She naturally desires to keep her house free from improper
characters, and to secure as guests those who will pay her promptly and
regularly.
In spite of these efforts, however, it may be safely affirmed that
there are not ten boarding houses in the city, which do not contain
improper characters. Observers have been struck with the number of
handsome young widows who frequent these places. Sometimes these women
claim to be the wives of men absent in the distant Territories, or in
Europe, and pretend to receive letters and remittances from them. In
nine cases out of ten such women make their living in a manner they do
not care to have known. They conduct themselves with the utmost
propriety towards all persons living in the house with them, and are
considered ladies by even acute judges. These same judges are sometimes
a little startled to meet these virtuous dames in places where _ladies_
are never seen. Of course the secret is kept, and the woman continues
to deceive her other companions.
Landladies are the object of the especial attentions of swindlers, and
suffer very much from them. All sorts of expedients are resorted to by
the unprincipled to live without paying their board.
A FASHIONABLE SWINDLER.
Last winter a "gentleman" called upon a lady who presides over a
fashionable boarding-house in Lexington avenue, and introducing himself
as William Aspinwall, of the "Howland and Aspinwall branch," obtained a
room on the second floor.
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