 Section 8. Of Going Abroad? Some Advice. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Going Abroad? Some Advice. By Robert Luce. How to Stay? Part 1 European hotels are, in the main, supported by tourists. Contrasted with hotels of the same class here, the foreign hotel excels in cooking, comfort and economy. The American hotel excels in elegance, formality and pretension. Europe has almost no hotels that will approach the more gorgeous of the new caravanseries of New York, Boston and Chicago in furniture, decorations and general sumptuousness. And few American hotels set as good a table judged by quality, not quantity, as you may find in nearly every city on the continent. In almost every respect, the hotels of such places as Geneva, Florence, Lyon, Brussels and Amsterdam are far superior to those in cities of corresponding population on this side of the water. Our village taverns do not begin to equal those of Europe in cleanliness, cooking and all the essentials of comfort. No, not all. For from the tenement house to the palatial villa, we are far ahead of Europe in two very important elements of comfort, lighting and heating. Rarely will you find the electric light in a European hotel chamber. Almost as rarely will you find a gas burner and a lamp is a luxury that comes high. The candle is still the almost universal illuminant for chambers, both in public and private houses. Indeed, the European thinks the hotel is a house, to be used as much like a dwelling as possible. It has its living rooms, its parlours, its dining and smoking rooms and the notion that with these at hand, anybody can want to occupy a chamber except for the time of sleeping and dressing seems to the European absurd. His ancestors went to bed by candlelight and all his neighbours go to bed by candlelight and why shouldn't the American? If he wants to read, let him sit in the parlor. If he wants to get warm, let him come into the public rooms always well warmed and if he prefers the privacy of his chamber, let him pay the extra cost of lighting and heating it. To be sure, the public parlours are not always commodious or attractive, are usually inferior to those of our hotels and ladies parlours are rare in hotels not designed for some atorists, notably those of Austria but the European system contemplates private parlours, suites of rooms and the guest who cannot afford them is not supposed to be in a position to find fault. The system of payment galls the American. He has been brought up on the plan of paying a lump sum for his living so much a day or week with about everything thrown in. On the contrary, the European tendency is to itemise everything. On this side the water, the broad spirit of generosity. On the other the wise spirit of thrift. When the European landlord says his price is so much a day he means to include, roughly speaking, only the common commodities of his trade, a bed, a roof, food and the public rooms. Viewed in this light, the charges are not so extortionate as many travellers represent them to be. If in the States a man pays in the lump four dollars for what costs him the same abroad paid for piecemeal, he has no right to complain. Rather, may the foreigner justly complain when he comes here and finds the lump sum price includes many things he does not want and does not use. For example, that matter of gas. The American landlord must charge his guests the average cost of the gas they burn. May not the foreigner, accustomed to pass but a short waking time in his chamber complain of paying his share of the light consumed by the poker party next door? He prefers to carry his own soap. Why should he pay the average cost of the soap consumed in that hotel? A trivial thing you say, but remember the foreigner has learned the lesson that the cost of living is made up of little things and that to be thrifty prosperously he must be thrifty in little things. The European charge for soap has been the butt of American ridicule ever since Americans began to travel abroad and yet no American has ever explained why it is more incumbent on a landlord to furnish soap to his guests than to furnish tooth powder. To ridicule the custom of a country in such matters is to argue one owns conceit, to arrogate a superiority that calm consideration may be far from justifying. Our tendency is surely toward the European system rather than away from it. Restaurants on the American plan, erroneously so called, no longer flourish in any of our large cities. Nearly every hotel of consequence in the cities has at least one room where you can order à la carte. And the fee system has secured so strong a hold in our hotels and our sleeping cars that we must admit Americans no longer have any comparable aversion to paying the servant and the employer separately. On the other hand, the European tendency is in our direction. Every year sees fewer hotels making an extra charge in the bills for attendance and lights. Doubtless in time there will come to be a nearly uniform practice on both sides of the water combining the best features of both systems. In European hotels. But in the method of managing hotels, neither party seems disposed to yield. The portier, unknown in America, still reigns supreme on the continent. The clerk, unknown abroad, still rules the American hostelry. The portier is not a porter in our sense of the term, though the name is commonly thus translated for the sake of convenience and from