By  Irish  girls,  with  unkempt  hair  and  uncleanly  physiog-
nomy, he  will  be  inducted  into  sitting-rooms  where  the  Ve-


THE   SECRETS   OF    THE   GREAT   CITY.  213

netian  blinds  are  kept  scrupulously  closed,  for  the  double
purpose  of  excluding  flies  and  preventing  a  too  close  scrutiny
of  tlie  upholstery.  He  will  have  interviews  with  landladies
of  various  appearances,  ages  and  characteristics — landladies
dubious  and  dingy,  landladies  severe  and  suspicious,  (inflexi-
ble as  to  'references  or  payments  in  advance,')  landladies
calm  and  confiding,  landladies  chatty  and  conciliatory, — the
majority  being  widows.  He  will  survey  innumerable  rooms —
generally  under  that  peculiarly  cheerful  aspect  attendant  on
unmade  beds  and  unemptied  washing-basins — and,  if  of  sana-
tory principles,  examine  the  construction  of  windows  in  order
to  ascertain  whether  they  be  asphyxiative  or  moveable.  He
will  find  occasion  to  admire  how  apartments  may  be  indiffer-
ently ventilated  by  half-windows,  and  attics  constructed  so
that  standing  erect  within  them  is  only  practicable  in  one
spot.  How  a  three-feet-by -sixteen  inches  strip  of  threadbare
carpet,  a  twelve-and-a-half-cents-Chatham -square  mirror,  and
a  disjointed  chair  may,  in  the  lively  imagination  of  boarding-
house  proprietresses,  be  considered  furniture.  How  double,
triple,  and  even  quintuple  beds  in  single  rooms,  and  closets
into  which  he  only  succeeds  in  effecting  entrance  by  dint  of
violent  compression  between  the  '  cot '  and  wall,  are  esteemed
highly  eligible  accommodations  for  single  gentlemen.  How
partitions  (of  a  purely  nominal  character)  may  in  no  wise
prevent  the  occupants  of  adjoining  rooms  from  holding  con-
versation one  with  the  other,  becoming  cognizant  of  neigh-
boring snores,  or  turnings  in  bed.  He  will  observe  that  lava-
tory arrangements  are  mostly  of  an  imperfect  description,
generally  comprising  a  frail  and  rickety  washing-stand — which
has  apparently  existed  for  ages  in  a  Niagara  of  soapsuds,  a
ewer  and  basin  of  limited  capacity,  and  a  cottony,  weblike
towel,  about  as  well  calculated  for  its  purpose  as  a  similar


1!14  THE  SECRETS   OF   THE   GREAT   CITY.
