The Express.
London, England, 1850-04-12 00:00:00

WAR PAY illbj‘ &ICE PRICES.
__ _

Ma. llegree.—Wilk • dump aid leaderoatiti:
Neese that I am s serried um Mrs.
lit vested, vireiiteLdepstisea /sr bite es: :
has bet see haft Is OW seasimireial state of
eximeasevensk lbek a rinses ITH--011
evil eat hes Eselseyel filkeeselkss of the lizallugusr.
albarreand gomlimmeillb • sad —of coares--esttled
down as s madame Semi weight upon peoples.
Mrs. Oakapple's abweraghe is—a &feed., power of
soriehms4M. The bast sentare is the world, she ma-
nse elethese sad meth* figures. Her pastry is mar
eileset ; bet—thsegli the deer seal assures me she
hie trial • headset' dine, Moto.,,ea a dosen—she
eansot ;pep a Meg age oe% like saad, run
through her gagers.
Sir. the rasp's* that serneally animates the bosom
of s husbead ociessionly warns me from the perpetra-
tion of compute' les; is the present seer. however. I
think I may be allowed to liken Britannia to Mrs.
°Amp*. Both females are ',Womble objects ; crea-
tures to be serevelly idolised t but they have coin fault
in commee--they will pat tea above enth-
used..

Myself end wife begin Matrimony span war
prima We metered open housekeeping with all the
fiscal responsibilities of powder and shot. At that
time, sir, Beeasparte was act odour hands, and the
parlors loaf was a thingeciamn as a death's head
is families. Possibly, eirxe, may recollect that
time!' Not a hesseheld bat appealed to the b
num inner (which I take to s the lining of his
pocket), is a vain heavy with shillings. In those
days there were DO pseentztailies ; salt WY a thing
to calculate, and Mara would net be played with.
Well, sir, open war priors we ate our wedding
dinner; and, demanded from the honeymoon at our
own house, tarnished with war mahogany, we settled
—myself and wife—the weekly bill upon the war
estimate. &r, were I at all vainglorious—but the
Let **ere is seta plainer, simpler man in exist-
enes—l would, as an nneoescMes illastration allay
ecastitutienal geurasity, here pat down in black and
white the weakly sum proposed by me to Mrs. Oak-
apple for housekeeping : a sum, I own, in-
vestor' by twenty shillings at the half-coex-
ist, half-rebuking words of Mrs. Oakapple—
tor the hoceymooe,. remember, had mill •
silver edge to it. It is, however, sufficient to state,
sacs and for all, that we began boneekeepiog upon
war prices. Children, of mores, gradually dotted the
bowie ; bat every baby wee equitably considered with
reference to the war (our first, sir, we called Arthur, in
compliment to the Duke) —every half-pound of arrow-
root purchased, if I may be allowed the espressioe,
out of the cannon's-mouth.