the want of any English word to describe his functions. He resembles the American manager in everything except managing. The American clerk in everything except clarking. He welcomes the coming, speeds the parting guest. At least in the smaller hotels he dickers with you about your rooms. Often he sees that you get your bill. He hears all your complaints and attends to them. He speaks your language and several others. He tells you where to go and how to get there. He is a polyglot encyclopedia. He out Chesterfield's Chesterfield and his urbanity is never failing. It is worth going abroad just to find out that a hotel man can come in constant contact with the public and yet remember courtesy. Indeed, be more than courteous. Good natured. England has no word for portier because it has no portier. There the hotel guest finds girls to show him the rooms and arrange about the price and they do most of the work of the American hotel clerk. On the continent the head waiter ranks next in importance to the portier and between meals often aids him. Tell the head waiter when you are going to leave and he brings the bill, takes the money and delivers the change for the purpose of course that you may not forget the waiters when you give your fees. The landlord himself you seldom see or at least seldom address. He stays behind the scenes. Elevators always called lifts on the other side of the water when named in English. Accenseurs in French are found in non but the first class hotels and often not in them. Indeed in some countries the possession of a lift is so rare that it is made prominent in the advertisements. Unless you are an invalid or infirm you are expected not to use it for the descent but to walk. It is usually slow and badly attended. Plumbing in the hotels is not equal to hours of today but is as good as our hotels would average twenty years ago. It would not be rash to assert that it produces fewer cases of typhoid fever than the plumbing of our summer hotels. In this matter and in that of vermin the prevalent notion in America about European discomforts is all wrong. Go where travellers ordinarily go and neither your nostrils nor your antipathies to insects will ever bear testimony against European habits in public houses. Sleep in a Swiss chalet and you are likely to get acquainted with the festive flee, just the same kind of a flee that I have felt in Cape Breton farmhouses and main lumber camps and I have seen more inhabitants in a birth of a Canadian steamer than during a European journey of many months. In this regard many of the country hotels of New England are worse off than even the lower grade of European hotels. Though there are many poor people with cleanly habits the fact remains that as a rule poverty and filth are warm friends and wherever the poor are numerous vermin abound. It is doubtful if vermin are less abundant in the older of our large cities than in those of the old world except as we may have a smaller proportion of the very poor. Vermin are good travellers, they sometimes get into the cleanest house into the most elegant hotel on this side of the water as well as the other but European landlords fight them as earnestly as do American landlords and with nearly as much success. Cleanliness too is just as common in all food matters as to hotel bills. The best hotels in the large cities and at the fashionable resorts on the continent as a rule charge one and a half francs for breakfast, café au lait, four francs for luncheon, déjeuner à la fourchette, five francs for dinner, table d'eau, and from four francs up for room, lights and attendants. Call the room five francs and in figuring allow for the fact that the franc is worth a little less than 20 cents. This makes a total of almost exactly three dollars a day which ten percent is to be added for fees making the total three dollars thirty. A few hotels will charge six francs for dinner but on the other hand many charge but three or three and a half francs for luncheon. In Paris and one or two of the other cities you can pay ten, twenty, thirty or even more francs for a room but taking the continent through five francs is a fair allowance for a good room in a first class hotel. It might be safe to count on a hotel bill of from three dollars fifty to four dollars a day for what would be styled as first class in Paris, Berlin or Vienna but the foregoing figures are the average of a tour taking in fifteen or twenty large cities and resorts. For actual figures of travelling on the continent where the costliest hotel was not chosen in the large cities, let me refer to Beane who is a crank on statistics brought back all his bills and spent a week in making additions and averages. The count showed that he had passed sixty one nights in forty six hotels five in Italy, ten in Switzerland six in Spain, six in Germany five in France, three in Holland and one in Belgium, surely a representative list twenty five were the best hotels in the place and the rest were as a rule smaller and quieter but not less comfortable than the costliest and all were starred by Bédica who confers this honour on no hotels that are not clean and comfortable. All variety of rooms were occupied from the best in the house to rooms on the fourth floor but the average was about what would be given to the careful traveller who seeks comfort and has no ambition to pay for elegance. The six Spanish hotels in each case the best in the place