Whenever Americans proclaim the cheapness of a visit to London one finds without exception that they live here as they would not dream of living at home. Were they to take lodgings there in the same economic manner, they could live quite as cheaply.
Another inexpensive commodity—which becomes very expensive in the end—is cabs. There is no doubt that they are cheap, and the fatal result is that they are used to an extent which makes them a serious item of expense to a family of moderate means. In America we pay two shillings each for a short drive in that stately vehicle called a "hack," and the price is prohibitive for an average family except on "occasions." So cab fares are not a serious item in domestic expenses.
From experience, I believe that America has a very unmerited reputation for expense. Live well, even if not ostentatiously, in London, and it costs fully as much as in New York or Boston. One does not judge by millionaires or beggars, for both are independent of statistics, but by the middle classes. Houses are here singularly devoid of comforts, and, taking the same income, I should say a middle-class American family could live there as cheaply as here, but with more comfort; and when it comes to schooling for children, an item to which I have not alluded, with infinitely greater advantages.
In writing down these desultory reflections, I have been actuated by the thought that what I have learned may be of use to some puzzled American creature, who, having married an Englishman, proposes to live in England with only American standards to guide her. She must not believe, as I was told, that an American income will go one-third farther here. It does not. She must be prepared to accept other methods, even if, secretly, she modifies them a little to suit her American notions; but she must not boast, for her well-meaning efforts will, at best, be regarded with good-natured tolerance.
How I wish I could clap a big, stolid, conservative, frost-bitten English matron into a snug American house, with a furnace, and heaps of closet (cupboard) room, and all sorts of bells and lifts and telephones, and then force her to tell me the absolute, unvarnished truth! What would she say?
In conclusion, I wonder if I, as an exiled American sister, might make a plea to my American brethren? It is that when they send their wedding invitations, as well as others, printed on their swellest "Tiffany" paper, they will kindly put on enough postage. Why should one have to pay five-pence on each joyful occasion? On some, bristling with pasteboard, I have even had to pay tenpence,—why add this pang to exile?
Kitchen Comedies
My superior cook had just given me notice, and I felt that the bottom had dropped out of the universe. She was an ancient retainer, according to twentieth-century standard, for she had been with me three months.
Her claim to fame rested on her once having cooked for Lord Kitchener. Whenever we had a trifling difference of opinion, which was seldom, because I didn't dare, she always retorted that she had cooked for Lord Kitchener, and, of course, I realised that I was but an unworthy successor to that great man. I suffered a good deal from his lordship in those days, and fervently pray that Fate will not throw in my blameless path either his parlour-maid or his laundress.