tains two large and two small rooms, and
several closets. The chambers in the more modern houses contain marble
basins, with hot and cold water laid on. Where the tenant is unknown to
the landlord, he is required to pay his rent monthly, in advance, or to
give security for its quarterly payment. Such a house will require the
services of at least two women, and if there be children to be cared for,
a nurse is necessary. The wages of these, per month, are as follows:
cook, $16 to $20; chambermaid, $12 to $15; nurse, $12 to $16. In many of
the wealthier families a higher rate of wages is paid. At the rate
given, however, from $480 to $582 is the annual outlay for servants, to
which must be added a considerable sum for "changing help." Instances
are known to the writer in which this "changing help," in the case of
discharging an old cook and securing a new one, has cost a housekeeper as
much as $30 in a single change. This will be easily understood when I
state that ladies who go to look after "girls," in the places from which
they advertise for situations, are obliged to go to the expense of hiring
a carriage, it being unsafe for them to venture into these sections on
foot. Without counting the changes, however, and taking the lower
estimate of wages, we have a total of $2280 for house rent and servants'
hire. This leaves, from $6000, the sum of $3720 for food, clothing,
sickness, education, and all the incidentals of a family. The General
Government secures a large slice of this through its iniquitous income
tax, and State and county taxes take up several hundred more. Those who
have had experience in keeping house in any portion of the country can
easily understand how the rest goes, when one has to pay fifty cents per
pound for butter, fifty cents a dozen for eggs, sixteen cents a pound for
crushed sugar, twenty-five cents a pound for fowls, and thirty-five cents
a pound for the choice cuts of beef. All this, too, with the certainty
of getting light weights from your butcher and grocer.

Many persons seek refuge in boarding. Those who have no children, or but
one or two, may live cheaper in this way, but not in the same degree of
comfort that their outlay would bring them in their own homes. A couple
with two or three children and a nurse, cannot live in any respectable
boarding-house in New York, except in instances so rare that they do not
deserve to be mentioned, for less than sixty dollars per week for