EXPENCES OF HOUSEKEEPING 



thus garnished in hot zveather ? Oh ! no ! If it were not for the 

 superabundance, all the food would be sold at some price or other. 



334. After bread, flesh, fish, fowl, butter, cheese and groceries, 

 comes fruit. Apples, pears, cherries, peaches at a tenth part of 

 the English price. The other day I met a man going to market 

 with a waggon load of winter pears. He had high boards on the 

 sides of the waggon, and his waggon held about 40 or 50 bushels. 

 I have bought very good apples this year for four pence halfpenny 

 (English) a bushel, to boil for little pigs. Besides these, straw 

 berries grow wild in abundance ; but no one will take the trouble 

 to get them. Huckle-berries in the woods in great abundance, 

 chesnuts all over the country. Four pence half-penny (English) 

 a quart for these latter. Cranberries, the finest fruit for tarts 

 that ever grew, are bought for about a dollar a bushel, and they 

 will keep, flung down in the corner of a room, for five months in 

 the year. As a sauce to venison or mutton, they are as good as 

 currant jelly. Pine apples in abundance, for several months in 

 the year, at an average of an English shilling each. Melons at 

 an average of an English eight pence. In short, what is there not 

 in the way of fruit ? All excellent of their kinds and all for a 

 mere trifle, compared to what they cost in England. 



335. I am afraid to speak of drink, lest I should be supposed to 

 countenance the common use of it. But, protesting most decidedly 

 against this conclusion, I proceed to inform those, who are not 

 content with the cow for vintner and brewer, that all the 

 materials for making people drunk, or muddle headed, are 

 much cheaper here than in England. Beer, good ale, I mean, 

 a great deal better than the common public-house beer in England ; 

 in short, good, strong, clear ale, is, at New York, eight dollars a 

 barrel ; that is, about fourteen English pence a gallon. Brew 

 yourself, in the country, and it is about seven English pence a 

 gallon : that is to say, less than two pence a quart. No Borough- 

 mongers tax on malt, hops, or beer ! Portugal wine is about 

 half the price that it is in England. French wine a sixth part of 

 the English price. Brandy and Rum about the same in pro 

 portion ; and the common spirits of the country are about three 

 shillings and sixpence (English) a gallon. Come on, then, if you 

 love toping ; for here you may drink yourselves blind at the price 

 of sixpence. 



336. WEARING APPAREL comes chiefly from England, and all the 

 materials of dress are as cheap as they are there ; for, though there 

 is a duty laid on the importation, the absence of taxes, and the 

 cheap food and drink, enable the retailer to sell as low here as 

 there. Shoes are cheaper than in England ; for, though shoe 

 makers are well paid for their labour, there is no Borough-villain 

 to tax the leather. All the India and French goods are at half 

 the English price. Here no ruffian can seize you by the throat 

 and tear of! your suspected handkerchief. Here SIGNOR WAITH- 

 MAN, or any body in that line, might have sold French gloves and 



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