Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-28

| goods and workmanship in the clothing line
| prices in the two countries are about equal
| And In higher grades the situation is some
| when cut in the American style, and fitted
with American exactness, and finished &C
| cording to the American quality OF we'll
paid Workmanship, would cost you in the
land of the Stars and Stripes about $45
| you can get put together and hung on your
back here for say $25. But for the go you
| may have saved in money you will pay aw'
fully dear in the sacrifice of comfort.
We write feelingly on this point repeated
| experiments in cheap English clothing hav-
| ing fully convinced US that garments which
made, that they never fit, and never give
satisfaction. Nevertheless, you can get a
| good suit of clothes here-quite as good as
any you can get in America. The only
thing that, to do this, you must 60 to some
fashionable, high-priced tailor-a man who
| keeps good hands and pays 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. We do it
| cheerfully. We admit that in rents the
Englishman has decided advantage over
us
House Rents Cheaper in England.
He can get shelter cheaper than we can,
| as rule, though not in all cases. It would
be awful indeed if he could not, consider
ing how much worse off he is at the week 8
end in wages. But against this advantage
we may well instance with very pardona-
BILE sensation of pride, the large proportion
Of American workmen who are above the
necessity of paying rent, from the fact that
they have become their own landlords
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.
ing men seem to be s'in 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,
because prices are so high. When, how
ever, they inform us incidentally, in the
same connection, that. on the testimony of
their own representatives in that territory,
something like one-half of the wage earners
within the consular district of the Middle
West, are living in their own houses, they
give away the whole case. This is letting
the cat out of the bag with 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 real home, should have
carpet on the floor, and, perchance, a
musical instrument in the parlor.
American Workingmen Live Better.
H. ~, =, Il,
here than in the United States, or, in other
words, if English wages have the same buy
ing power in England as American wages
have in America, why is it that the homes
of English workmen are not frightened
generally in the same way? The American
workmen likes meat, and, as rule, he eats
it from two to three times day. He gets
it, too, in most sections of the country at
trifiing cost
With spring chickens obtainable at 25
cents each, and a good, big fowl for roasting
or boiling at from 80 to 40 cents he can oc-
casionallv treat himself, to even such
luxury as that. But here meat is meat and
chickens fly too high altogether to ever sit,
table of the working man. If you can pick
up fowl here for 65 cents, you are lucky
indeed. You will generally find them
roosting in the market, the few that are
available-at about the altitude of from 80
cents to 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 delicacles as these.
If they 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 paying
on the outskirts of London, % cents
pound for only fairly good roast of beef.
For steaks we pay "a cents. and for the pest
mutton chops even more than that.
Case Directly in Point.
Recently, in market townabout 50 miles
from London, we put down 50 for leg Of
mutton weighing nine pounds, and when
you consider that to thousands of agricul
tural laborers living in the vicinity of that
market town, the 50 we were assessed for
only enough meat to last mediunl-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
at this time, that the English workman is as
we'll off relatively as the workman in the
United States. Such an idea is all moon
shine.
To be sure the English workman manages
to live much cheaper than the American.
He is compelled to do this because his earn
ings are SO much smaller. He does it, how
ever, 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 eff
fort to cut his coat according to the small
of cloth doled out to him.