New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-04-01
attend to any other business till past the age
WILT IT COSTS TO LIVE.

to young married folk, and the relative ad-
yantages Of keeping house OF boarding during
the opening year on limited income, IN New
York or other large cities. Magazines ana
newspapers tread the same round OF argument
to prove how an income of $1,000 may by
strict economy be made to fill the place OF
$4,000. Items of house rent, clothes, amuse-
ments, ETC., etc., are given and studied with
more interest by beginners in work ana OUT
lay than any statistics of frauds or brlDe1es.
One mechanic comes forward with his state
ment as to how he and his wife and two chill
dren live comfortably in New-fork on SSOO
per annum. Another makes it plain to the
duest perception that it is Impossible
for two people to live decently at all
on $1,000 The mistake in this. as in the SER
want problem, is in the attempt to lay down
general rules which will suit every case. L.
and his wife, with canny Scotch blood In their
veins, take couple of rooms, which the woman,
strong and healthy and swift-handed, keeps
scrupulously clean; she cooks, sews, washes
irons; their fare is plain, but they have no ap-
petite for delicaces, neither have they love
of fine clothes to make their coarse garb
hardship; the keenest pleasure of life for them
i'm any circumstances would be to feel that they
were living within their means and laying by
something for a rainy day. Instead of finding
economy painful therefore, it is a real pleasure
to them to deny themselves penny there or
dollar here, and to sum up the small account
of assets and expenditures at the end of each fru-
gal day. Across the way are another young man
and woman, with the same income. They are
equally energetic, well-meaning hopeful, at the
start. But the man is n dyspeptic, his stomach
rejects the everlasting dry bread and coarse
meat which his neighbOr digests with relish;
his wife is frail little creature who was born
tired, with nerves, spine, and liver all protest
ing against life every hour; it Is simple i'm
possibility for her to wash scrub, or iron. OF
course this is very reprehensible state of
affairs. But it is a fact, as hard and real fact
as the dollars whose outlay we are calculating.
Bo,h these young people, too, have tastes and
mental necessities which demand food as inn
peratvcly as do theil bodies. A life whose
highest and absorbing aim is barely to keep
their bodies alive without going in debt, would
be worse than death to them They want
books, music, society, something to lift them
day by day to higher and wider outlooks.
Now while it is practicable and pleasant for
the first married couple to live in New York
on almost any given sum over $500 per an
nun, the second will find life stinted and
wretchod OH any sum under $1,000. Nor will
any economy on their part make it otherwise.
The comfortable housing, good food. service.
newspapers, lectures, with the small portion of
beauty and grace which is necessary to them
in their surroundings to make life toDerable,
i, % IN, lao bnuobt fnr tun poor,la in
this city for that amount of money. We have
left out of the question in this case the in
diligence of expensive and idle tastes or any
love of fashion or vulgar show, but presume
our cxperimenters to be people OF culture and
good breeding. Their simplest and most
effective remedy is to leave New-YOrk,
If the mans business will permit, and go, not
To rough pioneer Western work, which de-
mands sound physical health, and at least
temporary sacrifice of personal tastes, but to
Philadelphia or some other smaller city, where
the resources of life are almost as rich and
varied, and the cost of living is much less.
The income which in this city would keep
man and his wife in absolute penury, in other
cities would give them q snug little home,
decent clothes, all the necessities and many of
TIC VI iit, III "a 'NS'Nih VI
Southern town enable them to live in
luxurious ease.
When there are children the whole case is
altered. Living is of course doubled in cost,
but to thoughtful parents there are other con-
siderations which seldom come into notice in
newspaper discussions of this domestic prob
lem. The young professional man, artist, or
educated tradesman, feels that his boys and
Girls start in the race of life with an advant-
ago simply because Of their early life in n
metropolitan city. knowledge here is con-
dcnsed, made tangible, breathed in uncOn-
sciousy day by day. Here are libraries,
art the quick. intelligent throb of varied
social life; all the currents of trade and politics
center and issue from here; the child sits as it
were at the heart of things; news from all
quarters of the world comes to him as daily
mental food, instead of gossip over the parsons
cough or the doctors new marej he gains i'm
pcrceptibly, from mere width of outlook, a
broader charity, a comprehension of other
conditions of life than his own, i'm
possible to tho farm or village boy.
knowledge of evil, it is true, comes to
him at the same time. But we are supposing the
moral and religious homo training to be as
watchful rs in the case of cOuntry-bred chill
dren. Drunkenness, gambling, and impurity
of every sort are practically us near one as the
other. Men with limited incomes are apt to
reckon this advantage to their children at its
full value, and we acknowledge that it has
value. The lad of nineteen, reared in a city,
is like tocl sharpened for its work COM
pared to his country cousin Nor has he suf-
fercd more from envy and discomfort at the
superior wealth or social position of those
about him; discipline, by the way, which is