rendered the bills by the day showing an average charge of two dollars forty eight fees took seventeen cents total two dollars sixty five in the other countries itemised bills were the rule and in Spain there were enough charges for parts of days to make possible an average by the item for all the forty six hotels used the result was as follows room sixty seven cents cafe breakfast twenty seven cents des gennées luncheon fifty six cents table dote dinner seventy five cents fees fifteen cents total two dollars forty six of the hotels charge separately for service but as this is properly part of cost of room it has been treated as such nine made extra charge for lights but as being carried his own candles he had every such charge taken off the bill save in one place where he had to pay a franc for having an electric light in his room whether he used it or not he found out however the average cost for lights in these hotels was nine cents the landlord occasionally tries to bleed the tourist by putting fresh candles in the room every day even if those of the night before haven't been burned a quarter of an inch but usually if a candle lasts a week the tourist pays for it only once though for fifths of the hotels now make no separate charge for lights it is still worth while carrying one's own candlestick and Bean says he fears he might have been charged for candles more frequently if on engaging his room he had not always asked whether lights were included in its price the table dote course dinner was found in nearly all these hotels but in fourteen of them Bean ordered à la carte arriving too late for the regular dinner or preferring the quicker and lighter meal the cost averaged forty two cents but as two persons ate together they could combine their orders with an economy impossible to the solitary tourist hardly dine alone in the continental hotels à la carte for an average expenditure of less than sixty or seventy cents a meal another uncertain item of expense is that incurred for wine water is always obtainable ice can frequently be had but sometimes in southern Europe there is an extra charge of three or four cents for a bowl of it so far as Americans drink wine through fear of the water their action is unreasonable of course if they drink it from preference it is nobody's business if they are content to drink such wines as the well to do natives use at table the cost d not average more than twenty cents a day for a quart bottle will suffice one person three or four meals provided the wine is diluted as the natives diluted and is used as a beverage not as a stimulant Bean once dwelt with a French family for several months and never saw either host or hostess drink two glasses of mixed wine and water at any one repast the dilution is not from motives of economy but because it improves the ordinary wine of the country to put some water with it wine is never taken with the morning meal when the beverage is always coffee tea or chocolate dining and lunching at the cafes ordinary frequented by tourists is less expensive than in the hotel restaurants one must have a good knowledge of localities and language to live in restaurants as economically abroad as at home with the same quality and quantity of food but it can be done in the cost of hotel living must be included the laundry bills which of course very much according to the personal habits of the tourist from five to ten cents a day may be added to cover this Bean concluded then that it is safe for a careful traveller to calculate on two dollars fifty a day as the cost of living in very continental hotels without wine or two dollars seventy with wine in a few hotels the wine of the country is served without extra charge there are many places where one can live cheaper but this is the average that may be counted on by a tourist who covers a good deal of ground the cost for husband and wife will be just double for rooms are charged by the bed assuming single beds for that is the most invariable practice of sleeping abroad in some hotels a double bed can be easily had but as a rule single beds are used whether a couple have a room with two single beds or a room with a double bed or two rooms with single beds the cost will be the same and by the way where the stay will be long enough to make it worthwhile a couple can get more comfort by securing two connected single bedded rooms having both beds put in one room and using the other for a sitting room but usually hotel chambers are so large that a double bedded room which means a room with two single beds gives plenty of accommodation the tourist companies issue what they call hotel coupons which are accepted by landlords of hotels of the first rank in about every European city as a convenient way of paying hotel bills they have their merits but economy is not the greatest of them and it is not claimed on the other hand their use does not increase the expense of travel to any considerable degree cook asks $2.50 for coupons entitling the bearer to what we should call room breakfast luncheon and dinner gays asks $2.40 for the same thing apparently because his list of hotels averages a shade below cook's list though in fact many hotels accept either coupons gays says that his have this value room, lights and service $0.70 plain breakfast, coffee and rolls $0.30 dinner, luncheon or meat breakfast $0.60 table dot $0.80 fees are not included and though some Americans using these coupons do