The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-02-17

about $145, including the luxury tax
of 10 per cent. A good luncheon at
the place can be had for $2.25. Table
d'hote dinner, including four or five
courses, costs 3d. A simple dinner,
ample for plain people, can be had
for less. A traveller with fat roll OF
expense money, with appetite and ap-
probation for fine wines, can dine for
as much more as he likes, but not too
much attention should be paid to his
reports of the excessive high cost of
dining well.
The doughboy who goes into the
battle of high prices with a slender
roll should remember that the French
people are not having an easy time of
, it. Old High Cost of Living has not
overlooked them. / am indebted to
Prof. Edouard Dolleans, attached to
the French foreign office, for some
figures that will enlighten Americans.
In quoting him, shall translate prices
into term Of American money, to save
the readers time.
Where Living Is Expensive.
Before the war;" Prof. Dolleans
told me, butter was forty cents a
pound in Paris Now it is 81 a pound,
and very scarce at that. Egges, once
thirty-five cents dozen, are now
$3.50 a dozen. A young married man
could stop at market on his way
home. before the war, and buy a steak
! for two at a cost OF thirty cents. To
day he would pay eighty or eight-five
cents for it. The housewife who once
bought a chicken for from eighty
cents to a dollar, now pays from So to
| q he
! from nine cents a quart to twenty
| three cents. Sugar has gone from
nine cents to nineteen cents, and we
are limited to one pound per person
| per month"
1t is worth mentioning that butter
| and sugar are not served at hotels and
| restaurants. A hotel guest may go to
police headquarters If he likes and
| obtain sugar cards that will permit
| him to buy sugar, but he cannot have
it otherwise. If he wishes to sweeten
his coffee, the waiter will bring him a
bottle of liquid sacchrine with a quill
| in the cork, through which quill he
may inject some OF the colorless mud
! into his cup If he cares to take
chances. He probably will not like
! the taste of the saccharine, but he
should remember that 1t was terrible
| war, and that the aftermath is still to
/ be endured.
To resume with Prof. Dolleans' &C.
count:
Anthracite coal cost us about $6.4O
| per ton before the war; now 1t sells at
| S32 a ton. Once / paid So pair for
my shoes. The ones have on. which
are no better, cost me $22."
Cost Less In New York.
At the risk Of seeming to have a
too appraising eye. let me say that
shoes Of equal quality may be bought
in New York today for about $12. ]
have seen displayed in the windows of
stores here, shoes marked at forty-two
francs (about $S.40) that are hardly
equal to shoes obtainable in America
before the war at So.
How about wages and rents?
asked
Ordinary workmen are now paid
about $3.50 for ten hours work." Prof.
Dolleans replied. Before the war
they received about $40 per day.
Women workers average $3.50 for ten
hours, as compared with $1.40 before
tho war.
"As for rents, will give you typ
ical case. A small family of my &C
quaintance has an apartment compris-
ing four rooms and bath that cost $500
per year before the war. Now the
rent is 1920 per year.