A NEW YORK GIRL'S HOME.

Evening Post, Volume XLV, Issue 94, 22 April 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NEW YORK GIRL'S HOME.

You know sho never calla it home ; she always speaks of it as " tho houso where I board," writes Ruth Ashmore in a graphic sketch of "Girl Life in New York City," in the Ladies' Home Journal. And you do not wonder at this after you have seen it. She and the jyirl with whom she chums have a hall room on the top floor, four flights up. It is furnished with a high chest of drawers, topped by a small looking-glass ; there are three chairs at various stages of decay ; a medium-sized washstand, and, abomination of abominations, a folding-bed. Just why there should be a folding-bed is not explained, for visitors are seldom in this room, and no man visitor, not even oue'sown father, would be permitted up there. The room is heated, so it is claimed, from a dark register, but through this there comes the odour of everything that is cooking, or has ever been cooked, and tho warmth is quite secondary to the various smells. The girls, bless them, have tried to give the place a home-like air, and there are a few photographs, a book or two, a little Bible, a devotional book, and some of their belongings about, but all the womanliness in the world could not make home of a place like this. The food given, oddly enough, is not bad, neither is it good. Breakfast, at which, too often liver and bacon aud overdone steak appear, is not appetizing, for the oloth bears the stains of the dinner of the night before, and a fresh napkin in the morning is unknown. Oue or two cups of coffee are taken, and, improperly equipped bodily for the day's work, the girl goes out to meet it, and begins by feeling tired. Tho laws of the State command that there shall be seats for girls when they are net actually employed, but the nearest approach a shopper over sees to this is a girl leaning in a tired way against one of the shelves.