not give fees they are expected it will be seen that this is in excess of what being average to pay as follows room $0.03 cafe $0.03 or $0.15 not very much but amounting to something when 3 or 4 people are travelling for several months Bean insists that he averaged to get better rooms than his friends who used coupons but on the other hand they sometimes went to better hotels it stands to reason that in spite of any agreement to the contrary landlords will give somewhat better treatment to the man who pays them cash than to him who gives them a coupon of the same nominal value but on which they must allow a profit it is a rare landlord who can afford to refuse the coupon arrangement for the cook and gaze list of coupon hotels are much used by tourists who do not buy coupons but feel sure that a coupon hotel will be respectable so it is cheaper to use coupons than to pay cash at some of the high priced hotels perhaps the thrifty traveller who does not object to dickering does best by carrying coupons with him and using them when he cannot make a better cash bargain this should be determined in advance however and not delayed till the bill is presented for commonly the landlord wants to know when you engage the rooms whether you mean to pay with coupon or cash and if you wait till the bill is brought you may have an unpleasant quarter of an hour and get your coupons refused or most disagreeably accepted indeed all hotel terms should be fixed before you take possession of the room this comes hard to the American accustomed to demand of a hotel club the best room in the house without asking the price but it is the only safe thing to do abroad the portier expects it and does not make you feel cheap if you do it half the time if you follow up the first question with haven't you something cheaper you will get just as good a room for less money the price varies according to which floor the room is on and to its exposure there being slight difference in furnishings or size when the stay is to be for a single night the person who is in good health and whose purse is not bottomless would be held foolish by some people if he declined to save a franc by walking up another flight of stairs here as everywhere don't think that lavish expenditure does you any good abroad the European views economy is the normal natural reasonable thing he respects it and he aids it while trying to make all they can out of you the people with whom you come in contact will do all they can to help you save money a paradox that perhaps you will not believe till you have tried it in great Britain hotels are more costly than on the continent by about a fifth attendance is charged separately more frequently than on the continent and may cost half as much as the room so that in inquiring the room charge it in English hotel it will be well to find out about the attendance at the same time several palatial hotels including those of New York in fittings and furnishings have been built in London of late years and the rich American may there disport himself as luxuriously as he pleases it is about as hard as ever though to find a table in London equal to that served in scores of hotels across the channel the odd thing about it is that the staff of the large English hotel is nearly all foreign born somehow the French and Swiss and German hotel people lose their mastery of the gastronomic art and they get into the fogs of London many of the larger English hotels are owned by the railway companies attached to their stations this does not keep them from being clean and comparatively quiet they are often a convenience to the hasty traveller and their prices are by no means excessive on the other hand the prices of the small hotels in London at least taking the accommodation and service into account often seem most unreasonable to the tourist who has just come from the continent the Temperance hotels in Great Britain are none the more and none the less comfortable because they do not sell liquor the English bar room lacks most of the offensive features that make the American bar room a nuisance the landlady or a trim bar maid tones it up somewhat and at least in the towns it is a place for social intercourse rather than hilarious revelry so the Temperance feature of an English hotel is of slight significance English hotel charges lead those of the continent in a matter of breakfast than in any other particular being just twice as large in England breakfast is a hearty meal more hearty I think than as usual even in the United States if the traveller keeps up the practice after crossing the channel if only to the extent of adding an egg or two to the coffee and roll he will have to put from 10 to 25 cents on the estimates of continental expenses previously given in Holland however it is a very rich custom prevalent and will pay for beginning the day with plenty of fuel the Dutch hotels cost nearly as much as those of England and in other ways living is more costly in Holland than elsewhere on the continent Italian hotels are the cheapest and to live in them need not average to cost much over $2.25 a day even when stops are made for but a single night in the Far East from Cairo round to Athens the expense will vary from $2.60 to $3.25 a day about French hotels and their prices I have already said something in the chapter on bicycle touring it should be added that outside the big cities the Portier is not a common functionary the