^OR the eleventh time in one morning
"H tne gifl who solicited furnlshed room
advcrtising for a New York newspaper
wrcte on Q blank slip something like
this:
TOZY fronl room. near bath: southern ?xpo?um; hot
x\at*r. stpani, rioctficlty; xentlemen only."
In the regular course of the week's work she
had added the last two words to at least fifty
out of every sixty pieees of copy. She had
climbed daily, up and down, an average of at
least 296 fllghta of stairs. She had interviewed
lar.dladies of every environment, from Bank
Street to Gramcrcy Park, behind the brown
stone fronts of the upper Seventies and the
gray stone fronts of Riverside Drive, and on
the prairies of tho Bronx.
She repeated these experiences four weeks
in succession. Then she compiled statistics.
At the end of that time she knew that the
scenario writers understood landladies.
Out of a possible 1,246,935 birds of passage,
male and female, whose babitat in New York
is the furnished room, not one out of every
two hundred females is wanted in another
woman's home. "Welcome" is written in
scareheads on Monhattan's doormat for every
masculine roomer. His soeial status and finan?
cial rating may be that of an $18-a-week dry
goods clerk, or vice-president of Father Knick
erbocker's largest bank. ln either case, the
landlady's glad hand is .always outstretched
and gripping.
But let a prospectitve roomer in petticoats
attehipt to climb the front Bteps, and the land
lady turns the mat over on its back, hangs
the 8. R. 0. sign cn the doorbell, and becomes
furiously engrossed in her dusting.
This is contrary to all our traditions. Yet lt
Is a fact. Man, as his landlady sees him, is a
model of neatness and decorum in the home?
woman is invariably a nuisance.
Fortifled with a questionnaire and statistics
eompiled by furnished room investigators, I
started out to find why woman, as woman sees
her, is no longer popular in the home.
The subject of my first interview received
me with distrust and suspicion, as she would
a feminine applicant for shelter.
"Woman," she said, eying me grlmly and
tightening her thin lips. "Woman is never
impersonal, even about a furnished room.
When she is she will be a successful roomer,
Not before. Men are impersonal about their
rooms in other people's houses. A man may
live in the same room for ten years. His
point of view is still detached. He regards
it as he does his daily seat in the subway
or the calendar on the wall of his office down
town.
"When a woman rents a room, if only for
a week, she becomes intensely personal about
it. You'd think she had been compelled to sign
on the dotted line in the presence of at least
three witnesses. Everything from the towel
rack to the design on the wall has a dramatic
value in her own life. Each detail may make
or mar her soul. And if everything is not
just as she has planned she loses her appetite
or has convulsions of temperament."
A door opened down the hall and a woman
walked toward us.
"I need a new electric bulb in my room, Mrs.
Brown," she remarked sweetly in passing. The
landlady's thin lips grew thinner.
-"You see! That's the way it goes," said
Mrs. Brown as the roomer disappeared around
the bend in the stairs. She would probably
have used the same tone in announcing that
her bitterest enemy had been convicted of em
bezzlement. "That woman has had three new
electric bulbs this week. I don't know what in
heaven's name she does to them. Twice she
burned out the fuse with an electric iron.
Then she spilled the alcohol in her chafing
dish and took all the varnish off my best
table.
"A man never irons in his room. He never
cooks. He goes out early in the morning. He
comes back after dark. But women! Even
when they go to business they are continually
fussing around. I don't want 'em."
N
i
nn
By SUSIE SEXTON
Illustrathns by RALPH BARTON
The next landlady was also sharp in her
denunciations.
"Women," she told me, "have absolutely no
respect for the property of others. Men
have. Women may be the most careful per?
sons in the worid?in their own homes.
Their mahogany is always unscratched, Their
overstuffed fumiture is carefully guarded
with sllp covers. But how different they are
when fumiture belongs to some one else!
"About a month ago three girls from Chi?
cago came to live with me. I gave them a
nice room which had been newly decorated.
Yesterday they left. I went over the room
to put it in order. One freshly painted wall
and the border of a new velour portiere were
covered with ink stains. It was too much
trouble to get a blotter, so they shook the
fountain pen in the air. It wasn't their wall,
So they used indelible ink.
"I had permitted them to make coffee.
They prepared it on a marble-topped table
on one side of the sitting room. They served
it in the opposite alcove. Consequently there
wore coffee drippings across the entire length
of my brand new light blue rug. I paid near?
ly $100 for that rug. The stains won't come
out.
"I had forbidden those girls to keep food
because it brought mice. When they left,
the cupboard, underneath the washstand, was
filled with crackers, cake and cheese?also
mice.
"When men live in furnished rooms they
eat in restaurants, as they should. Women
always insist on ruining their digestions by
munching a lot of indigestible substitutes for
real food. If they ate in a restaurant they
would get the nourishing things they need.
