Statement showing the prices of provisions, groceries, and other leading articles of consump tion, with house-rent and board, in the towns of Dresden, Chemnitz, and Leipsic, Saxony, in 1872, 1873, and 1874. [The thaler computed at 72 cents.]

555

Statement showing the prices of provisions, groceries, and other leading articles of consumption, with house-rent and board, in Munich, Stuttgart, and Frankfort, Germany, in 1872, 1873, and 1874.

[The thaler computed at 72 cents; the florin at 40 cents.]

* General average of this statement and of the two on preceding pages.

2 40 1 00 to 1 40 1 60 to 2 40 1 75 to 2 80

1 56

Prices of the following articles in Frankfort-on-Main and Offenbach.

2.00 to
70 00 to 100 00
80 00 to 125 00
1 20

3.50

1.00

28 00 to 60 00 36 00 to 64 00

Three, four, five, or more workmen occupying one room, each. per month..

In reference to the above, Mr. Consul-General Webster writes under date of October 14, 1874 :

I send herewith a list of the prices of the necessaries of life in the cities of Frankfort and of Offenbach. The latter is almost wholly a manufacturing city where leather goods, machinery, carriages, &c., are made.

In the cost of the necessaries of life there cannot be much difference between the two places. The articles sold in a place like Offenbach are of an inferior quality to those sold generally in Frankfort. But there is not a corresponding difference in the prices. The same quality sold in the lowest-class places in Frankfort would be about the same prices, perhaps a little lower.

In a letter dated a few months previously, Mr. Webster thus wrote in regard to the high prices of the necessaries of life in Germany:

If, as is probable, the demand for labor will not continue to be so great as it now is, wages must still increase, in consequence of the advancing prices of provisions and cost of living. Rents have generally doubled within the last three years. Within my own knowledge. tenements, which rented in 1869 at from 800 to 1,200 florins, now rent from 2,000 to 3,000 florins. Common laborers occupy but very few rooms, and they pay often 12 to 20 florins for two small rooms per month. For a tenement, 300 to 500 florins. Congress may well raise compensation of its consuls, when they pay $1,000 per year rent, and bring their bread from California.

The prevailing idea is that the cost of living is very much less in Europe than in the United States. I think that the experience of most persons and families now living in the cities of Europe satisfies them that there is but little difference between American and European cities, if we except our very largest cities. There is not much difference in rents, furniture, and provisions. There is a difference in clothing, househelp, and carriage-hire. Fuel is dearer, and gas is dearer here than in the United States. Of course, in the country and small towns rents are very different from the cities. In other things there is not much difference. Of course a person will live differently in the country from what he will live in a city, therefore he will live cheaper. If an American lives in a European city in the style and manner that he has lived at home, his expenses will not be materially less. People go abroad to live cheaper than at home. In order to accomplish it they live in smaller quarters, and iu a meaner style. Travelers have often remarked to me that their bills at hotels are larger here than when in New York City. Also, that traveling by railroad with baggage is also dearer than in the United States. The general charge is 24 to 34 cents per mile, and baggage extra. Two hundred pounds of baggage costs about as much as a passenger.