work of dealing with guests being ordinarily in the hands of women as in England the Portier is everywhere on the main line of continental tourist travel but it is a singular fact that though Paris is the social centre of the world entertaining nearly a million visitors a year other French places entertain comparatively few and away from the Riviera there are almost no hotels where the polyglot Portier is an essential do not expect therefore to find cosmopolitan hotel features if you journey through the towns along the Loire or in Brittany Murray summarises the cost in Germany by saying that the full payment for a good front single room in a first class hotel may be set down as $0.48 the best room costing as high as $2.40 or even more attendance $0.16 candle $0.12 morning coffee $0.28 table dote at midday $0.84 without wine evening meals at discretion at la carte while at a humbler inn or in a country town the room would probably cost $0.36 attendance and candle $0.12 coffee $0.16 table dote $0.64 including a small bottle of country wine until lately it has been the invariable custom in German hotels to have the heavy meal of the day at noon and many a traveller has complained bitterly at the consequent waste of two or three hours of daylight but now on the tracks well beaten by tourists many hotels have the table dote at evening as elsewhere much better rates can be secured in advance if the traveller intends to say several days the law requires the hotel tariffs to be posted at every bedroom and furthermore the German innkeepers occupy a higher social position than in most other countries making them more trustworthy therefore it is not so important in Germany as elsewhere to ascertain all prices beforehand but the careful tourist will do it nevertheless to the American the most provoking feature of German domestic economy is the feather bed under which he's expected to sleep along the Rhine where tourists are the mainstay of the hotels he may not meet it but let him get into the heart of Germany into hotels patronised chiefly by Germans and he will find plenty of chance to learn the art of sleeping under feathers usually though a counter pain or blankets can be hard by applying to the chamber maid in Switzerland prices do not begin to attain the altitudes we expect in the hotels of any American mountain region computing large and small just as they come in the lists published by the association of Swiss hotel proprietors it would appear that taking the country through the average daily charge ranges from $1.57 to $2.04 according to the room for hotels that maintain the same price the year round very many of the resort hotels however either are open only in the summer or else raise their prices in the busiest season for 6 or 8 weeks in mid-summer some beginning the higher rates July 1st others July 15th at this time the average large and small that raises rates ranges from $1.95 to $2.45 a day according to the room for borders $1.30 to $2 a day some hotels giving these rates to anyone staying at least 5 days others requiring a week as a rule the most expensive high altitude hotels are over lakes and the least expensive among the mountains and glaciers away from the track of the diligence notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring provisions and the shortness of the season the mountain house is enabled by having practically no ground rent to pay to charge less and yet make a reasonable profit in selecting a hotel it is always safe to rely on Bedaker any hotel he stars in his guidebook is sure to be good of its class and the class is to be inferred from the prices given the man who need not study his expenditure who can afford the best and wants it and usually get it by going to the hotel starred first in a Bedaker list not always however for the great profit bought to a hotel in a frequented place by having the Bedaker list is liable to spoil it by making its landlord careless, indifferent and even arrogant then when another edition of the guidebook comes out Bedaker whose disinterestedness in the matter is unimpeachable puts some of the hotel first who like to travel by rule always go to the second or third hotel in the Bedaker list those to whom mild economy is an object follow out with safety the plan of going to the first hotel listed as of the second class it is reasonably sure to be satisfactory others get a landlord to recommend a hotel of the same grade in the next place on the route others keep a notebook and jot down information on this point that they get from fellow travellers of one thing you may be sure that the look of the hotel bus at the railway station is no safe guide the paint on the omnibus is no criterion of the food on the table the very fact that a hotel is recommended by Bedaker cock or gaze is in one way an argument against it for undoubtedly you will learn more and probably you will enjoy more if you keep away from the stream of tourists to advise the novice to keep away from his countrymen may seem unpatriotic but it is common sense when at Rome do as the Romans do is a maxim that has a depth of logic beneath it if you believe in it you will go to the hotel used by the well-to-do people of the country in which it may be if you can learn which hotel that is and not go to the hotel while all the guests at table are of your own nationality giving you no chance to improve your knowledge of the language or to observe the manners and