be filled. Let us
be sure "their works do follow them."

XXXVIII. BOARDING-HOUSE LIFE.

New York is a vast boarding-house. Let him who doubts this assertion
turn to the columns of the _Herald_, and there read its confirmation in
the long columns of advertisements of "Boarders wanted," which adorn that
sheet. Or, better still, let him insert an advertisement in the
aforesaid _Herald_, applying for board, and he will find himself in
receipt of a mail next morning that will tax the postman's utmost
capacity. The boarding-houses of New York are a feature, and not the
pleasantest one, of the great city. How many there are, is not known,
but in some localities they cover both sides of the street for several
blocks. Those which are termed fashionable, and which imitate the
expensiveness of the hotels without furnishing a tithe of their comforts,
are located in the Fifth avenue, Broadway, and the Fourth avenue, or near
those streets. Some are showily furnished as to the public rooms, and
are conducted in seemingly elegant style, but the proprietress, for it is
generally a woman who is at the head of these establishments, pays for
all this show by economizing in the table and other things essential to
comfort. The really "elegant establishments," where magnificence of
display is combined with a good table and substantial comfort in other
respects, may be almost named in a breath.

Whether fashionable or unfashionable, all boarding-houses are alike.
They are supremely uncomfortable. The boarder is never really satisfied,
and lives in a state of perpetual warfare with his landlady. The
landlady, on her part, takes care that her guests shall not be too
comfortable. People generally become accustomed to this feverish mode of
life; so accustomed to it indeed that they cannot exist without it. They
find a sort of positive pleasure in boarding-house quarrels, and would
not be able to exist without the excitement of them.

The majority of boarders in the city are persons who have not the means
to live in their own houses. Others there are, who fancy they have less
trouble in boarding than in keeping their own establishments. This is a
singular but common delusion, and its victims endure with what patience
they can the wretched fare, the constant changes, and the uninterrupted
inconvenience and strife of a boarding-house, and imagine all the while
that they are experiencing less trouble and annoyance than they