The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-05-27

Private Incomes and Expenditures.
Or both sides of the Atlantic, there has
of late been good deal Of discussion in
regard to the increased cost Of living. II
is needless to remark that discussions OF
this kind are usually an accompaniment
of hard times When the profits Of BUSH
ness arc ample and tolcrably safe, people
take comparatively little interest in spe-
culatiny why dollar should only 60 as
far as sixty cents did fifteen years ago.
But when the earning of dollar involves
m ore labor, care, and anxiety than usual,
there is natural impatiencc among peo-
pie of all classes at the persistency OF
high prices in the face of reduced wages
and diminished incomes. Like the people
of the United States, the British public
happens to be suffering at present from
fit of commercial depression. They are,
therefore, quite open to discuss the cost
of living IN an appreciative and sym
pathetic fashion A writer in the Corn
I'LL Magazine has recently taken the
British people to task in regard to their
favorite grievance, and has attempted to
show them that he enhanced cost of liv-
ing simply means the increased expense
attendant on the growing fastidiousness
of modern society. According to this
writer, people can live in the old way at
the old prices. Let the Briton Of to-day
who grumbles over the rent he has to pay,
be content to inhabit such house as his
grandfather lived in, and he can have it
quite as cheaply. Gas is dearer than oil,
and water introduced into every room in
the house costs more than the old device
of drawing it from well. But return to
! the oil lamps and the oaken bucket, and
see how much money can be saved. so
with modern sewerage, drainage, and
| sanitary arrangements generally. we
have come to regard these things as
necessary to our enjoyment of life. But
they cost money, and if we enjoy the
luxury of living more clearly than our
grandfathers did, we may as well make up
our minds TO pay for it.
To this species of argument it has been
aptly replied, that the question Is not SO
much whether o man can contrlve to i've
on as little as he could have done at the
beginning of the century, as whether he
can live in the same class of society, and
with the same social amenities. A man
/ NAV give his children as good an educa'
ton as was current fifty or sixty years
ago, at the same low price; but then he
must nav twice or three times as much to
give them an education which will ensure
as good start in the competition OF life
as the cheap and poor schooling OF his
erandfather's time Clothes are cheaper
to-day than they were couple OF genera
tions since, but then the social require
ments of dress have become wonderfully
elevated. One cannot escape the influ-
ence of these by refusing to conform to
the demands of capricious and exactlng
fashion. Let woman dress as plainly as
she please, she cannot possibly be expect
ed to 20 the length of assuming the printed
dresses and mob caps which would have
been considered good company dress" by
her grandmother. For, that would be
rcckoned even by her closes: friends a
mere eccentricity, and would earn for the
practical advocate of primitive simplicity
more rdiculc than sympathy, So, with
all the surroundings of our daily life. 1t
costs a larger proportion of mans in
come than it used to do to maintain a
position among his social equals The
cost of living has uuquestionably increas-
ed, and it is no answer to this to say that
it is merely the standard which has been
| elevated, and not at all the prices of
things which go to make up what we call
"necessaries." A reasonable man will
refuse to allow society to lead him into
senseless and wasteful extravaganza. But
he will be equally averse to running into
the other extreme, by living in way
ridiculously out of harmony with his posi-
ton. Most men and women desire the
social fellowship of their equals, and that
cannot be had by stepping down into to-
tally different class of surroundings from
what their position usually demands.
OF course, that sort of discussion only
| touches the broad outlines Of n somewhat
intricate problem. After making all need
! full deductions ON the score of the increas-
ed cost of the demands of modern life,
we may still fall back in this country on
the general proposition that the price OF
living is too high. That is equivalent to
saying, that while certain classes of peo-
pie have been compelled to submit to a
reduction of their incomes, certain other
people have escaped this necessity. Rent
is still too high, because the majority of
property-owners succeed in extracting out
of their estate larger return than the
state of the times warrants. Domestic
service is too dear, because employers
have neither the organization nor the
pluck to resist the demands of the serving
girl of the period. Silks, woolens, carpet,
hosiery &c, are still too dear, because of a
clumsy and inequitable tariff, which taxes
the mass of consumers for the benefit of
| handful of favored producers. And so,
we might go through list of more or less
oppressive burdens on the American
householdcrs, which, in being perceived
and talked about, have certainly advanced
one step further towards rcmoval.-Scot
fish american Journal