characteristics of the people yet it is dangerous to dogmatize and there is something in the point that to meet your fellow countrymen now and then is inspiring and that if you discriminate in your conversation you can extract a good deal of useful travel information from them likewise it must be admitted that the argument against going to the highest priced hotels is not unimpeachable the costliest is sure to be large and to have a variety of rooms many of them at prices no higher than those of the second grade hotels it is reasonably sure to be comfortable while there is a chance that the low grade hotel may not be all that could be desired some tourists argue that at the best hotel they always get the best company and the best table but whatever certainty there may be about the company surely does not extend to the table for as in our country elegance is often provided at the expense of the food there is ground for the cynics assertion that the quality of the vians is an inverse proportion to the size of the menu for the more a chef scatters his energies the less likely he is to triumph the greater the variety of dishes in the kitchen the less care can be given to each furthermore though man does not live by bread alone he surely can't eat the china undoubtedly to save 20% in hotel bills means in many cases a loss of 30% in comfort but in my belief 10% can be saved with no loss in comfort at all but the costliest hotels charge about 10% extra for elegance which adds nothing whatever to comfort and even as luxury as of uncertain value you see it is largely a matter of personal tastes all through Europe the hotel books are kept by the numbers of the rooms and not by the names of the guests so it is necessary to fix in mind one's room number at the start if in a hotel of any size in some countries the law requires landlords to get the name of a guest and other information about him immediately upon his arrival to be reported to the police elsewhere one may register or not as he pleases and usually he doesn't please it is the American custom to serve all three of the day's meals in the same room but that is not the general practice abroad in England the breakfast is usually served in what is known as the coffee room you may get the other meals there or you may be sent to a commercial room or there may be a dining room in the Latin countries it is well-nigh the universal custom of the native born to have the morning coffee and roll in their rooms frequently taking them while yet to bed away from the hotels frequented by foreigners one is likely to find the dining room in the morning not so attractive as a table on the terrace in the summertime at any rate awkward moments may be saved many a novice in travel if he is informed that ordinarily on entering a dining or coffee room one is expected to take any seat that suits his fancy occasionally a headway to rush his forward to office his services and getting seats but the common thing is for the traveller to find his own it is exceedingly bad form to be late at the table adult damage done to the furniture and other equipments of a hotel room is and should be at the cost of the guest no honest traveller will evade payment for it and his best course is to call the landlord's attention to it as soon as practicable after the accident has happened otherwise he may have the harder time with an unscrupulous landlord who sees in it a chance for profit indeed in some parts of Europe it is no uncommon thing for landlords to reap a harvest by making successive guests pay damages for the same spot in the carpet or the cracked bowl that has done human service in this regard for a dozen years especially in Germany and Austria it is wise to take note of the condition of the furniture and other fittings of a room on entering it and to call the attention of the portier or waiter to anything and miss the rule is that one must leave the room as he found it and after all it is a just rule even though some rascally hosts take advantage of his existence to defraud the and worry the association of Swiss hotel proprietors issues a hotel list with a preface that presents the landlord's view of some of these things in a way not often considered by the traveller it points out for instance that when one orders a room in advance by letter or telegraph no certainty is given to the landlord that the bargain will be carried out a bargain by the way to which he has not consented to be a party who indeed will answer the conundrum as to which traveller has the greater claim for accommodations the traveller that arrives early with his money in hand or the unknown person that without offering surety announces still earlier by wire or post his intention to arrive late it is also pointed out that the man who in advance orders a room to be ready for his arrival early in the morning may very justly be expected to pay for it as if he had used it all night provided it had to be kept empty in order to be ready for him in the same way he who departs late in the day may justly be asked to pay for that night if he has kept the landlord from renting the room to someone else but friction on this point can generally be saved by giving notice early in the day of intent to vacate the room provided the notice is given to the right person in the nature of a casual remark to a waiter or a chambermaid an innkeeper is responsible at common law for the acts of his domestics and for thefts and