" But the
great law of supply and demand is too strong for them. The city must come
out of itself for a few weeks, and get oxygen for its lungs, sunlight for
its eyes, and rest for its overworked brain. The country must open its
arms, whether it will or not, and share its blessings. And so the summers
and the summerings go on, and there are always to be heard in the land the
voices of murmuring boarders, and of landlords deprecating, vindicating.
We confess that our sympathies are with the landlords. The average country
landlord is an honest, well-meaning man, whose idea of the profit to be
made "off boarders" is so moderate and simple that the keepers of city
boarding-houses would laugh it and him to scorn. If this were not so,
would he be found undertaking to lodge and feed people for one dollar or a
dollar and a half a day? Neither does he dream of asking them, even at
this low price, to fare as he fares. The "Excelsior" mattresses, at which
they cry out in disgust, are beds of down in comparison with the straw
"tick" on which he and his wife sleep soundly and contentedly.
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