Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-04-30
OUTSIDE POINT OF VIEW
The Cost of Livins-A Contrast

The Cost Of Living-A Contrast
Continued from Yesterday
In yesterdays T.-R. the cost of living
in New York City was SHOWN by the re-
printing of a letter TO the New York
Sun from a man who earned $4,000.
and the cost of living in an Iowa town
by a man who receives $1,000 a year
salary. Here is the close of the New
Workers. letter:
We are both church people. but we
have not dared face the ste and the
rector for a year past, a we can
not pay u pew rent, $50 a year. This
is one of our greatest regrets, because
we both enjoy the comfort of the Epis-
copal church; we will not ask for char
ity-yet.
Some will now say that / am not a
prudent man. Time was, before l dared
take upon myself the responsibilities of
a family, that ! had an inviolable rule
to save $1,000 a year. Once, from Feb.
6 to July I. l saved 81, 100. All that is
gone now. / wore good clothes, always
had plenty of money in my pocket-as
well as a fat bank ccount-and owed
no man.
What does "Cynic' know about sick
ness? OF a child suffering for six weeks
with pneumonia, and two trained nurses
Vt $25 a week each. physicians in con-
spltation at $25 a visit? What does
"Gynic" kno of the joy of saving that
child at the last moment before death
stepped In, thanks to those $25 doctors
and nurses? What does "Cynic' know
or little feet that must be shod almost
weekly. or little trousers tina must be
bought because l can not pay enough
Tor nurses to keep the little legs they
try to from sliding down the BAN
lnisters? Perhaps the wonderful chill
dren of whom .'Cynic' writes can get
along without five quarts of milk a
day. Mine can't. Perhaps they are
never i'll. Does the head of the house
pay life insurance? / do.
Won't some reader of the Sun write
a treatise upon how a young married
couple can live in New York upon So
500 a year without getting Into debt,
and without daring to give such things
as dinner parties, %luncheons or caro-
parties; remembering that the family
must live in Manhattan because of the
husbands business, and the children
must go to the country in summer,
because of the children's health? Like
wise bear in mind this family men
toned are not tenement-house people.
n. d. w.
New York, April II.
Our Iowa resident writes: 1--WE all go
to church. We pay $50 ii yea for pew
rent and a constant stream of dona-
tons, generally small. gees to the Sun
day school, the Y. p. S. C. e.. three mis-
sionary societies and the frequent I'M
pected calls upon the church. We
started out like II. d. W. to save some
thing every year, but ike his expert
ence it's a failure, and from the same
cause-sickness and doctors bills. For
%tunately we hav broke even so far.
Only the little pile for the rainy day
gets no larger. / have no desire to
write a treatise for the benefit of II. d.
w, but there is a cure for H. d. WIS
financial troubles. Simply this: Ne does
not have to live in New York City. He
can continue in the same business hi is
now engaged in. n set live out of
town in some suburb, where his $4,000
will go as far as my $4,000 in an Iowa
town. He can live in a house by him
self. have a nice lawn. good neighbors,
good society for himself md wife, good
! schools for the children and all of the
church environment he cares for. He
can keep out of debt, have plenty of
money for clothes, house rent and fam
lily eXpenses-even none to pay for a
Communication ticket in advance. I know
what I am talking about, for I lived
twenty miles out of New York for two
years when my income was only $1,S0S
a year. And we lived well and left
there to come west owing no man a
dollar, not even the doctor. But II. w.
d. will reply to all this: Out of New
York one only exists, do,s not live. only
vegetables. And just as long as H. w.
d. believes that story he will continue
to live in the city and suffer-
IN. C. A..
", Iowa, May 49,
Here Is a story, perhaps published
before in this column, bit so true and
applicable to this subject it is given
again: A young Congregational minis
ter DESTROYS of taking a postgraduate
course. moved to IN Iowa college town,
where he fortunately owned a house.
His family consisted of himself. wife
and one child. He kept a COW and sold
some milk. He kept some hens and SOLD
some eggs and chickens. He put in a
big garden, worked it himself n sold
some vegetables. The family supply OF
clothes, tableware. furniture. etc, was
good and was not rep,enished. He
gave $50 a year to the church. And at
the end of the ear afte; three of them
living we'll and having plenty of every.
thing, his expenses footed up only $3.50,
more thar his income from the above
mentioned sources. All Of which is re-
raantfnlu .uhmitfed To III w u and