, which published on
the same day an article devoted to architects or, rather, to their
incomes, which held up these fortunate professional men as objects to
be envied, if not by all the world, at least by journalists, many of
whom have just now a way of writing about rich men or women which
suggests the idea that the journalist himself was brought up in a
jail, and sees nothing but the pockets of those whom he favors with
his attention. The present writers, after half a column or so of
rubbish about the grandeur of American buildings, furnish the New York
and Pittsburgh public with the information that "there are in the city
of New York at least ten architects whose annual net income is in
excess of a hundred thousand dollars, while in Philadelphia, Chicago,
Boston and St. Louis there are quite as many who can spend a like
amount of money every year without overdrawing their bank accounts."
This is certainly very liberal to the architects, but what follows is
even more so. "There are," we are told, in addition to the magnates
just mentioned, "hosts of comparatively small fry whose annual profits
will pass the fifty-thousand-dollar mark." If an architect whose net
income is only a thousand dollars a week belongs to the "small fry,"
what name would these journalists have for the remaining insignificant
beings who practise architecture faithfully and skilfully, and thank
Providence sincerely if their year's work shows a profit of three
thousand dollars? Yet, with a tolerably extended acquaintance in the
profession, we are inclined to think that this list includes the
greater part of the architects in this country. As to the architects
whose usual income from their business is a hundred thousand dollars,
they are pure myths. The New York-Pittsburgh authority mentions by
name Mr. R. M. Hunt as one of them. As a counterpoise to this piece of
information, we will mention what a worthy contractor once said to us
about Mr. Hunt. The builders were not, in those days, very fond of our
venerated President. He had altogether too many new ideas to suit
their conservatism, which looked with horror on anything out of the
common way. "The fact is," said the contractor, in a burst of
confidence, "Mr. Hunt never could get a living at all if he hadn't a
rich wife." By averaging these two pieces of misinformation, after
the manner of the commissioners of statistics, one may, perhaps, get
some sort of notion of what a very able and distingui