As loud as giant's roar—
"When first I came, my proper name
Was Little—now I'm Moore!"
Hood's Whims and Oddities Second series.
Manners & Customs of all Nations.
No. XV.
LIVING AT CALAIS.
Calais may, for various reasons, be looked upon as one of the dearest towns in France. An excellent suite of furnished apartments may be had in one of the most respectable private houses in Calais, consisting of a sitting-room, three bedrooms, and a kitchen, for twenty shillings a week, and smaller ones in proportion, down to five shillings a week for a bachelor's apartment. This, however, does not include attendance of any kind; and, with few exceptions, the apartments can only be taken by the month. The price of meat is fixed by a tarif, at a maximum of sixpence per pound for the very best. It varies, therefore, between that price and fourpence; and this pound contains something more than ours. Poultry is still cheaper, in proportion, or rather in fact. My dinner to-day consists, in part, of an excellent fowl, which cost 8d. and a pair of delicate ducks, which cost 1s. 6d. The price of bread is also fixed by law, and amounts to about two-thirds of the present price of ours in London. Butter and eggs are excellent, and always fresh: the first costs from 9d. to 10d. the pound of 18 ounces; and the latter 10d. the quarter of a hundred. Vegetables and fruit, which are all of the finest quality, and fresh from the gardens of the adjacent villages, are as follow:—asparagus, at the rate of 8d. or 9d. the hundred, peas (the picked young ones,) 3d. per quart; new potatoes (better than any we can get in England, except what they call the framed ones,) three pounds far a penny; cherries and currants (picked for the table,) 2d. per pound; strawberries (the high flavoured wood-strawberry, which is so fine with sugar and cream,) 4d. for a full quart, the stocks being picked off. (This latter is a delicacy that can scarcely be procured in England for any price.) The above may serve as an indication of all the rest, as all are in proportion. The finest pure milk is 2d. per quart; good black or green teas, 4s. 6d. per pound; and the finest green gunpowder tea, 7s.; coffee, from 1s. 3d. to 2s.; good brandy, 1s. 3d. per quart, and the very best, 2s. (I do not mean the very finest old Cogniac, which costs 3s. 6d.) Wine is dearer in Calais than, perhaps, in any other town in France, that could be named; but still you may have an excellent table wine for 1s. per quart bottle; and they make a very palatable and wholesome beer, for 1-1/2d. and 2-1/2d. per bottle—the latter of which has all the good qualities of our porter, and none of its bad. Fish is not plentiful at Calais, except the skate, which you may have for almost nothing, as indeed you may at many of our own sea-port towns. But you may always have good sized turbot (enough for six persons for 3s. and a cod weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds,) for half that sum. As to the wages of female servants, they can scarcely be considered as much cheaper, nominally, than they are with us. But then the habits of the servants, and the cost of what they eat, make their keep and wages together amount to not more than half what they do with us.