French growth, or French fabrications, are
immeasurably cheaper in America than here. Clothes are nominally much
cheaper here than with us; but neither the French nor the English use
habitually as good clothes as we; nor are the clothes generally as well
made. You are not, however, to suppose from this that the Americans are
a well-dressed people; on the contrary, we are greatly behind the
English in this particular, nor are our men, usually, as well attired as
those of Paris. This is a consequence of a want of servants, negligent
habits, greediness of gain, which monopolizes so much of our time as to
leave little for relaxation, and the high prices of articles, which
prevent our making as frequent calls on the tailor, as is the practice
here. My clothes have cost me more in Europe, however, than they did at
home, for I am compelled to have a greater variety, and to change them
oftener.

[Footnote 17: In New York, the writer has a house with two
drawing-rooms, a dining-room, eight bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, four good
servants' rooms, with excellent cellars, cisterns, wells, baths,
water-closets, etc. for the same money that he had an apartment in
Paris, of one drawing-room, a cabinet, four small and inferior
bed-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chamber; the kitchens, offices,
cellars, etc. being altogether in favour of the New York residence. In
Paris, water was bought in addition, and a tax of forty dollars a year
was paid for inhabiting an apartment or a certain amount of rent; a tax
that was quite independent of the taxes on the house, doors, and
windows, which in both cases were paid by the landlord.]

Our women do not know what high dress is, and consequently they escape
many demands on the purse, to which those of Paris are compelled to
submit. It would not do, moreover, for a French belle to appear every
other night for a whole season in the same robe, and that too looking
bedraggled, and as jaded as its pretty wearer. Silks and the commoner
articles of female attire are perhaps as cheap in our own shops, as in
those of Paris: but when it comes to the multitude of little elegances
that ornament the person, the salon, or the boudoir, in this country,
they are either wholly unknown in America, or are only to be obtained by
paying treble and quadruple the prices at which they may be had here. We
absolutely want the caste of shopkeepers as it exists in Europe. By
shopkeepers, I mean that humble class of traders who are