KEEPING BOARDERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1382, 25 May 1878, Page 17

KEEPING BOARDERS.

The landlady of a boarding-house is often the most persecuted of women — always excepting the mother-in-law. Everyone considers it his privilege to oppress her. Talk of the miseries of the boarders ! they are nothing to those of the landlady ; for of the ingenuity of the boarder, the fertility of his resources, and his characteristic to arrogance, there is no question, and it is but natural that between two such forces there should ariße constantly recurring antagonisms. The ordinary boarder lays aside his courtesy upon entering the boarding-house. Here suspicion at the daily board surrounds him as a halo, and like a cloud " obscures the air." The perambulations of his trunk in the best room would in any but the board-ing-house Bphere be extraordinary, but is here always significant of a broken iron band or two, and a half-dozen nails, ready to accomplish the malicious purposes of the owner upon the doomed carpet. The amount of gas " not allowed in the bill " that the boarder is able to consume can be only conceived as accomplished by determined purpose. While, again, the sound of an occasional hammer from the boarder's room is a perpetual cause of anxiety and agony to the landlady, whose past experiences suggest possible nails driven into the elegant dressing bureau for the convenience of the boarder's boots. . Add to these trials the fact that in many instances she is cheated out of her hard-earned money, and it will be seen that the landlady does not lie exactly upon a bed of roses.