The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-20

Is to 80 cents; ducks, each, 20 TO 80 cents;
geese. each, s1.50; turkeys, 81. so to S..
1T gees without saying" he continues,
that these articles do not enter into the
living of the laboring man or the me-
chanic to any great extent although ma
tive pork forms very considerable por-
ton of the food of the Chinese, who rep
resent the majority of the mechanics here
'One who has never been outside of the
United States can hardly form in his
ina inatioE picture of what living
means 70 the plain people in this country.
The pls.e of furniture such as one finds
in the home of the laboring man in Amer
lea runs about as follows: Chair, from 80
cents to So; bedstead s. to SIS; mattress,
$3.50 to 50; dining table Sc to $40. The
laborer with wages from Is to 80 cents
day sits upon the floor in his home sleeps
upon a grass mat, cooks on a box of earth
or an earthen crock for stove, and eats
his rice, fish, and simple vegetables out
of the same dish with his family, without
fork or knife or spoon. Eggs, which are
very cheap. he has al times; chicken on
rare occasions. and l think l am safe in
saying that beef is almost unknown in
the common laborer's meal.
His house is a bamboo structure with
a tap roof, and generally consists Of one
small room about ten feet square, which
is sometimes divided by low partition.
Within these rough walls and on a floor of
rough boards or split bamboo he and his
wife and his family eat and cook and
sleep. The clothing of himself and family
is the most meagre: a cloth around the
loins-the woman generally wears a cloth
around the breast also-no shoes, seldom
a covering for the head, holiday and work
ing day alike. The more fortunate on fes-
tive occasions may indulge in a piece of
bright colored cotton cloth thrown about
their shoulders.
ut is not necessary to say that, in COLI
nection with such an existence the terms
library and school and church and COM
forts are out of place While the Siamese
battle more frequently than other people.
and to all outward appearances are most
clearly of persons, the contracted and
meagre condition of the poor mans home
renders 1t most filthy and unsanitary. Ma
ture is most kind in this tropical climate.
and yet, with all her gentleness, the death
rate among the poor is enormous. So
much for the laborer and his family.
THE mechanics differ from the laboring
class in that they live together, more
closely packed, as tenants, in large BAN
boo or wooden houses that modern ideas
have brought into the city. They also
have nothing in their homes that could
be called furniture, but their food is more
substantial. The employers tell me that
a mechanic could not do his work and
subsist on the diet upon which the labor
ers live. Yet the mechanics table cannot
be compared with that of the humblest
laborer in America.
''It is interesting to note that, while
wages have advanced during the last
twenty years some Is or so per cent, the
eight staple articles upon which the na-
tives depend for food-rice. fresh and
dried fish, ripe and green cocoanuts, salt,
bananas, and dried chiles-have each ad-
vanced anywhere from 1871 to 715 per cent,
or an average of 800 per cent, during the
same time"