It was mentioned incidentally at the beginning of this bcok that Mrs. Tingee keeps boarders at $3.50 a week, having lately had to make a reduction from her former price of $4, to meet the demands of her boarders and the stringency of the times. Let us see how she does it. Our emals in this small country house up to the 12th of August, counting the small family meals at 5 or 6 cents each person and the more profuse hotel dinners at from 10 to 16 cents, averaged 10 cents each meal each person. Suppose Mrs. Tingee allows her meals to cost 10 cents, either through allowing some things to go to waste, or through want of skill to make good dishes out of cheap materials, or through depending too much on meat and butter to make up her table, then her boarders cost her $2.10 a week each and she has $1.40 each as a margin to meet her other expenses and pay herself; if she has 20 day boarders that leaves her $28 a week.

She will do most of the cooking herself; she has 2 girls, and a boy in the yard, whose wages average $2 a week each, and their meals $2 a week more, making $12, leaving $16 a week for Mrs. Tingee, but out of that she must pay about $4 for fuel, light, ice and incidentals, and she has for herself about $50 a month.

Now, she has house rent to pay and the house she occupies costs her $30 a month but it does not properly come within our scope, as her business is in taking day boarders and letting out rooms enough to pay the rent of the whole house. The only time that she needs and seeks a sympathizing ear is when a young couple or two gentlemen who have been paying a good price for her two best rooms have moved out and left her in fear of having little or no rent coming in. So that, if she sets as good a table as we have been setting here and keeps her 20 boarders she still is able to appear very respectably and send her two children to a good school. In reality, however, Mrs. Tingee does not set any such table. If she would she could set such meals as we have shown in the divisions of this book before the first birthday supper at an average cost of about 7 cents a plate, and, giving a sufficiency, could keep her full quota of 20 boarders. There is a defect in her method, however, which never allows her full success or a full house, for while a pound of food and a pint of drink are required on an average to make a full meal, Mrs. Tingee devotes her ingenuities to make her boarders get along with half a pound, and regards three-quarters as a piece of extravagance only to be indulged in on Sundays. In consequence her boarders, not being well fed, piece out by buying apples, peanuts, candy, cakes and beer, and find when they count up at the end of the week that this sort of desultory boarding around has cost them more than it would to board at a good hotel, and all who are not bound in some way, leave her and she has but 10 whom she can depend on to stay and a transient customer now and then. She does not allow the provisions for these to cost more than 5 cents a meal, 15 cents a day; $1.05 a week, or $10.50 a week total, for which at $3.50 each she receives $35. This leaves her $24.50 instead of $28 as under the other calculation and as the work is less it is a greater proportionate profit. The great difference in the two methods, is that the latter will not stand the test of competition. The landlord and his wife are boarding out the rent; the retail merchant and wife board there because Mrs. Tingee trades with him; the photographer has his gallery next door and his wife finds better employment retouching pictures for him than she would keeping house,so they board there, otherwise Mrs. Tingee would have no boarders at all, poor woman.

It chanced some two or three years ago, I picked up a brief editorial article in an unexpected quarter, considering the argument it contained, for it was the New York Hotel Reporter, that said the great want of the people of moderate means of New York and all large cities is good country board for the Summer months at about $5 a week - that is for board and lodging. Well, it would seem there are plenty of places offering board at that price; it may be they do not meet the requirements of the city customers. In a railroad guide book I read of one lake n the State of New York, where there are 8 or 10 hotels but 400 boarding houses; no doubt but there are all grades and prices but still something may be wanting. Nearly all the well-to-do inhabitants of New Orleans and other southern cities leave their homes every Summer for a sojourn at some country place or at the sea side. At Biloxi, Pass Christian, South Pass, there are houses which rent for from $200 to $300 or $350 for the Summer season to be kept as boarding houses and remain closed all the rest of the year. In the New Orleans papers I see an advertisement which reads well, it is of a Summer boarding house at Gobegic Ferry, on the Topinabee, branch of the Tchoupi-toulas river, easy to find because exactly go miles from New Orleans, and 700 feet above sea level, where there is plenty of milk, eggs, butter and fruit and vegetables, where board is offered at $5 a week, or $20 a month, and children under 12 are taken at hall price.

According to the figures that we have devoted to Mrs. Tingee, allowing from 7 to 10 cents a meal for provisions and 50 cents each person as the expense of bed; 20 boarders at $5 would pay $ 100 a week; the provisions mostly home-raised may be set down at $1.50 or $30 for the whole, which with the $10 cost of lodging them is $40 a week for 20 boarders and $60 remains. Allow $10 for drawback on children and monthly board and there is still $50 a week or nearly $200 a month for the family that keeps the house and does nearly all the work. There will be transient meals enough sold to pay the rent, or boats or carriages let out, or cigars sold or some little side interest to keep the main profit of the house intact. By reducing the cost of meals 2 or 3 cents at this 10-dollar house of ours we could make a profit at $5 even here, where our meats and fish have to be expressed and our fruits and vegetables are nearly all canned goods.