Prices are Calculated There are two subjects on which the least conversational members of society can find something to say: their insides, and the cost of living. The freedom and minuteness with which foreigners in Asia can discuss what they may or may not eat—by all accounts India's conversations are as frank in this respect as China's—with all the why's and wherefor's thereof would H's astonish people at Home. The best. season for discussions of this kin' has not yet arrived. But of lament over the increasing cost of livingly there is no end. The letters we have recently published are only an index of the kind of talk that is heard in every circle; and if the cause of expense of living is not always correctly gauged, of the fact there can be no doubt.
Having taken no part hitherto in the controversy. we have now made some independent inquiries, referring to the manager of one of the principal department stores here. The prices in all the chief stores here are so nearly on a level that one is a sufficient guide to all. At the outset it may he noted that none of the big stores has much inducement to overcharge as there are Chinese competitors nowadays always on the look-out to undersell them. The manager we went tg was perfectly frank and showed all figures that could in any way influence local prices.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.