The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-07

Oranges and bananas are somewhat cheaper there. Butter is little lower Consequently beading house prices have to be about the same.
 When it comes to lodgings there is a marked difference at once in favor of London, because there is no such thing as lodgings here, and let me advise anybody who looks forward to as long stay in London as a few weeks to live in a hotel only long enough to find suitable lodgings It means that you engage such rooms as you need Tn a private house, buy your own provis- ions just as if you were housekeeping, and have your landlady cook and serve them in your own dining room, which is usually also your sitting rooom.
 "We have furnished apartments in New York but the occupiers take thelr meals in restaurants. That is very much more expensive mode of living than lodging in London.
 But the American who takes, lodg- | ings and declares that living costs less there than here again forgets to take differences of standards into account. He is astonished that he can get three | large furnished rooms in a good, qulet neighborhood for the equivalent of SlO week, including service. He over looks the fact that in New York he has been accustomed to six roooms, that his fires in lodgings are extras and as a rule his light also.
 The most deceptive and easily under stood item is rent, and that comes Tn directly when we consider housekeep- ing. There is a big difference in favor of London, but 1t is more apparent than real for when you hire house you become a taxpayer
 Here the landlord pays the tax and covers himself by charging rent ac- cordingly. In London your bills may be high or low, according to the bor- ough you live in, but they Will always add materially to the cost of living
 q have in mind an American who has rather attractive house in a good neighborhood There is a tiny back garden, such as cannot be found on Manhattan Island, and that, by the way is one of the features of English i life that the American misses when ne comes back; the possibility, nay proba- bility of finding a house within ms means that has it's little plot of lana for the cultivation of flowers or salads l if his taste runs that way
 "Well, this man pays a rent of 9S6 year, say $1SO He could not find such quarters here except on the very edges of the city, Long Island, Staten Island, Westchester county, or Jersey, and he would have to pay at least S4SO a year for it.
 "That looks like an immense differ ence, doesn't 1t? But when my Ameri- can friend has paid his imperial taxes and his borough rates and the water rates, he finds that his house has cost him between e6O and e65 a year, $500 at the lowest.
 "There is still an appreciable margin in favor of London, but there IS still another tax to consider for he must give LID 5 per cent of his income to the general Government. Suppose his in come is S2,OOO there's another hundred, then to be added to the cost of living. so that if we apply the income tax to the rent. which is fair enough as matter of bookkeeping, we have the apparent difference in favor of London reduced to less than a hundred dollars.
 My belief is that the difference will be entirely wiped out if we take into account the number of smaller items of Al pk like transportation. London has penny buses and cheap cabs, but 1t costs more nevertheless, to get about London than to get about New York.
 "There is no such thing there as a l transfer from one roure to another. You pay by distance. Your penny, two cents. carries you a mile and half on bus, and then you pay another pen nsr.
 "No New Yorker needs to take cab day or night The Londoner frequently has to, for distances are great and transportation facilities vastly inferior to ours.
 ''No 1t doesn't cost very much less to live in London than 1t does in New York There are delightful features of life there that cannot be had at home, like the gardens, the large roooms, the quiet nelghborhoods, to say nothing of the historic associations that compen- sate for many inconveniences, but to balance them there are in New York many more creature comforts from properly heated rooms to properly war; jed food.
 Tt is a question of standards. If he makes up his mind to certain sac- riflces any American can live in New York and keeps up his health for just about what it costs him when he was in London--New York Sun.