- tion. Afier ine curtain went down we stood and looked at excn other and lis- tened to the voices of the men as they passe ! out; some were angry, some were sneering, and all were hals-filled with the villainous stuff they sell for whisky down there, Then we togk a yianding AMUSEMENT IN TEXAS. without one dissension, decided to leave town that night instead of the next morn- i | ing, and we were glad to escape with our | | lives. | *“We got along pretty well until we | reached Texarkana. That was our last | stop in the State. It is on the border line | between Texas and Arkansas, and bears | the reputation of being the resort of the | worst kind of despersdoes from both | States. “Down there everything which is used | for theatrical purposes is called &n ‘opera- bouse,” whether it be a barn or a church fallen from grace. The ‘opera-house’ at Texark:na was as near a barn as you can imagine, and a decidedly battered barn at tbat. The litle box-like rooms which had been intended for dressing-rooms were so small that we had to leave our trunks cutside, and so low down that it | was only by the most careful arrangement of posters that we could secure any pri- | vacy at all. “The play went off comparatively well, with the usual demonstrations and eriti- cisms and frank remarks from the audi- ence,which felt that i1t had paid its money and consequently owned the whole show 88 19 aciora tgtoma i, body and soul. | *“We closed down and I was walking home with a lady and gentleman from the company as escort. There were two men some little distance ahead of us when we first started out, but I noticed that they were walking somewhat slowly, and when we had got within a short distance be- hind tiem they stopped short and faced each other. *‘My companions stopped 2iso, but from some motive or other I hurried on. It was cloudy, but it must have been the time of the moon, for there was & pe- culiar light all about us, which enablea me to see quite plainly the faces of the two men as they cursed each other back and forth in their mad, balf-drunken quarrel. I oniy remember seeing them away forward and then takea step or two back from each other, and there was the flash of a pistol and a sharp report, and then I was seized by mv two companions and dragged away and stumbled up the stairs to my room. “I threw myself on the bed at first, and then I remembered and got up and pulled aside the miserable little cloth that cov- ered the window and looked out. There was absolute silence without. The clouds were black and heavy, and here, as though crouching from discovery, a few black fiz- | ures paseed.” Miss Vokes paused and looked at me and we looked at each other and sighed. Then she pulled the queer little braids at one side of her head and, with an odd twinkle in her eyes, said: ““Wait; now I'll get the dog.” And she aid. ‘What a poor, patient, sick little yeliow dog it was, with its head leaning against her heart and its sad eyes looking apoio- getically at me. *IU's the homeliest thinz that lived,” she said, *‘but I like ir.” Then she turned to follow her cue. “By the way,”’ she said, *'I forgot to fin- ish. Oneof the men was killed and the other one had two severe bullet wounds,” “We don’t know half what is going on in this world,” I said. She looked back as she made her way toward the center entrance. *We're happier if we don’t,” she said. I shuddered at the thoughts of what I bad heard and the expressions on her face, and I passed through the wings on ever | my way to the door. And while I shuddered the audience screamed with mirth at the girl, and the dog and a satchel and umbrella. And when the world laughs you might as well laugh with it. It saves wrin- kles, MURIEL BAILY.