But they prefer to buy a box of crackers or
a piece of cake and munch it on the foot of
Men send their suits to the tailor to be pressed. Women are always rushing into
the krtchen^o iron something, or burning a hole in the best sprcad.
Those Rich Little Poor Girls
Tf VER since the first of all "movies" Mckered into our perspective,
JL-J the landlady's pcrsecution of the poor heroine has been a staple
of our screen drama. Plots have thickened like XX cream in July
because the proprietor of a hall bedroom demanded the rent, or
smelled something burning. Mary Pickford and Clara Kimball Young
have shown us how futile is the attempt to keep a beef stew incognito
if a poor girl uses an alcohol burner in the third floor back. Nemesis
always knocks at the door?or sticks its head over the transom. Stew
and stove disappear under the patchwork qu*lt.. Landlady enters.
Quilt bursts into ftames. Exlt heroine. She drags her Boston bag drear
ily down the brownstone front steps. For she has no place to go. , And
only three pennies remain in her faded vanity case. lf we are to believe
the "movies," landladies are indeed a bad lot. But noiv, it seems, we
are to hear the case of the landlady vs. the heroine.
the box couch, believing they are getting real
home atmosphere.
"No, I prefer men roomers."
The third witness had a different theme.
"These girls who come here to study art
Strictly
By Fred C. Kelly
pHILANDER C. KNOX used to tell the story
of a Pehnsylvania lawyer, known through?
out the state for his sharpness, who once met
his match in a very unexpected quarter.
An old woman was being cross-examined
by him as to how the testator had looked when
he made a remark to her about some rela
tive. .
"I don't remember. He's been dead three
years," she answered, testily.
"Do you mean to tell me that your memory
is so bad that you cannot go back three
years?" demanded the attorney.
The witness was silent.
"Did he look anything like me?" the lawyer
finally ventured.
"Seems to me he did have the same sort of
vacant look," responded the old lady.
Why He Sauntered
gENATOR PITTMAN, of Nevada, walks
briskly, but he says there was a time when
he didn't dare do so. In the days when he
was a miner and lawyer up in the Alaskan
gold fields no one walked rapidly; they just
sauntered casually, because it was unwise to
walk as if headed toward any particular des
tination.
"If a man was seen walking fast," says Pitt
man, "every one would jump to the conclusion
that he had either discovered a new place gold
could be found or else a storekeeper who had
just received a "consignment of plug tobacco."
In either case he would be followed and his
plans thwarted.
Paragraphic Biography
^BOUT a minute4and a half after the United
States Senate convenes each noon-tho
Hon. Reed Smoct, of Utah, comes dashing in,
hat in hand, and all surrounded by an atmos?
phere of haste like a scared horse. He always
gives the impression of having dropped every
thing and rushed to the scene to stop a wed
.ding.
Senator Cummins waa in a Chicago railway
or music, or cultivate their voices are my
particular pests," she volunteered. "Some of
them are really wild. Our New York atmos
phere makes them cut up Hke young colts.
As soon as they reach the Grand Central
3^
Personal
station en route to the West to become"~"a
railroad man when an old friend met him and
persuaded him to turn back, study law and
go into polittcs. Except for reaching the sta?
tion just at that moment the Senator from
lowa might have ended up as a division super
intendent with both upper vest pockets full of
yellow lead pencils.
Former Senator Lawrence Y. Sherman, of
Illmois, wears big old-faahioned, heavy-rimmed
spectacles that sit diagonally across his face
so that he can look over the top of the right
lens off into the distance and through the other
one at objects close by.
Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, was born on
Groundhog Day, and the tribal name given him
by his Indian ancestors was Cherokee, for
groundhog. But the strange thing about it
was that the Indians do not celebrate Ground?
hog Day, and they never thought of the co
incidence in the name and date.
Redfield Scorea a Goal
"^ILLIAM G REDFIELD, former Secretary
of Commerce, says that he can recall
with microscopic distinctness the moment that
gave him the biggest thrill of delight in his
whole life. It was when he was going to school
and trying to master long division.
Three or four aisles over from where he sat
a boy yawned. It was not an ordinary yawn,
but one of such genuine expression of feeling
tcward things in general that it attracted Red
field's attention,
He was fortuuate in having a paper wad
right at hand, ready for any emergency, and
he aimed this at the boy's cavernous mouth.
By one of those rare exhibitions of magna
nimity on the part of an inanimate object, the
wad went right square into the goal, and Red
field's joy knew no bounds. He had played the
cne chance in a million and "won.
Encouraged by his dexterity in that instance,
Redfield then tried throwing rings at knives
al county fairs, but never again did he exhibit
such wondrous aim.
