If you send away your cook, the guild will settle for you who is to replace him. All your culinary fancies will be well known to the council of the guild, and they will pick out a man up to your standard.
It was customary to give the cook a fixed sum per day to provide tiffin and dinner, and this was paid once a week.
I found that two dollars a day was sufficient to amply provide for my family, and I could have one guest to tiffin or dinner without notice, and be confident that the meal would be sufficient. In fact, this was part of my agreement with the cook. By giving short notice, the dinner could be extended for two or three people at an additional charge.
The cook rendered no account of the money he received; but, if I was not satisfied with the meals he provided, I admonished him, and if he did not do better I discharged him. I may say, however, that there was very seldom cause for complaint, for the Chinese are thorough business men.
When a dinner-party was given, the cook provided according to order, and sent in his bill for the extras. There was no housekeeping, and no need to order anything, and you knew exactly how much you were spending weekly, and how much a dinner-party cost.
The cleaning and polishing your plate and glass, the laying the table, the tasteful adorning of it with variegated leaves, with ferns or flowers, and the artistic folding of the serviettes, may with confidence be left to the mayordomo’s care; every detail will be attended to down to the ylang-ylang flowers in the finger-bowls.
With such servants as these, the mistress of the house, free from domestic cares, may take her shower-bath, and, clad in Kabaya and Sarong, await the moment when she must resume the garments of civilisation, and receive her guests looking as fresh, in spite of the thermometer, as if she had stepped out of a coupé in Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue. Ladies used to the ministry of Irish Biddy or Aunt Chloe ought to fancy themselves transported to heaven when they find themselves at the head of a household in Manila.
I append a note of household expenses for a family living moderately in Manila in 1892. I suppose the cost has been doubled under American rule.
Household Budget in 1892.
For a family of three adults and three children.