San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-07-05

ilullS udolI ..''..'.-...'.......''.' loO
Bonnet. .................. ............ 30
Theatre bonnet 50
Black SIR dress 24O
Ball dress NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. $50
Total .................................s20 25
In this bill, there is neither mantle, linen,
boots, shoes, gloves, lace, nor the thousand
little requisites of a woman's toilet, and it
is but one out of the three or four bills for
the year | am convinced that an American
woman, who pretends to the least elegance,
must spend, if she be good manager, from
$1,000 to 5000 year. Add to this the fact
that she loads herself with diamonds and
precious stones But these, of course, have
not to be renewed every three months
A great number of Americans come to Eu-
rope to pass three months of every year.
This is not e. additional extravaganza; it is
an economy. They buy their dress for year,
and the money they save by this plan not
only pays their travelling expenses, but leaves
them nice little surplus in cash.
A hotel bedroom on the fourth floor, for
which you would pay five francs day, is S.
in the good hotels of the principal towns of
America. A cab which costs you one franc
and a half i'm France, or one shilling and six
pence in England, costs you dollar and
half in New York, The proportion is always
kept.
The dollar has not more value than this in
the lesser towns of the United States. The
omnibus, for instance, which takes you to the
station from your hotel for sixpence Tor half
a shillingl in England, and for half franc in
France, costs you half dollar in America
Copper money exists in America, but if you
were to offer cent to beggar he would
fling it at you in disgust. When the bare
footed urchins in the south beg their formula
is: Spare us a nickel" or CHUCK us a
nickel, guv'nor." The nickel is worth five
cents The only use CT the cent that could
discover was to buy the evening paper.
The only things cheap in the States are
native oysters, and English or French books
that have been translated into American.
If expenses are enormous in the United
States must hasten to add that it is chiefly
the foreign visitor who suffers in purse. The
American can afford to pay high prices, be-
cause his receipts are far larger than they
would be in Europe. Situations bringing in
three or four hundred dollars, as in France in
England, are unknown in America Bank
clerks and shop assistants command salaries
of thousand to fifteen hundred dollars
year. A railway car conductor gets $50
month.
In the grades above in the professions, the
fees, compared with those earned in Europe,
are also in the proportion of the dollar to the
shilling or franc. A newspaper article for
which would be paid in France from 100 to
go francs land no French paper, except The
Figaro, pays SO much for articles is paid for
in America from 500 to $3.50 A doctor is
paid from S. to $40 visit. | am, of course,
not speaking of specialists and fashionable
doctors; their charges are fabulous. | know
barristers who make over 100000 a year.
Every one is well paid in the United States.
except the vice president.
If have spoken of the high cost of living,
it is to state fact and not to make COM
plant went to America as a lecturer, not
as tourist Jonathan paid me well, and
when cabby asked me for dollar and half
to take me to a lecture hall, said, like NJ
Joseph Prudhomme: 1T is expensive, but
can afford it, and paid without grumbling.