BACHELOR APARTMENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 11, 14 March 1891, Page 9

BACHELOR APARTMENTS.

Thebe is always an air of mystery and romance to the feminine mind in the mere name of clubs and bachelor apartments. When a club gives an entertainment of any kind the fair sex are certain to respond to the invitation with alacrity and with the intention and avowed purpose of examining man’s haunts, seeing what men do in their clubs and going away with a general impression that a club is always en fete and turned upside down. If there is such a disposition to examine clubs, there is a still greater one to see a bachelor apartment, and an invitation to dinner at one of these would be far more eagerly accepted than one to a dinner given by the more prosaic married people. There is a soupcan of wickedness about the idea of a dinner at a bachelor’s house, even though the dinner is chaperoned by a dame as proper and correct as Mrs Grundy herself. It is, however, a chance given to few, as there ate but few bachelors who keep establishments capable of giving dinners, though the apartments themselves are in many cases every way suitable. The great army of bachelors in great cities have to be boused as well as fed, and in all these cities there are plenty of apartments for bachelors only. Paris takes the palm of them for apartments, the luxuries of which are simply wonderful. And next to Paris come New York, though individual instances here can compare with anything the Parisian capital can produce in the way of perfect comfort, good taste and perfection of appointment. One often hears the remark, ‘ I wonder why don’t marry.’ Perhaps if his apartments were seen and his life watched the reason could be given. A bachelor with cultivated tastes can get around him a combination of comfort and luxury that cannot be found in most married people’s houses, however wealthy. There is also the freedom of bachelor life that has its charm, the capability of packing a portmanteau and departing to the uttermost ends of the earth if the spirit so wills, with none to question, no one to gainsay, only one’s self to consult. There may be another side to the question, for when sickness or depression takes a strong hold, the care of the servant, however excellent a man he may be in the cleaning of trousers, varnishing of boots and scientific oiling of hats, is but a poor exchange for the tender nursing of a wife, mother or sister. A bachelor’s life on the whole, however, if he be a rich bachelor, makes him a man who need not be pitied, and when his time does come—as come it almost always does —he will settle down into double harness as quietly as if he had been broken to it years ago, and though the contemplation of the flickering flames of the winter fire may recall the days when he was a gay young dog and a festive bachelor, the pleasant little card parties and the festive suppers, he will arouse from his cogitation as a cry from the nursery reminds him that times have changed, and think that after all he has made a change for the better.