Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 120, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1911 — TALES OF GOTHEM AND OTHER CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TALES OF GOTHEM AND OTHER CITIES

Passing of Old-Time Janitor

NEW YORK. —There was a time when the best trotters that went up the fashionable driveways of New York were owned by the men who had charge jot the big buildings in New York; but that was long ago. Today that man whose occupation has become subject to the surveillance of a manager who represents the interests intrusted to him in no half-heart-ed way and whose system will not permit of the pickings which were so long the recognized perquisites of the janitor who is content to make a fraction of what he formerly received each year. These are days of centralization and system, and the old-timers who found It easy to raise a big family, have fast horses and maintain a country residence have either retired in disgust or adjusted themselves to the altered conditions. The practice for many years was to

pay a janitor a salary, sometimes as much as $2,50(1 a year, but more frequently sloo' a month. He was supposed to have the waste paper of the tenants to sell, and it will probably be matter of surprise to some readers to learn that this yielded in a big building as much.as SI,OOO a year, while in some of the very large ones it would bring in very much more, up to $2,000 at the highest. Then there was the matter of a commission on the ice and towels supplied to patrons, whiph would run anywhere from 25 per cent, upward. Christmas w T as naturally the occasion when everybody around the building would be in quest of a present, and the janitor was invariably the most assiduous searcher after gratuities; in fact, some of them were artists at the practice. Nowadays under the new system the janitor gets SSO to SIOO a month. He is under the control of the assistant manager of the building, and he in turn is subject to the manager where there are several properties under one control. There is a purchasing agent directly under the eye of the manager, who buys all supplies, and the§e are checked carefully.