Omaha daily bee., 1913-12-28
Cost of Living Comes High to Travellers

IS&@tNS{s ing. ] do not mean AZ home
- where one can figure upon the
food in tho markets and object 81 the
butcher puts his elbow on the scales.
when he weighs out your steak II re-
lates to the high cost Of living to the
travelling publc. I have been going up
and down this country and others for
the last thirty years and within the last
ten or twenty the cost Of all things
has been steadily rising. ] can remember
when n commercial salesman who had
an allowance OF s. A Gay 10 pay his eN-
penses looked upon as king, and ]
when II the distance were short, 50 or
suffced. Now a high class drummer
does well IL he spends less than $40 per
lay and II he makes lonc ;umns between |
towns the price runs as high as SIS and |
upward During the last two weeks l |
have been moving rapidly from city 20
city. ! started at New York and went |
as far north as st. Paul. From st. Paul !
! jumped to St Louis and thence TO
New Orleans and from there to Atlanta, /
Cincinnati and Washington. l lived at
good hotels and took taxis when needed. |
The cost Of the journey was more than
sl5 day or almost twice what it would
have been twenty-five years ago.
In the Days OF hofe'
1t used to be that the most of our
hotels were on the American plan. You
paid fixed sum for room and board
and there were no extras to speak Of
outside the large cities s. was the ordi-
nary day rate and one could get good
accommodations in the larger places for
as low as three dollars. At that time
about tho best hotel in the United States
tI,o in Now York Its
charges were So day and for that one
lived like lord.
Today the American hotels have about
disappeared. Nearly every large house
Is On the European plan, You pay
fixed price for your room and a price
for each dsh that is served to you in the
dining room or the restaurant. The
room rates are now equal to the price
you formerly paid for both room and
board and often much higher.
Look mt EN- Now.
Take the hgh-class hotels Of New
York There arc but few where one can
get a room for less than 81 or 81, and
this often means room facing a court
4 and so small that inside il you could
not swing the typical cat by the tail A
room with bath costs more, and If one
wants really comfortable quarters he
must pay 81 or $5 and upward. In Chi
Cago at some Of the bigger hotels one
can get an inside room with bath for
$3.50 or &c. and this is so i'm Minneap-
oils. St Louis and New Orleans l
stopped at a hotel in Chicago which has
1900 guest rooms. and whose lowest
room rate is 81. Suites range from $50
to $50 a day That hotel is fairly well
taken, and its average occupancy the
year through must be 800 rooms. These
at an average rental of 81 must bring in
ST. 200 a day, or more than million dol
lars year for room rent alone. ] am
told that there are several hotels in New
York which are clearing more than a
million dollars a year. and that the big
city hotels everywhere are pilins up
money.
And indeed. il is hard to see how they
can help it when one thinks of the past
There is first the increased rate on the
rooms and also the extraordinary
charges which one now pays for meals
In the good old times one could get a
dinner almost anywhere for from &
cents to ST. AS remember it, the Fifth
Avenue hotel charged $50, and the
Palmer and Grand Pacific of Chicagc
each charged 81. Now almost any meal
dish on the menu costs from so cents up
ward and a tenderlon steak runs from
7E cents to s..
Some Samples of Expense.
During my two-week journey hav
saved some of the hotel restaurant bill
and dozen of them now lie before me
The charges are about the same every
where 1 will give you some of tn
items. Let us start with the oysters. !
half dozen raw cost 30 cents, whicl
equals about IS a quart or $40 a gallon
Little neck CLAIMS cost the same Do 70,
want relish? You can have a slice o
smoked salmon or a bit of herring 70
~ cents, or a dozen olives with cost yo
a quarter. Soups are filling, but no
satisfying. A cup of consomme cost
2j cents, Scotch broth with barley cost
Sn and green turtle is higher.
AS to the fish, that is one of the chea
things on the menu A piece of broile
bass costs so cents, broiled buefish tn
same, and portion of live lobster broile
is H.25. Entrees are dear. l can buy
guinea hen almost anywhere in Virgini
for half a dollar, but a piece Of tn
fowl cut from the breast costs s1.25, an
a half OF a spring chicken just the sam
When you come to order special disht
the prices go up. For a spring ducklin
the charge is 50, roast chicken 81, an
IL you want a Philadelphia capon tn
price is high. II will take forty minute
to cook q four-dollar capon, and yo
may know you are paying Just 10 cen
for each minute you wait. You can get
whole spring turkey for the same sur
have just received an offer of cen
a pound for some hogs on my farm
Virginia. On these bills of fare Virgin
ham costs 60 cents for two slices. Tv
lamb chops. each as big around as
- dollar, are served for rs cents.
Prices on Fruits.
I object also to the prices OF veg
tables and fruits. I know that apples a
scarce this year and that the prices a
high. But nevertheless 25 cents Is t.
much for a single baked apple which ou
side the hotels on the fruit stand cou
be bought for nickel Set aside cen
for the cream and the cooking and I
hotel gets 20 cents for the apple aloI
Its apples are bought by the barrel a
at the low estimate of 800 apples to Z
barrel makes me pay at the rate of S6l
NH l.