The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-02-06
The Everyday Question.
The New York Times discusses House
hold Expenses of Mechanics:

The New York Times discusses House
hold Expenses Of Mechanics:
We have no hesitation in saying that these
persons get more with their money, proper
tionally, than those with five thousand dol
lars per annnm. And yet they have des-
perate struggle for existence. They save
very little. Their life is from hand to mouth
Old age or sickness will find hosts of them
with nothing laid up. And, but for the bles-
sed invention of life insurance, their families
would often at their death be left utterly des-
titute. One great fault they may have, and
that is, the extravaganza of their wives and
daughters in dress, and sometimes in furni-
ture. As general rule, in economics the
world over, a skillful, industrious wife does
not increase the mans expenses. She saves,
or checks waste and dissipation in sufficient
proportion to balance her own personal ex-
penses And if one great object of home,
in an economic view, is to ''re-create" the
powers of the worker, married man is soon
worth far more as a producer to the world
than single one; while, as life statistics
show, he is considerably longer in it than the
latter.
The extravaganza of the mechanics wives,
however, will often outbalance this economic
advantage. 1t is very hard for an independ
ent and cultivated American family, living on
an income of 81, 900 per annum, to admit that
their ladies should not live and dress as well
another with $4,000. The consequence is
that hundred-dollar silks, and three hundred
dollar pianos, and hree-dollar-per-yard Brus-
sells carpeting Ia luxury never enjoyed, or
only kept for show), soon eat a fearful hole
out of a two thousand dollar income. Ex-
trayagant and selfish wives have ruined more
men and broken more hearts than any other
affliction incidental to life.
Still, the great difficulty with this class, is
the clear and absolute cost OF everything in
this city. Rent is the first great item, and in
this. they are far behind their brethren in
small towns and the country. For what
mechanic pays for three or four little rooms
here, in tenement house, he could get
beautiful cottage, o barn and a garden, in
/ country village. Oh, if he has small house
In the city. he must pay from $4OO to $500
rent and have his children Rssociating with a
very rough and inferior class OF children.
Then every article which he needs or buys Is
either exceedingly dear, as compared with
onaltv The result is that his dollar seems
| hardJv to be worth more than were forty or
| fifty cents ten years ago. His necessary ex-
| penses eat out his whole income, and he can
save nothing. The great explanation is, as
we have so often set forth, taxation; first,
municipal, and then national, through the
tariff.
1t should be remembered that all taxes set
Tie uOWn ulJlmately on tne laDOrlnB and me-
ehapical classes. Every mechanic in this
city viii pay this year for the jobs of Messrs.
Tweed, Swesay & Co. Then the extraordi-
nary and complicated taxation arranged
throughout our tariff, reaches down to the
smallest want and necessity of the laborers
and mechanics of New York. They pay
| taxes ora their shoes, their hats and their
clothes, their stoves, their cutlery and their
tableware, their carpets, their bedding and
! their chairs, their tea and coffee and sugar,
indirectly on their flour, fish and meat, on
their medicines, school books and DOCTORS
fees. There is nothing which they taste, feel,
see or enjoy in household objects which the
tariff does not somewhere touch, either di-
rectIy or indirectly. No such burden of tax
alton ever weighed on the industries of ma
! ton.
The only help in that direction is agitation,
and continual representation to Congress un-
til our burdens are lightened. In another
direction, much cheaper living will be secured
in New York city by its citizens attending
more to their own affairs, and not leaving
them so much in the hands of sharpers and
demagogues. Building associations, also,
both in the city and its suburbs, ought to
tighten the expense of rent materially, and
serve to secure better homes at less cost Tor
| persons of moderate incomes.