The Portland daily press., 1895-01-26
LIVING IN ENGLAND.
AT First Sight it Seems Cheap, but Really
1t is Dear.

1t seems to me that the cost of living
is going upward here rather than down.
ward. Several American friends nave
recently complained to me bitterly OF
the cost of the leading hotels here and
of the petty swindles and annoyances
they are subjected to on every hand,
writes Robert P Porter to the Chicago
Inter Ocean from England. The feeling
nuisance, bad enough at home, has
grown here with the multiplication of
funkeyism. Without shilling in your
hands you can hardly turn around In one
of the large and so called modern hotels.
One gentleman presented me with his
bills for two weeks at the Grand Hotel,
and after an examination it is safe to
say they are higher than better accom-
mediation would have been at the Wal
dorf, and very much higher than either
the Fifth Avenue or Windsor hotels.
This is reached by charges for attend
ance, for water brought to the room for
bathing purposes, the use of tin bath
tub, for fires in rooms that otherwise
would not be heated at all, and innunl-
cradle miserable and annoying little
swindles that simply make bills enor-
nous. Ostensibly Oh til European plan
these hotels, by extra charges, practically
compel guests to eat at the table d'hote
meals which they prepare, and which
are either unsatisfactory for cold and
partaken of at great long tables. Birds
that cost s.. so nicely served at Delmoni-
co.'s or the Waldorf, will cost at these
uncomfortable places IS 6d-over 81.
Then comes the everlasting attendance
and custom of charging per the head and
not by the portion as at home. You can
get better and cheaper supper after the
theatre, or meal of any kind, in the
fashionable restaurants of New York
than in London. This can be proved by
choice collection of bills which friend
of mine recently made while in London.
The old English hotel was cheerful,
homelike, reasonable. The new one is
absolutely the reverse. Ny advice to
people is: Shun the swagger hotel in
London as much as posi- BILE. They are
pilded dungeons of discomfort and ex-
pense.
"But lodgings are cheap in London"
I heard some one say. Yes, the bare
lodgings; the price of rooms seem cheap
at first sight to Americans. Only at first
sight. In this connection you have in
addition to pay for attendance, SO much
per week extra, coal SO much per scuttle,
gas so much per burner, table and bed
linen, laundry SO much per capita pr
week, and so much for the use OF the
Kitchen fire. Add it all up and the total
will surprise you. Then comes the cost
of food. Your breakfast eggs cost YOU
to cents each; your bacon % cents
per pound, and your butter SO to 40
cents per pound. So is fruit and nearly
all kinds of vegetables At the end OF
the week the cost of living in lodging
with any degree of warmth and comfort
is urite as much as in New York. The
difference is the same as in the hotels.
In New York you start with half the
amount you expect to Fay. In London
You start with half the amount, sand at
the end of the week, after all The bills
are paid, every body has been tipped and
the mum Der of scuttles of coal counted,
etc., etc. Multiply the original amount
by two and there you have it.