The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-07-31

S25. But for the twenty dollars you
may have saved in money you will pay
awfully dear in the sacrifice of comfort.
We write feelingly upon this point. repeat
ed experiments In cheap English clothing
having fully convinced rs that garments
which come at so low q price are never
properly made, that they never fit and
never give satisfaction. Nevertheless, you
can get a good suit of clothes here-qulte
as good as any you can get In America.
Tho only thing il that, to do this, you must
60 to some fashionable. high-priced tailor
"A manwho keeps good hands and pays fair
wages Here you will find yourself quite
we'll suited in both the literal and figura-
tive sense. You will find. too, that the cost
will be, if any thing, q little more than your
tailor In New York would have charged.
this not to make an admission favorable
to the other eide of this question. We do
it cheerfully. We admit that in rents the
Englishman has q decided advantage over
can, as a rule. though not in all cases. 1t
would be awful, indeed. if he could not,
considering how much worse of he is at
the weeks end in wages. But, against this
advantage. We may we'll instance: with a
very pardonable sensation of pride, the
large proportion of American wOrkmen
who are above the necessity of paying rent,
from the fact that they have be-
come their own landlords. These
solemn London dailies, in their
comments upon the report of the British
consul at Chicago are telling their follow
subjects. for election purposes that work
inRmen seem to be lin no better condition
to save money in the United States than in
England" II takes all they get and moro
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 representative in that territory,
something like one-half of the wage-earn
ers 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 a venRe-
ance.
THE AMERICANS ADVANTAGE.
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 q real home, should have
q carpet on the floor. and, perchance, a
musical instrument in the parlor. And if
the COST of things is 80 much less here than
In the United States. or. in other words If
English wages have the same buying pow
er in England as American wages have in
America. why Is it that the homes of En-
gllsh workmen are not brightened
American workman likes meat and.
as q rule. he eats it from two to
three times day. He gets It. too, in most
sections of the country, at trifilng cost.
With spring chickens obtalnable at % cents
each and good, big fowl for roasting or
boiling at from 30 to 40 cents. he cat occa-
sionally treat himself to even such !ux-
ury az that. But hero meat is meat, aud
chickens fly too high altogether to ever
sit except on the very rarest occasions. on
the table of the workingman. Ii you can
pick mp q fowl here for Is cents you are
them roostlng in the market-the few that
are ayailable-at about the altitude of from
so cents to Sl.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 10 not need such delicacIes rs these.
If they do not it is well they do not. We
are told indeed that they do not need much
meat of any kind and here again are con-
oratulations In order, for how on earth
could they get much, If they needed 1t ever
so badiyf For our own table we are paying
on the outskirts of London, - cents % pound
for only q fairly good roast OF beef. For
steaks we pay "a cents, and for the best
mutton chops even more than that he
Gently, In market town about nifty miles
from London, we put down 81 for leg of
mutton weighing nine pounds, and when
you consider that to thousands of agricult-
ural laborers living IN the vicinity
of that market town the 81
we were assessed for only enough
meat to last q medium-sized family
q couple of days represent two-thirds of q
weeks income, you will get some idea
both of what wages are in this country and
Ct the utter fallacy Of the proposition. 90