-?u_j?m imiiii.mui l_wwHqBHHBi_MI i
Terminal the proverbial gayety of our native
chorus girl pales by comparison. These stu?
dents from out of town are always bent on
kicking the lid right off all our social activi?
ties the very first shot. New York is none too
rapid for them. They intend to show us.
"I remember two mild-mannered little girls
who came to me last summer. Their aunt,
who lives in the neighborhood, asked me to
take them in. When I first met them I was
certain their mothers back in Kalamazoo had
tucked them into bed every night at 10 = 30
sharp. But in half an hour I knew from their
own remarks that they smoked, drank when
possible and stayed out late. The first night
they were here two college boys took them to
a show. They stayed out until 3 o'clock in
the morning. I am convinced that they had
never done such a thing in their lives before.
And only their desire to appear thoroughly
acclimated to our wicked metropolitan air had
prompted them to walk around the block until
that hour.
"When they did come in they brought one
of the young men through the front parlor,
where my daughter was asleep, so that he
could telephone his anxious parents that he
was quite safe. They wanted me to under
stand they were true bohemians and didn't
care who-knew it.
"The next morning I asked them to leave.
I could not tolerate such conduct. My other
roomers wanted to sleep."
Too many telephone calls for feminine
roomers was the burden of the next lament.
"Women are always getting unnecessary
telephone calls," said this woman. "A girl
came here last week. Before the expressman
had carried up her trunk I ran up and down
four flights of stairs three times to call her
to the telephone. Her fiance wanted to t I
her to the beach Sunday. Her aunt wanted t
know if she had arrived safely. A girl fru *
asked to borrow her kodak.
"Men get their phone mes?ages at tha
or the club. But a woman will get fi-.-?
a day at home, all of practically no importance
If I have to have women in the house now r
limit them to two calls a day. If I didn't IM
have to give up everything else and become
a telephone ope.rator."
I was convinced that not all maacolina roo '
ers could be such model young men. Some d
them must violate the Eighteenth Anendaw*
, So I questioned the next landlady about tfce'r
sterling moral worth. I felt certain that oc
casionally they must lead double iives.
"Oh,yes, I have been disappointed in some
of them," she admitted, reluctantly.
"How?" I persisted, anxiou3 for details
"Oh, well," she said slowly, "one chapv/alked
away with my son's new dress suit. Ancthe
gave me a worthless check for $40, but I tbto
-he will make it good some day. Another stole
a Liberty bond. But, as a rule, they are
pretty good."
"Women must be more desirable as room.
ers," I volunteered cautiously,
"No, I wouldn't have women at all," she re?
turned, slamming the door.
Later on I ran across a delicate, white.
haired little woman, who was mistress of a
large home in the Eighties. She had lived Ln
the same house for twer.ty-five years. Her
children had married and left her. She kept
one roomer. She rcmembered when her hired
men, took the horses and drove down to Chelsea
market once a week for provisions..
Here, I decided, is one place where the
woman roomer will receive a warm welcome.
"Of course, you will take only woman room
ers," I said.
"Oh, no," she hastened to tell me, "my house
keeper won't look after women. They are too
much bother and require too much waiting
on.".
We havs been misled, I decided, as I ended
my investigation. Those authors of domestic
dramas who always picture man rushing for
the 8:05 ieaving his socks in a heap in the
middle of the floor, his handkerchiefs strewn
to the four winds and his bureau littered with
scattered ties have fibbed to us.
Out of the landiadies in New York who were
questioned cn the subject all would make affi
davit td the foilowing reasons for preferring
men to women as roomers:
Men send their suits to the tailor to be
pressed. Women are always rushing into the
kitchen to iron something, or burning a hole
in the best spread while similarly engaged.
Men send their washing to a laundry, Wom?
en carry a clothesline as part of their perma
nent campmg equipment,
Men know how to handle gas and electrical
appliances. Women never do.
Men never try to keep houss in a furnished
room. Women always do.
Men have their soeial life away from their
rooming house. Women rarely do.
Men fold their towels on the towel rack, put
cigar stubs in the ash tray and old letters in
the waste paper basket. Women scatter hair
pins and thread ends over the rugs, sprinkle
powder across the dresser and leave rcuge cn
the washstand.
Men consider the rights of others. Women
don't. A man wiil wash and comb his hair in
five minutes. A woman will keep a line of
roomers in front of the washroom blocked for
forty-five minutes while she applies her com
plexion, twists a forehead curl, and adjusti
her ear muffs.
Any summer literature for 1921 which pic?
tures home horrors in the dog days?when
man is left unleashed to scatter ashes on the
Oriental rugs and accumulate unwashed milk
bottles on the back porch?should be revised.
before going to press.'
Man has reformed. He has become the
Pollyanna of the home.
His landlady says so!
A ivoman will keep a line of roomers in front of the washroom blocked for to
iy~(ive minutes while she applies her complexion and adjusts her ecr taw>