Now, sir, Ido not complain of this. By no means.
I gloried in the war; I loved my wife, and danced
on the buoy. Bat sir, the war ceased—priors &n—
-ether children came, if you will permit me the figure,
with palmbraneltes in their hands; nevertheless, Mrs.
Oakapple—with • serenity that, I own, astonished
me—every Monday morning exacted the war allow-
ance! The same weekly PM that set us out on
the fifth week of our marriage was, up to last week,
demanded by that courageous woman, my helpmate.
Being a quiet man, and worshipping my hearth-stone,
it was a long time before I could find the heart to
demur. I had seen the starvation, death's-head
quartern at Is. 10d., by degrees put on a cheerful
tenpenny, ninepenny, eightpenny, sixpenny look;,
neverthelev, though we married upon war, not an
atom of peace was made to appear in my house ex-
Penns. "There must be some mistake—this can't
go on—no; next week she'll propose another scale.
And then, there can be no doubt of it, dear soul! with
everything so cheap and the weekly bills at the war-
figure, she has laid by a handsome sum. Who
knows? the price of a living for Charles, or a mar-
riage-pytion for Elizabeth P" With this consolation
simmering in my heart, did I every Monday morning,
write the same cheque; a cheque seemingly unalter-
,' able as though drawn by Mr. Meds or Mr. Persian.
Sir, when the time came, I had, unassisted, to buy
Loaf-cues-Fish for Curies, an eloquent young man,
in whom Lambeth may have great hopes; for his
threat last week " to go into the wilderness and eat
locusts with Exeter," I consider •to be only the
flourish of an ardent temperament, a little after his
dear mother. Again, when my daughter married
Mr. Macthistle, common councilman—like one of
Mr. Fox's martyrs, his great glory is in Smithfield—
everything, from the marriage portion to the silver
Packthread that tied the hymeneal pasteboard, came ,
from my pocket. From mine, Mr. Editor. I
merely mention this circumstance to show that,
though for upwards of five-and-thirty years I have
paid war prices, nothing has been saved to me, sir—
nothing has been saved.
At length, and after a delay, patiently continued
from week to week, I ventured to observe to Mrs.
Oskapple that—l purposely pitched the matter in an
unimaginative, homely way—that, " as everything
had come down in the way of price, the household
expenses ought, as a matter of course, to come down
too." The dear woman put on the prettiest face of
wonder (she is still pretty, air; with a pleasant
autumn brightness), and "didn't know what I could
mean." I then thought it my duty to go into par-
ticulars. I endeavoured to explain to her—taking
the simplest examples that fourteen quartern
loaves, at is. 10d. per loaf, must cost consi-
derably more than the same number of loaves, price 7d.
Then, sir, I proceeded : tea, sugar, salt, cotton, penny
postage, threepenny 'busses—all cheaper commodities
—all cheaper oonveniences—l toothed upon, as I
verily believed, with a clear and instructive spirit.
Nevertheless, I could not illuminate my subject. The
good, simple woman, seemed no more capable of
arithmetic than the Bishop of London, or any other
mortal divinity whose book is not Cocker. It was in
vain that I preached, that I urged the equitable pro-
priety of lessening the weekly outlay to the weekly
cost. Sir, had Mrs. Oakspple been Mistress of the
Robes, she could not have treated the'suggestion with
loftier and better-bred contempt. Though I
knew I wuorfectly right, I nevertheless felt
myself subdued sad mean before the face of my wife.
It was a study for an ex-chancellor ; indeed, for any
ex with a war pension. "Why, my dear," said I,
arousing myself with an effort to the task, " you must
allow that everything being at little mote than half
the price than when we married, the weekly bill
might, at least, be reduced, say one-third. Consider,
my love;' I continued, somewhat encouraged by her
brooding silence ; "consider even in the article of
tinder-box and matches. Why, say lucifers ; they're
not half the price." " Well, now," cried my wife,
her face taking a tinge of triumph, well,
now, I'm glad you've oome to inciters. That's
so like you ; bums Inciters are cheaper
than matches, tat's the reason we're to live upon no-
thing. I suppose people require something more
than inciters; but, of course, you'd have us eat loci-
fin, and dress in luciferer And not another word
could I get from her: no, she had, as she believed,
settled the question of retrenchment and swam away
from me with a sharp triumphant laugh that closed
the conference. I own it, I should have been amused
with my wife's logic,—but it was not original. No,
sir, Mrs. Oakapple is a patient reader of the debates,
and the whole argument was a bold theft from at least
half-a-dozen Chancellors of the Exchequer. It was
nothing but an old application of the new lucifer.
I will not go through the whole process by which, at
length, I have induced Mrs. Oskapple to reconsider
her weekly bill. That excellent woman (and could
she only become clear and conscientious in figures,
she would indeed be a treasure) has at length un-
seated to do what I consider to be of the first ne-
cessity, but which she still persists in calling "my
crotchet and my whim." She dose not see how, at
most, more than a few shillings can be saved,
" try it, jest to humour me."
"My dear," said "her Majesty's ministers"—
my wife has a great respect for the government, spa-
tidally since she saw Lord John in his Windsor uni-
form--" her Majesty's ministers are about to make
twelve and sixpence go as far as a sovereign.
They are all, to a man and woman"—for of course,
in the matter of salaries there will be no respect of
sex—" all about to cut themselves down to the quick."
My wife would not believe it : " some people might
ten; bat, for her part, the matter was too 'ideas to
jokelapos."
tt The hearts and souls of her Majesty's mi-
nisters," said I, getting a little warm upon conju-
rat opposition, " are nerved and bent upon economy.
Why, they are even about to strip gold lace from the
blue jackets. The navy is no longer to be gilt.
Epode:Mos, says a United Service authority, epee-
lotto/ are to vanish like golden bubbles; we are to
have glory plain, without a bit of bullion on it"
" Then," Mrs. Mts. Oakapple, " it won't be worth a
pia. rd as moos sec a zebra without his stripes as