Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-12-22
LIVING COMES HIGH.
COMPARATIVE PRICES OF FOODS
IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
Ordinary Articles Of Diet Range
Considerably Higher in Europe
Than in America-Some
Items.

&NCAA1e
The cost Of living abroad is a subject
upon which there is a wide difference
of opinion among experts. The depart
ment of commerce and labor has issued
a statement in which it is asserted that
there is no doubt that the English on,the
average have one-third more to spend
than the French, and, all things being
equal, more money is earned in England
than in France. Further. the cost of
living in England is far less than it is
in France.
Butter in France costs 30 to go cents a
pound, Swiss cheese rs to 80 cents a
pound and fowls 80 to SO cents each.
Milk is 10 cents a quart, bread A cents a
pound and meat 80 to so cents a pound.
Fruits, which are grown a~bundantly in
France, cost twice as much as they do
in England; bananas and oranges,
which Algiers exports by millions, cost
4 cents each. Coffee is 90 to 60 cents a
pound, tea costs as much as $40 to
$3.50 a pound and sugar 10 to IL cents a
pound. Coal in Paris is worth $14 a
ton, and in many houses heat is a great
rarity. In London two boxes of
matches are given for one cent, but in
France each box costs two cents, and
the matches are bad. Drugs are almost
prohibitively expensive.
M. de Foville presents the balance
sheet Of four average families. The first
family, with an income of $4,000 a year,
represents a Partisan ho~usehold-fa-
Their, mother, two children attending
school and a servant. The second FAM
lily, with an income of 81, 900, represents
a provincial household, consisting of n
father, mother, two children and serv-
ant. The third family, with an income
of $500, is a Partisan household, consist
ing of father, mother, a small child and
40 servant, and the last is that of a
workman's family at Rheims, consist
ing of father, mother, two children, five
and ten years of age, the family dispos-
ing of a purse of $415 a year. The first
family expends $1,744 Of its income for
actual living expenses, and has a bal
nce of 1856 for pleasures, doctors and
SO forth; the second family expends
81, $50 and has $3.50 left; the third 1867,
and has a balance of $13S, and the fourth
1920, with a balance of sos. In the case
of the third family the food consists of
coffee, bread and butter for breakfast;
at midday meat, vegetables and des-
sert; at four O'Clock the mother and
child have chocolate and bread, and at
six o'clock there is a dinner of soup,
vegetables and dessert.
M. de Foville says that it lies in the
Innate inclination-one might say the
~passion-for economy. With a few
francs the little Partisan, who may be
hungry many days during the year, is
able to make herself a hat and frock
which many wealthy women might we'll
envy. And it is with the table as it is
with the toilet. The art of utilizing the
remnants is an art essentially French,
whether the subject be ribbons or
ragouts. The spirit Of economy is as
common in u country as it is rare in
England. Fathers and mothers in
France consider themselves the debtors
of their children, and even the bachelors
think they should leave something be-
hind"
In Germany foods are comparatively
dearer than in the United States. For
example, coffees range in prices from "a
to AZ cents a half kilo, or IL pounds:
tea run from 48 to 95 cents; sugar, gran
ulated, from DOTS to 0.085 cent; rice and
barley, from 4 to 81 cents; butter from
30 to SO cents; ole~omargarine, much of
which is manufactured, from II to 81
cents; milk is a trifle less than 5 cents
a quart; fresh meats sell for about 10
cents a pound; bacon, 81 cents; ham, 20
cents; turkeys, "a to 2814 cents for IL
pounds; potatoes from 95 cents to $1.07
for liz pounds.
1t is hardly necessary to say that no
very substantial part of the empires
working people pay any such prices, for
their wages do not permit of such. The
foods of the masses, made up in large
part of fish, herring, cheap meats, pota-
toes and the cheaper forms of vege-
tables, are high enough to hinder any,
thing like luxurious living.
Ring of Fungus Growth.
Before people studied nature to learn
the truth, and when they delighted in