is bound to take all due care day and night of the goods and baggage of his guests deposited in his house or entrusted to the care of his family or servants there remain few if any countries in the civilized world however where landlords have not been freed by statute from responsibility for valuables not specifically entrusted to them for safekeeping furthermore whether in the land of common or the civil law whether there are statutes on the subject or not the tourist is at the disadvantage of being among strangers and as a rule of lacking the time for legal processes it is decidedly a case where discretion is the better part of valour and a fight is almost useless should the occasion for it arise better consult the nearest American consul but the chance of the occasion is in fact very small thieving is not characteristic of hotel servants in most parts of Europe and as a rule one's effects may be left in a hotel room with impunity in Norway and Sweden scrupulous honesty is the rule in small as well as large matters one American after getting home from there was followed speedily by a letter from the keeper of the hotel at Christiana where he stayed enclosing a 10 krona note about $2.50 and stating that the chamber maid had found it on the floor of one of the rooms occupied by the Americans family anywhere on the continent report a birth or death at once to the nearest American consul end of section 8 recording by Kate M section 9 of going abroad some advice this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information please visit LibriVox.org going abroad some advice by Robert Luce chapter 9 how to stay part 2 in pensions pronounce it as a French word with as much of the nasal twang for the two ends as you can muster don't accent the first syllable but dwell a little on the last it has nothing to do with our word, pension except philologically the American of it is boarding house abroad it has gained almost as general use outside France as the French word menu the line between hotels and pensions is very shady indeed it is a frequent thing to find the hotel so and so with a subtitle such and such this is merely open recognition of the system of payment practically invoked at nearly all hotels under which you pay a larger sum by the day for a short stay than for a long stay but landlords vary in drawing the line sometimes you can get post your rates if you stay more than 3 days sometimes it is 5 days and occasionally a week is the limit when arriving at a hotel if you expect to say several days inquire about the pension rates in advance occasionally in the smaller cities pensions pure and simple will take guests for but a single night as a rule however they expect their guests to stay a week or more and in many Parisian pensions you will not get the lowest rates unless you stay a month or more my bills for 157 days passed in 8 pensions of France Switzerland and Italy average $1.35 a day with fees averaging 5 cents a day making a total cost of $1.40 when we paid for kerosene lamp in our room it cost us from 7 to 15 cents a day but after we bought our own lamp and petroleum the cost was trivial by the way the petroleum can be bought in bottles at any grocery store allowance being made for the bottle when returned just as many American grocers are getting the way of doing with cream a fire in the room in winter costs from 15 to 20 cents a day but was not frequently needed in Italy as in other matters the lowest rates are found in Italy but Swiss prices are almost as low there are many pensions in the Alps where one can live comfortably for a dollar a day if a stay of a week or more is promised and a few as low as 90 or even 80 cents a day their beds and rooms are invariably clean and the diet is wholesome well cooked and well served good boarding houses are not plentiful in Great Britain outside London though there are some excellent ones in Oxford and a few other places supported chiefly by the patronage of American tourists they are accustomed to fleeting guests so that one need feel no embarrassment in applying to them even if the stay is to be but for a night or two in London those of the highest price are in the west end but the mass of American borders may be found in the neighbourhood of the British Museum paying for the most part from $1.75 to $2 a day for accommodations of the better sort this too is about what is common in Paris and in other cities though where there is no hotel pretence $1.50 will command the best to be had in any provincial city or town of course in fashionable pensions such as those in the Parisian Quarter about the Arc de Triomphe one can easily find the chance to pay from $2.50 to $3 a day if he seeks it my figures are about what is paid by people who know their Europe well who know it for no person who visits Europe from really valuable motives goes or will advise others to go to bounce your holy use by English speaking people unless it be in summer when rest is of more consequence than study in the first place you can't learn anything of a foreign language when your dinner companions insist on speaking your own language or rather you can learn it only with far more difficulty at table is the best place to practice a foreign language then too the Americans who live habitually in pensions frequented by their fellow countrymen are as a rule not people from whom you learn much or whose acquaintance is a source of much profit in anyway of