Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-24

and have yet to find any place, notwith-
standing the search I have maintained,
! where such clothing is displayed to view.
The truth is that for the lower grade OF
goods and workmanship in the clothing
line prices in the two countries are about
; equal.
Cheap Clothing II Not Cheap.
Aud in higher grades the situation is
something like this The same goods which,
when cut in the American style. and fitted
with American exactness, and finished ac-
cording to the American quality of WELL
paid workmanship, would cost you in the
land of the stars and stripes about s45, you
can get put together and hung on your back
here for, say S25. But for the 500 you may
have saved in money you will pay awfully
dear in the sacrifice of comfort. I write
feelingly upon this point, repeated expert
ments in cheap English clothing having
fully convinced me that garments which
come at so low price are never properly
made, that they never fit and never give
satisfaction. Nevertheless, you can get q
good sui. of clothes here-quite as good as
any you can get in America The only
thing is that, to do this, you must go to
some fashionable, high-priced tailor-a man
who keeps good hands and paws fair wages.
Here you will find yourself quite well
suited in both the literal and fgurative
sense You will find, too, that the cost will
be, if anything, little more than your
tailor in New York would have charged
1t would be ungenerous, after saying all
this, not to make an admission favorable to
the other side of the question. I do it
cheerfully. I admit that in rents the En-
glishman has decided advantage over US.
He can get shelter cheaper than we can. as
a rule, though not in all cases. 1t would be
awful indeed if he could not, considering
how much worse off he is at the weeks end
in wages. But against this advantage / may
we'll instance, with a very pardonable sensa-
tion of pride, the large proportion of Amer
lean workmen who are above the necessity
of paying rent, from the fact that they have
become their own landlords.
American Workers Own Their Homes.
These solemn London dailies, in their
comments upon the report of the British
Consul at Chicago, are telling their fellow
subjects, for election purposes, that work
ingmen seem to be sin no better condition to
save money in the United States than in
England" 1t takes all they get and more
than they are able to get, they assure US, to
clothe and feed their families respectfully,
be cause prices are so high. When, how
ever, they inform us incidentally, in the
same connection, that, on the testimony of
their own representative in that territory,
something like one-half of the wage work
ers within the consular district of the mid
die West, are living in their own houses,
they give away the whole case. This is let
ting the cat out of the bag with O vengeance.
But people in both countries need some
thing more than clothing and shelter.
Home is more than four square walls,
1t needs something to endear it.
In America the ordinary workman thinks
that home, to be a real home, should have
carpet on the floor and, perchance, a musi-
cal instrument in the parlor. And if the
cost of things is SO much less here than in
the United States, or, in other words, if
English wages have the same buying power
in England as American wages have in
America, why is it that the homes of Eng
lish workmen are not frightened the same
way?
No Spring Chicken for John Bull.
The American workman likes meat, and,
as rule, he eats 1t from two to three times
dav. He gets it, too, in most sections of
the country, at trifIng cost. With spring
chickens obtainable at % cents each, and a
good big fowl for roasting or boiling at from
SO to 40 cents, he can occasionally treat
himself to even such luxury as that But
here meat is meat, and chickens fly too high
altogether to ever sit, except on the very
rarest occasions, on the table of the work
ingman. If you can pick up fowl here for
Is cents, you are lucky indeed You will
generally find them roosting in the market
the few that are available-at about the
attitude from of 80 cents to a 81 25 Here is
another instance Of the dirt cheapness, so
to speak, of living in England.
OF course they tell us here that working
people do not need such delicacies as these.
If thev do not. it is we'll they do not. We
are told indeed that they do not need much
meat of any kind, and here again are con-
gratulations in order, for how on earth
could they get much, if they needed it ever
so badly? For our own table, we are pay
ing on the outskirts of London, % cents a
pound for only fairly good roast of beef.
For steaks we pay "a cents, and for the best
mutton chops even more than that.
Four Days Wages for Two Days Meat.
Recently, in market about so miles from
London, put down So for leg of mutton
weighing nine pounds, and when you con-
slider that to thousands of agricultural la
borers living in the vicinity of that market
town, the 50 I was assessed for only enough
meat to last a medium-sized family
couple of days, represents two
thirds of weeks income, you
will get some idea both of what wages
are in this country and of the utter fallacy
: of the proposition. so strenuously contended
for over here just ct this time, that the En-
glish workman is as we'll off relatively as
the workman in the United States Such
an idea is all moonshine.
To be sure, the English workman man
ages to live much cheaper than the Amer
ican. He is compelled to do this because
his earnings are so much smaller. He does
it, however not because prices are lower,
but rather as the result of the economy he
is forced to practice, and the privations to
which he subjects himself in the heroic
effort to cut his coat according to the small
measure of cloth doled out to him.
HENRY TUCKLEY.