The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-18
ONE OF TIE REASONS
 FOR RACE SUICIDE The Everlasting, Ever Growing Cost of
 Living. FORMIDABLE TRUTHS A Chance for Big Brains to Do Some Useful
 Work.

be delighted if roses blossonled 1nder our feet and we could have strawber- ries all the year round In other words, a large family of children would be a joy, the sight of a long and well-htted family board a delight the thought that we are laying up for old age stores of comfort and companionship in the line of children and grandchildren better to us than a bulky bank account But then we have to own the bank account to conn pass these luxuries and that there is weekly less probability of our possess ing I say weekly for to my own startled apprehension the increase in the cost of every necessity for liveli- hood mounts with a speed to which Jonahs gourd is the only it compari- son.
 I do not like to think of myself as an old woman and even according to the Osler methods of computation l am not yet really in the sere and yell low leaf. Yet if we should count time by heart throbs of their economic equivalents in experience, 1 could feel myself centenarian. Little more than two decades ago I began house. keeping in house which rented for thirty dollars a month and now com mands forty-fve. I kept one maid of all work to whom paid three dol Jars and half week and felt myself @ cross between O Croesus and pau per in the transaction-a Croesus in that I could pay such sum, and a pauper in view of the bourne towards which I felt my outlay was leading
 me.
 I had been accustomed to gener- ous table and took it for granted that I could not keep house on less than ten dollars a week. This was to pay for gas-we cooked by coal-range | then--for ice, milk and all provisions for our family of three. We enter tained a good deal. Recently I tried to feed another family of three on @ ! limited sum- Ten dollars a week, with close managing covered the act ual outlay.fo food, ruling out the ice and milk bills and taking no thought for the gas-and preciously short l commons it was, with none of the ex- tras as a matter of course twenty
 years ago, and with no allowance for
 company
 Ask the women and you will learn
 few formidable truths. First, that
 unles you go to a cash butchers" shop, where you cannot always be sure of the merits of the meat, you
 will pay more for beef, lamb, mutton.
 veal, poultry, than you did ten years
 ago, five years ago. "The Beef Trust, "
 we are told ''beef" evidently being a
 generic term that covers all animals
 travellng by land and water which are fit for food. But is there vegetable
 trust? For vegetables are higher than
 they were even two or three years
 back. And have the hens trust,
 too? All the threats of manufac- tured eggs have not availed to lower
 the prices of the genuine article
 whether they be strictly fresh, T
 fresh or simply eggs" Milk is to
 most of us two cents a quart higher
 than it was few years since. The
 adulterations of butter that crowd the
 market should surely make veritable
 butter less costly, though it has moi
 done so yet We are told that flour
 and sugar are no higher but man can
 not live by bread alone, and ever
 sweetness unmixed will not sustain
 life.
 So much for simple staples. Carry ,o-n P,,vtlar and Voit fara v1nraA Look for moment at service. My mother can remember when $S {
 month was considered excellent wages : for a cook. My memory goes not SC
 far back, but I have clear recollec' tions of the time when $16 a month was high wages Now none is st Nmean as to be satisfied with that ex- cept as a temporary measure, unti
 by learning how to make hash mas 5 querade as croquettes to achieve , doubtful pastry and to convert goot plain food into a variety of entrees that arc distinguished from one an other chiefly by their names, tht green girl becomes entitled to an nounce herself an experienced cook Of this experience it is not necessary Shat a knowledge of how to make { rood leaf of bread tolerable cup O coffee or an eatable slice of toas shal be a component part. With al Ter imperfections on her head-or il Ter hand-she demands and get from S20 to $3O a month and conde scends in accepting 8 smaller sum. The specialization which has beer so highly commended as a cure7al for lack of employment has found it way into our servants hall as well a everywhere else. The opponents 0 \ race suicide do not mention wha shall be done with the race whil { their mother is doing the cooking washing and ironing because she ha { not the money to pay for speciali2 z cd servant. It was with difficulty tha s persons of small means afforded them ! selves the lu2ury of children whe they could engage a maid who woul s do the general hoUsework of the hom M and perhaps occasionally Tend \ hand with the baby" so that tn N mother could get out to church or H needed shopping. But the 'gener; e housework servant" bids fair to take
 place with the dodo as an extinct sp' ~ cies. If a woman who for any reasc is unable to do her own work Is obliI X ed to pay--let Us make the price ~ moderate-$20 to her cook and laul " dress and S2Q more to her waitres N when her husband has an income
 $2,eO0 a year and spends fourth N that in house rent, what is there le N to do with the race? A But have not Incomes gone up tot N Wages have In many quarters.
 this the only line In which there h .eS l l,co1, n, incrnasa nf incnmn2