WHY NOT BEAU PARLORS?

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 3

WHY NOT BEAU PARLORS?

Where do girls who runt single rooms, or live in hostels, entertain their intended husbands during tho period of courtship ? Do they find it necessary to wall; the streets, or go to places of entertainment every evening they meet? A woman writer in England discusses the problem thus A recent afternoon ns a guest at a thronged women’s hostel, where privacy with one’s hostess was out of the question, reminded me of a similar institution I had visited in New York, and two good ideas they had there for overcoming the entertaining difficulty that besets girls who live in a large group. Men, and fiances in particular, faro very badly in this respect. Neither tho rules nor propriety permit the. hostel girl to take her “ boy ’’ ‘upstairs to her cubicle, the only corner she had to herself. And what man can pursue his courtship in a room that is full of people and liable to every kind of noise?

The New York hostel realises that every girl, when her friends, male or female, come to see her, wants to entertain them in private. So it has established downstairs, in addition to the ordinary sitting rooms, several little boxes (rather like school piano practising rooms), which are known as ‘ bean parlors." Each wee place is fitted nn simply but cosily with a couch, an arm chair, a small table, and one good picture. In Now York the universal central heating provides warmth iu England probably a small gas fire, with its own penny motor, to be fed by the hostess of the evening;, would be the best arrangement. These parlors are reserved strictly for the visits of beaus (pretty, old-fashioned word!), ns woman friends can be taken up to the cubicles.

The hospitality problem is tackled thoroughly in this American hostel, for upstairs a bedroom lias been turned info an entertainment room, which can be hired very cheaply for the evening. A roomy cupboard is fitted up as akitchenette, and here a girl can give little parties to a band of friends, and offer them refreshments she has prepared herself.