UxpER this heading a writer in "Hearth and Home" has given to the world her experiences. If she added a sub-title and made her caption " Housekeeping in Shanghai, or How to Live on Sumethinga Year," she would have prepared her readers for a fair amount of expenditure.
As it is we must no longer delay quoting her opening sentence, which we should be only too glad if all our lady readers could endorse. " House-Keeping in Shanghai," she says, "i is really a joy, for its cares are nil and its comforts immense." That this statement will be seized on with avidity by that: mean section of mankind which thinks that Shanghai womanhood has nothing to do bat spend money and waste time, goes without saying. "There you are," they will say, Hourishing the damnatory raise Over their heads, "uw what have you got to say about the cares, and the worries, and the anxieties of household life? Here it is. Listen once more. Housekeeping in Shanghai is really a joy'—a joy—and a woman says so. Eh? What? How do T know it's woman? Well—a—true the article is not signed, but then any man of my literary taste can at once tell the feminine hand in print."
From which it is evidently desirable that we should examine into the facts concerning this new! thing of beauty which i: ever in Shanghai. "A magnificent market" is apparently one of the prime factors in it, "with a beautifully cool-looking tiled floor, round which are ranged the various native stalls, all tastefully set out, ete, ete." We wonder if the fair writer knew that of the twenty-four stalls "all tastefully set out" for foreigners there would only be eight or ten in use at rheend of August. But so it is. The foreigner won't market for himself, unless shortness of cash makes him. In fact our fair authoress says so. "The actual marketing is done by one's cook" she writes, a pass-book being all that is necessary, and that may, of course, be written up by the stall-keeper.
Then come details. Eggs, "from two to three dozen generally being considered little enough to order, from the cook's point of view." Bat what a fall is here! Only the other day we heard of the overhaul of the mess accounts of a well-known hong in the good old days. The regular order for eggs then was one thousand. The article proceeds, "Out here eggs are sri are very—nay, absurdly cheap, varying from twelve to fourteen cents a dozeu—about 23d, in English money What would the gool lady have thought had she been here thirty years ago to buy as many as she liked for five or six cents per dozen The same question might be asked pecting meat which she says is Iso ridiculously cheap, being fifteen cents a pound or sixteen—something considerably under sixpence: For at the beginning of the seventies beef and mutton were procurable at and seven cents respectively.
ries, wines, patent medicines, toilets requisites, and drapery are, however, given at " double the price we pay at home."
In actual figures, to which our joyous housekeeper condescends, we have the following: Butcher from £3 to £4 a month, and "market book the same." As there is no indication respecting the number of mouths to fill we can pass no opinion upon the sweet reasonableness or unreasonableness of these amounts. Grocer £2 10s. to £3 a month; wine, beer, soda-water, roughly £5," "a large item always in housekeeping, the whole making a rough total of £16 or £17," say $165 a month. "This, of course, only included the actual food and wine, no wages or anything else."
There were five servants kept, and for joy to be fall, they must all have been immaculate. A good number one boy is put down at from $12 to $14, a number two from $6 to $8, a number one coolie from $8 to $10, a number two $6, while cooks vary between and $20. With these most interesting facts the article comes to an abrupt conclusion. Had the good lady let usa little farther into her secrets we might have been able to pass an opinion upon her right to be considered a housekeeper ina state of perennial joy. Did she find her house-rent to her liking, we wonder, and was her gas-bill heavy for the amount of light supplied'? She had no brougham apparently, and so we may conclude that she didn't live far out on the Road. Perhaps she was a reigning queen from the other end of the town. It is tantalising not to know. Spending some $200 on food and servants alone, a by no means outrageous amenns, we could easily tell what she was not. For there are such things as rent, taxes, insurance, club subscriptions—to nothing of chits—education of children, clothing, by no means a small item, and many more things too numerous to mention, But one point is certain, Our joyous housekeeper could have had no difficulty in making both ends meet, and therein she differed from only*too many of her contemporaries. Housekeeping may be a joy—doubtless is—when the pure is heavy and the strings elastic. But lightness in pocket has heaviness in mind as its usual complement, and ince it is known that expenses have at least doubled here within recent years while incomes have lagged behind, we fear that few of our lady friends will be ready to endorse the assertion that "Housekeeping Shanghai is really a joy."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.