New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-09-24
Exsravaganee Of living in Paris.



It's said that there are at this hour IS 900 Yacan
rooms TO let in Paris. They to let, not because
Paris is empty but because the fable of the goose
that laid the golden egg and the fool Its master,
is as true now as it was when the fable was
written. Our landlords are not satisfied with the
four gold eggs per annum. The consequence is,
that instead Of periodical supply OF golden eggs,
they have none st all.
IL Is something marvellous to see now expensive
life has become in Paris. Formerly it was one of
the cheapest cities in the world, and people came
here to save. Twas the paradise of the half-pay
officers from all the armies in the world, the Ar
cadia of the annuitant and straitened gentlemen.
Mime de Mafntenon made calculation at the be-
ginning of the seventeenth century OF the amount
necessary to enable grand seignear to live in
Paris in style suitable with his rank and fortune
She, with Characteristic mnuteness, entered into
all the details, and reekoned that for $2A00 he
could support, feed and clothe all his household,
pay the rent Of his mansion, the wages of his
wants, his bog at the opera, and his munifcent
At the present day that style of life would re-
uuire $4,000 gear. We, all of us, are obliged to
spend six times as much as people used to do in
our situations. And even so late as 1926, NJ me de
Baur made the hero of one of her novels make a
decent figure in society on $500 a year, whereas
now. the one who can command only $500 in the
course of twelve months, must live in garrett and
board in ereaeric, and dress himself at our Oak
Halls.
Rents have increased In Paris, and the enormous
taxes laid at the oc0i gates Ito enable the city
indulge In its Typographical and architectural or
gies1 on everything we require, have raised the
prices Of all the necessaries and luxnries of life.
Twenty miles from Paris, living is as cheap as it
ever was But in Paris, the mere cost of living is
something rHinous. Rents have incredibly in
creased, especially shop rents. | went into shop
the other day, whence the proprietor was moving,
ana asked him the reason of it.
He told me the landlord had SO increased his
rent as to make it impossible for him to live in the
shop lie had occupied for | forget how many years.
He said the rent he paid in 1847 6000f.; It was
raised after the coup d'etat to l5,000f.; and the
landlord now asks and gets from tenant who sue
ceeds me 37,000f. How the man is to pay it I do
not know.
There Is d cafe in front of my shop. 1t was
opened six months ago. The rent is $5000 which,
Id proportion il great deal dearer than this shop
Il was closed yesterday; the proprietor is bank
rnpt; everybody, except the landlord, loses by
him, for he has not paid one sou to the painter
nor To the mirror seller, nor to the carpenter
nor to the uphelsterer, nor to the grocer, nor to
the wine merchant; his gas and his rent are all he
has paid, for the rent has eaten him up.
Eight years ago, sir, bankruptcy was the rarest
thing in the world in Paris; you never heard of it,
81, If you did, it was town talk for months; now
the papers seem to contain nothing else there are
twenty or thirty a day.