Comforts of Staying at Home

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 316, 14 November 1888, Page 3

Comforts of Staying at Home

Those who think ifc hard that they cannot go to the country, the mountains or the seaside, but must s>pend the season in the ciowded city, might (writes the 'Canadian Health Journal ') derive some solace in enumerating the many annoyances and vexations they escape, but which have to be endured by the envied one who can go away. Many there are, to be sure, to whom a change of a week or two is almost indi&pensable — a change of some sort, or almost any &crt — but a vast number go from custom, fashion, or yearn to go, who do not require any more change than their weekly routine brings them at home. Those who stay at home escape the smoke and cinders and dust ©f the crowded cars. They will not, in the great ' mountain bouses' and seaside hotels, as ' Harper's Bazaar,' in a good article relating to this subject, gives it, be ' tucked into little rooms like the banks of a packet ship,' whose walls are covered with cheapest paper or none at all ; without a closet or wardrobe, and too small for a trunk ; with one window without a screen, or perhaps with only a piece of netting through which gnats and other pests find their way and then ' sing and sting at their will ; ' with 'ro hot and cold stream of cleansing and refreshing water ;' but only a meagre pitcher, with not enough water for ordinary cleanliness ; with ' noises, too, to be heard all night ; noises of all sorts, of people laughing and singing till after midnight, regardless of anyone else, of babies crying, of couples disputing loud-voiced through thin partitions, of belated revellers returning down long corridors with careless feet in the small hours, of doors slamming, of teams arriving, of bell boys running to answer calls for ice water, and of the watchman striding along every half hour or so to see that the groat wooden trap is still safe from the flames that one day or other are sure to devour it : with the .stifling heat in the little rooms worse 1 nan tenement houses ; no quiet, no retirement, no peace — indeed, no comfort. At home, in thn city, there is often more quiet, with other and numeious comforts of home ; the parks, the boating and driving and^ little excursions. You who feel like (* ( * prisoners 'at home ponder somewhat over these things and be content.