The weekly Shasta courier., 1872-12-28
English and American Life.

English and American Life.
Very few Americans have actually resided
in well-to-do English families, and therefore
have no idea how exceedingly superior the
living is in them to that among similar
classes in this country We speak now of
houses where the income ranges from fif-
teen to fifty thousand dollars year. In
England, the gentry with such fortunes live
in the same style every day. and can not be
taken by surprise if several guests unexpect-
edly drop in. Breakfast in the house of a
country gentleman with twenty thousand
dollars year will consist of two or three
hot dishes, eggs, rolls, toast, preserves, cold
ham, tongue, pie, and game and the only
difference when there are guests in the
house is that more is provided. When
breakfast is halfway through, fresh relays of
toast arrive, and hot water or spirit-lamps
keep viands warm for ate-comers.
Luncheon is an infinitely superior meal to
most American dinners-a couple of excel
lent hot dishes, pastry and puddings, cold
meats, sherry, claret and beer.
Dinner, the solemn prandal event of the
day, is admirably comfortable. The white
"diSICOdbcu duu DutleT bHTOWS,
open the door and announces it. The footmen
in well-fitting handsome liveries, stand in
the hall, like guardsmen on parade while
the family passes into the dining room.
From beginning to end all runs like a we'll
oiled wheel. If the faintest crash of plate
or china be heard, the frown of the butler
makes his myrmidons tremble. The host
and hostess, utterly free from care about the
failure of soup or entree, are as thoroughly
ut ease as the merriest of their guests, and
are able to give their attention to converse
tion, undisturbed by any narrowing appre-
tensions. The dinner consists always of
soup and fish, entrees, from one to four, ac-
cording to the number present, roa st, boiled,
pieces de resistance, from two to four sweet
dishes, game, cheese of two kinds, dessert,
and coffee. Tea, with dry toast. cake, ETC.,
Is served in the drawing-room about two
hours after dinner. Usually small table
is placed in a corner of the room covered
with a white cloth, and the beautiful tea-ser-
vice, often well worth a study by those curl
GUS in old plate, is placed thereon. In how
many American households, with even a
hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dol
lars year, does this thorough comfort and
completeness reign? The furniture is usu-
ally ten times finer the ladies spend thrice
as much on their dress, but is the result as
good? Does such expenditure tend as
much to make man love his home, and
long, as ninety-fve Englishmen out of a hun
dred do, to get back to it? The domestic
details We have described are almost entire
ly carried out by the lady who, in British
phrase, rules the roast. Even down to the
stables, she very often controls all domestic
concerns, and thus gives her lord and mas
ter, generally really though not apparently
her willing slave, time for his parliamentary,
magisterial, or professional duty. Only she
is generally wise enough to consult him,
and, if he differs, can usually contrve, by a
little gentle wheedling-bullying rarely an
swers with the British benedict-to get her
own way. Many ladies' are bored with do
mestic details, and would gladly avoid them,
but they are brought up to regard them as
duties of women, to be done, whether dis
agreeable or otherwise, just as the lawyer
or the doctor must do his work.
Here the feeling of duty does not obtain
to the same degree, and half the ladies in
New York never dream of troubling them
selves that their husbands dinner may have
variety and palatableness. You may dine
at dozens of our milionaires' houses, and
you will find. unless there be set banquet,
dinner which would be thought miserable
in a comfortable English rectory. Often
neither fish nor soup, huge joint, perhaps
some fowls, indifferent pastry, and pudding
you gulp down, because you rashly took
some, and don't like your hostess to see
that you leave it. The servants bang and
crash, and anoint your shoulder with sauce
and gravy. Dine there week consecutive
ly, and you'll have the same dishes nearly
every day Politeness prevents foreigners,
who see this style of thing, saying much,
but like the cabman, whose fare gave him
sixpence, they thinks deal; = and wheth-
er French, German, or English, they agree
that, in this country, great though it be
in all respects, you can not apparently. no
matter how rich be comfortable and, if it
be the poor mans paradise, " it is not place
for gentleman to live in They begin, in
fact, very well to comprehend how it is that
there are sixty thousand Americans living
abroad. A change for the better, in these
respects, lies in the hands of the ladies', who,
if they would but devote one-half the time
they now give to the consideration of dress
and morning-visits to domestic concerns,
might effect delightful revolution. The
recommencement OF life in town offers a
good opportunity. -Appteton's Journal