Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-07-26
Mechanics in Europe and the
nifed sfates-DOmestic Life i'm

Under date of June 20, the editor of the
Philadelphia Press thus writes from Paris:
Although there is not an hour live in
foreign land, and not a thing see that
does not intensity my love for my own
country, what most confirms this affection
is the incalculable superiority of the whole
system of domestic life in the United
States over that of England and France.
1t is easy to say that have nowhere
found the working people as /" wei off ..
as our own-for the foreigners themselves
admit that-but the contrast is SO painful,
that as you dwell upon it, 1t fills You with
solicituder for those, who develop the
wealth of these old countries. The COM
Portable dwellings of the mechanics of
Philadelphia have not only no counterpart
i'm England, but when L have spoken of
them in connection with the subject of
labor NV statement has been received as
the romance of some fairy land.
The idea of a workingman living
in q brick house, with water brought
to his door, and frequently with his own
gas and bath. for what is paid for two
sitting rooms in a narrow street of over
swollen London, was revelation hard to
believe; and when added that many me-
chanic in America accumulated sufficient
before he was thirty years old to buy his
own household, frequently saw that in
credulity succeeded surprise. / have al
ready alluded TO the appalling difference
between the agricultural population of
England and that of the United States, and
especially to the fact that the annual rent
which many a small farmer in Great Britain
pays to his noble landlord would buy a
homestead in one of our populous States,
near the finest markets in the world. And
all this without touching the great Irish
ulcer of measureless and almost incurable
The domestic life of France, and especi-
ally of Paris, is so strange that you can
compare it to nothing in England, much
less in America. do not refer merely to
the life of the producing classes, who are,
at least for the present, content with their
bread, vegetables, and sour wine, savOred
as these are by endless public sports, but
to those who occupy the middle walks,
and even to families in the higher circles.
A house for one family, if not almost un-
known in France, is confined to the
wealthy, and is called "a hotel" The very
best society lives in apartments on one
floor, including bedrooms diniDg-rooms,
kitchen, &C., and OF these floors there are
never less than three, and frequently five,
not counting the first story, where the
concierge" or porter, lives with his
family, to watch and keep the place in
order, collect the rents, and let in visitors.
In, the quarter whereI am staying these
establishments are generally new and neat,
but elsewhere they are inconceivably old
and foul 1tis common for the family of
the porter to live on the same level with
the horses of the people up stairs, and so
both higher and lower occupants enjoy the
same doubtful effiuvia. When you ascend
to the third or fourth flight you are amazed
to find so much light and luxury over so
much filth. Yesterday called to see a
distinguished friend, who lives on fourth
floor; and before I found him 1 had to pass
through damp yard, foul stable, and to
ring at least four bells, on as many land
ings, the concierge" /" or FORTRESS, having
direeted,me IL, unintelIigible French from
a little hole through the cell of a room in
which she sat like the grim keeper of a
these -penitentiaries almost never know
each other, you can imagine the social ad-
Vantages of the system, not only in the as
pect that projects all sorts OF vice, but in
!, that which makes human beings ut
terly strange and scallous, to each
country and in England it often
happens that people who live in the same
street are not acquainted with each other
Think. however, = OF living in the same
house for years, and knowing no more OF
the lodger above or below you than if he
true of the wealthier classes, the evil is
worse as you descend into what are called
the lower walks of life. The population
of Paris is largely over two millions; and
you have only to pass along the boulevards
or great avenues at night, or to glance into
the gardens and cafes, to realize that most
of this mass of humanity lives on the
streets rather than at home, and also that
when forced to seek shelter it is under cir
cumstances utterly destructive of all NOR
ais, if not of all comfort and health. Tall
old tenements that hold colonies, standing
in narrow alleys from which the occupants
can nearly shake hands from opposite win
dows, are suggestive of a condition that
needs only an ailusion to show the infinite
superiority Of American habits and Amer