KEEPING BOARDERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1183, 24 October 1882, Page 4

KEEPING BOARDERS.

THE EXPERIENCE OF A V ETF.EAN LANDLADY. Another boarding-house busted up, ( I see,” sighed a venerable Detroit I Landlady, as she laid down her paper. , “ Well, it must have been extrava- . gance on the table. That’s what bank- ■ rupts seven out of ten, and then the boarders are crying out ‘ hash 1 and complaining of poor meals. Now, I have run a boarding-house for twentytwo years, and J made money and heard n ■ complaints. How did I do ’ it? Why, it’s all in planning. For instance a neck-piece of mutton can be cut to look like a rib-roast, and a little extra fire makes it just as tender. Lawd save you! I’ve been complimented a thousand times on my selection of choice spring lamb when the meat was mutton four years old, and toughest part at that. The idea of spring chicken on a boarding-house table is absurd—ay ! almost wicked. In my palmy days I could take a tough old hen, pound the body with a potato masher tor ten minutes, and set before my boarders a feast to make every heart glad. Now 111 venture that there aren't ten landladies in the city that can take a pig » head and slice off the meat in a manner to make everybody believe he has the choicest cut in a pig s body ; and it s a wonder ; to me that there ain't more failures, Lots of landladies buy nice fresh butter, and thus tempt a man to eat five or six biscuits or half a loaf of bread. What economy 1 I always had my nice butter on the table at breakfast, when we had little but toast, and the boarders got along on old butter the other two meals. It is all in the planning—in the planning. I used to have beefsteak every morning. Three mornings in the week I bought sirloin, which is very nice you know, and the other four mornings I bought neck-pieces and rubbed the case knives over the grindstone. Give a boarder a sharp knife and a tough steak and he’ll never make a complaint—never, He’ll put the blame on his teath, aud the more steak he leaves on his plate the more rabbit pie i vou have for dinner.”