CHAPTER X. 



EXPENCES OF HOUSE-KEEPING. 



325. IT must be obvious, that these must be in proportion to 

 the number in family, and to the style of living. Therefore, 

 every one knowing how he stands in these two respects, the best 

 thing for me to do is to give an account of the prices of house- 

 rent, food, raiment, and servants ; or, as they are called here, 

 helpers. 



326. In the great cities and towns house-rent is very high- 

 priced ; but, then, nobody but mad people live there except they 

 have business there, and, then, they are paid back their rent in 

 the profits of that business. This is so plain a matter, that no 

 argument is necessary. It is unnecessary to speak about the 

 expences of a farm-house : because, the farmer eats, and very 

 frequently wears, his own produce. If these be high-priced, 

 so is that part which he sells. Thus both ends meet with him. 



327. I am, therefore, supposing the case of a man, who follows 

 no business, and who lives upon what he has got. In England he 

 cannot eat and drink and wear the interest of his money ; for the 

 Boroughmongers have pawned half his income, and they will 

 have it, or his blood. He wishes to escape from this alternative. 

 He wishes to keep his blood, and enjoy his money too. He would 

 come to America ; but he does not know, whether prices here will 

 not make up for the robbery of the Borough-villains ; and he 

 wishes to know, too, zvhat sort of society he is going into. Of the 

 latter I will speak in the next chapter. 



328. The price of house-rent and fuel is, when at more than 

 three miles from New York, as low as it is at the same distance 

 from any great city or town in England. The price of wheaten 

 bread is a third lower than it is in any part of England. The price 

 of becf y mutton, lamb, veal, small pork, hog-meat, poultry, is one 

 half the London price : the first as good, the two next very nearly 

 as good, and all the rest far, very far, better than in London. 

 The sheep and lambs that I now kill for my house are as fat as 

 any that I ever saw in all my life ; and they have been running in 

 wild ground, wholly uncultivated for many years, all the summer. 

 A lamb, killed the week before last, weighing in the whole, thirty- 

 eight pounds, had five pounds of loose fat and three pounds and ten 



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