Flat Dwellers Are Roving Floaters

FLAT DWELLERS ARE ROVING FLOATERS

By Rev. Dr. W. S. RAINSFORD of New York

The apartment house marks the present stage in the evolution of the residence into heaven knows what final form of dwelling place. IT IS A CHANGE FOR THE WORSE, this supplanting of the house by the flat, but it is a condition that we have to face and make the best of, for a return to the old order of things is manifestly impossible.

In my opinion the altered condition, and not the people themselves, is to blame for the unsatisfactory results that I have observed in my work among the flat dwellers. There appears to be a restless, nomadic influence about an apartment house that communicates itself to the people living there, IMPELLING THEM TO STRIKE THEIR FOLDING BEDS and move on every few months. Flat dwellers, as a rule, don't stay long enough in one spot to become interested in the neighborhood. They are what I call roving floaters and are an INCUBUS on society. 

I find the same objectionable features, to a lesser degree perhaps, in the larger flats where the family has its own servants and dining room and which bear a greater resemblance to a real home, but the people living in the tenement, the boarding house, the small flat or the large suit of apartments are generally alike in not regarding their abodes AS PERMANENT HOMES. They all expect sooner or later to move on and so do not trouble to affiliate with the church or society in their neighborhood except in the superficial and unavailing way. It is so hard to get in touch with these nomads that I feel sometimes tempted to regard them as "airy nothings," to whom it is impossible to give a local habitation or a name.

ANOTHER DISCOURAGING FEATURE OF THE SITUATION IS THAT IT DRIVES SO MANY MEN WHO ARE NOT SATISFIED TO CALL SOME SPECIAL DRAWER IN THE BIG SAFETY DEPOSIT BUILDING OF AN APARTMENT HOUSE "HOME" OUTSIDE THE CITY TO LIVE.

There are thousands of young men doing business here, bright, honorable, industrious young fellows, college bred most of them, who spend two hours or more each day in getting to town in the morning and home at night who could give that time and would be glad to do it in helping on the good work being done in this city. I need, and every minister in New York needs, the services of JUST SUCH MEN AS THESE, not in sectarian or religious matters, but in educational and philanthropic work among the poor and ignorant classes.