Clothing is cheaper in Europe, and there is none ready made. The family either is wealthy enough to have tailors and dressmakers or makes its own. A tailor will get $1 a day wages, a seamstress 25 cents a day. A “hired girl” gets from a dollar a month to a dollar a week, so if a European has money enough he can have servants—but he doesn’t have them, and his wife and children work out. They don’t do this spasmodically, or in hard times, but customarily and ordinarily, just as their parents did before them and their children will do after them. Shoes are more expensive in Europe, and not so good. Cotton goods, such as shirts, underwear, etc., are as high or higher. Silk goods, kid gloves and perfumery are much cheaper than in America. The grades of clothing, etc., are different. In Europe the people use ugly and coarse stuff such as our people never use. Groceries are at least as high in Europe as in America. Meat is higher. You can get a “square meal” in the ordinary American small town for a quarter. You can’t do it in Europe, but you can get some soup and bread and carrots for ten cents.
The ordinary American workingman figures that by working hard, being economical and having a careful family, he can save enough to be comfortable, educate his children and give them as good a chance as anybody in town. The ordinary European workingman figures that by working hard, being economical and having all his family at work he can escape the poor-house, and his children can have the same chance he has had.
Of course the best prices are paid in the big cities, as in our country, and I will illustrate by some of my own experiences.
In London at one of the finest shops I had my hair cut and shampooed. It cost me 12 cents American money, and in Hutchinson would have cost me 50 cents, in New York at least 65 cents. The barber told me that most English workingmen could not afford to pay 6 cents (or 4 cents in a plain shop) and therefore cut their own hair.
I could have had a tailor make a suit in London for $12 or $15 that would cost me $30 in Hutchinson or $40 in Kansas City. The American tailor can figure out how it is done. But here is a thing that pleased me: The swell shops in London advertise “American tailoring.” A European tailor sews beautifully, but he can’t fit. The wealthy Englishmen wear clothes that would make a tasteful American have fits. Americans are the best dressed people in the world, and American tailors are considered the best everywhere.
I could live in a hotel cheaper in Europe. The hotel-keeper here pays his men from $6 to $10 a month and his chambermaids and female help from $1 to $3 a month. His meat and groceries cost as much or more than they would in America, but he works them more economically. The main difference is in the “help.”
EUROPEAN CLASS DISTINCTION.
“Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite ’em,