_The Value of the Dollar.--A Dressmaker's Bill.--What American
Women must Spend on Dress.--Why so many Americans come to
Europe every year.--Current Prices.--The Beggar and the
Nickel.--Books and Oysters are Cheap.--Salaries.--"I can
afford it."_
If you go to a changer, he will give you five francs in French money, or
four shillings in English, for a dollar. But in America you are not long
in discovering that you get for your dollar but the worth of a shilling
in English money, or a franc in French.
The flat that lets for 4000 francs in Paris, and the house that is
rented at L200 (4000 shillings) in London, would be charged 4000 dollars
in New York, Boston, or Chicago.
The simplest kind of dress, one for which a Parisian of modest tastes
pays 100 francs, would cost an American lady at least 100 dollars. A
visiting dress costing, in Paris, 500 francs, in New York, would be 500
dollars. A hat that would be charged 50 francs is worth 50 dollars. The
rest to match.
Here is a dressmaker's bill which fell under my eyes in New York. Divide
each amount by five, and you have the sum in pounds sterling.
Robe de chambre 200 dollars
Cloth dress 175 "
Opera Cloak 500 "
Riding habit 180 "
Bonnet 30 "
Theatre bonnet 50 "
Black silk dress 240 "
Ball dress 650 "
Added up, this makes 2025 dollars, in English money a total of L405. In
this bill there is neither mantle, linen, shoes, gloves, lace, nor the
thousand little requisites of a woman's toilette, and it is but one out
of the three or four bills for the year.
I am convinced that an American woman who pretends to the least elegance
must spend, if she be a good manager, from L1000 to L1500 a year. Add to
this the fact that she loads herself with diamonds and precious stones.
But these, of course, have not to be renewed every three months.
A great number of Americans come to Europe to pass three months of every
year. This is not an additional extravagance, it is an economy. They buy
their dress for a year, and the money they save by this plan not only
pays their travelling expenses, but leaves them a nice little surplus in
cash.
* * * * *
A hotel bedroom on the fourth floor, for which you would pay five francs
a-day in Paris, in New York is five dollars. A cab which costs you one
franc and a half in France, or one shilling and sixpence in England,
costs you a dollar and a half in New York.
The dollar has not more value than this in the lesser towns of the
United States. The omnibus, for instance, which takes you to the station
from your hotel for sixpence in England, or half a franc in France,
costs you half a dollar in America.
Copper money exists in America; but if you were to offer a cent to a
beggar, he would fling it at you--fortunately there are very few. When
the barefooted urchins in the South beg, their formula is: "Spare us a
nickel," or "Chuck us a nickel, guv'nor." The nickel is worth five
cents, or twopence-halfpenny English money. The only use of the cent
that I could discover was to buy the evening paper.
The only things cheap in the States are native oysters, and English or
French books that have been translated (?) into American.
* * * * *
If expenses are enormous in the United States, I must hasten to add that
it is chiefly the foreign visitor who suffers in purse. The American can
afford to pay high prices, because his receipts are far larger than they
would be in Europe. Situations bringing in forty or fifty pounds are
unknown in America. Bank clerks and shopmen command salaries of from
L200 to L400 a year. A railway-car conductor gets L160 as wages.
In the grades above, in the professions, the fees, compared with those
earned in Europe, are also in the proportion of the dollar to the
shilling or franc. A newspaper article, which would be paid in France
250 francs (and no French paper, except the _Figaro_, pays so much for
an article) is often paid 250 dollars in America. A doctor is paid from
five to ten dollars a visit. I am, of course, not speaking of
specialists and fashionable doctors; their charges are fabulous. I know
barristers who make from twenty to thirty and forty thousand pounds.
Everyone is well paid in the United States, except the Vice-President.
If I have spoken of the high cost of living, it is to state a fact, and
not to make a complaint. I went to America as a lecturer, not as a
tourist. Jonathan paid me well; and when Cabby asked me for a dollar and
a half to take me to a lecture-hall, I said, like M. Joseph Prudhomme,
"It is expensive, but I can afford it," and I paid without grumbling.