course there are exceptions often delightful friendships are made at the tables of foreign pensions or hotels but seldom continued the women's rest tour association issues a list of boarding houses and pensions that it recommends but this is accessible only to members the teachers guild of Great Britain and Ireland issues a similar list covering not only Europe but also the United States Canada, Palestine and North Africa great care is taken to secure the accuracy of the particulars given and they are checked and corrected every year every address sent for insertion in the guild handbook has to be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from a member of the guild or from two persons who are not members anybody can obtain the list for a shilling from the general secretary at the office of the guild 74 Gower street WC London no money is received from anyone for inserting any addresses in it an organization recently come into prominence is the international union of pension composed of between 1 and 200 scattered over the continent and in England so that nearly every place frequented by tourists has a member or two it started in Germany the pension international at Heidelberg being the first to join and I presume a letter addressed there would bring a membership list the members are required to maintain a certain standard of excellence or be liable to expulsion the houses are favorites with women travelling singly or in parties who find them more pleasant and home like than hotels lacking information from any of these sources one who contemplates an extended stay in any strange town abroad may usually get trustworthy advice by addressing a letter of inquiry to the mayor of the place an address thus secured is at least certain to be that of a respectable postion or private family one's banker too can usually make suggestions it was a bankers letter that opened the doors of one most excellent ponceur where the guests are supposed to be accepted only when bringing letters of introduction in another instance where we visited a certain small city for the chief purpose of a few weeks of study we fell on our feet through asking advice of the local delegate of the touring club de France in Paris one may consult the advertising columns of the Paris edition of the New York Herald or if they announce nothing satisfactory may get addresses in plenty by inserting a few lines if he goes there for study he may start for the latin quarter at once and preferably in the region between the Luxembourg and the Boulevard Montparnasse can without much trouble find what he wants a woman can there find accommodation at the American girls club or get on the track of it in the neighborhood at the club the price of a single room is two dollars a week there is a restaurant attached where one pays for what she orders and can live at from sixty to eighty cents a day in view of the purpose of the club to be of aid to students of course the table is modest expenses being kept as low as possible the student of French can find good board in the cities of the Loire Valley where the language is purist and notably in Tours for seven dollars or eight dollars a week it is safer to make in writing agreements for long sojourns at Pension and the same thing is true in the matter of lodgings sudden notice of intent to leave entitles the landlord to an indemnity in most foreign localities and if stipulations on this point have not been definitely made in advance you may find yourself arrested just as you are about to leave town it is always well to ask the advice of the American Council before drawing up a document bearing on this matter or any other as if you have not taken this precaution through some informality your agreement may prove worthless do not infer that quarrels with your landlord are inevitable but they are not unknown and where any considerable amount of money is to be involved it will be wise to be on the safe side in lodgings in England though in London at least there are many boarding houses it is more usual to live in lodgings that is more usual to hire a furnished room by itself than to include the taking of meals at the common table frequently however you arrange to have part of your meals in the house but served in your own room in that case you might buy your own materials and pay for the cooking or the landlady will buy what you direct and cook it for a slight charge in a thoroughly convenient and respectable location in London $7.50 a week would be a low price for a plainly furnished sitting room and bedroom two of us paid $1.25 a day for such accommodations in the height of the season close by Piccadilly a most convenient location but noisy meat breakfasts were served in our room for two shillings apiece one can do better than that in the suburbs but distances are long in London and it is economy to pay for a convenient location if time is any object prices are lower in the smaller English places and the landlady's more endurable those of London are often so bothersome that many Americans advise against taking lodgings there figures from the expense book of two American girls who took lodgings wherever they had addresses show that in Lincoln for apartments in a delightfully quaint little house just outside the cathedral close where the landlady and everything about the place was spotlessly clean they paid $1.40 apiece for the night's lodgings and three meals in York they had lodging supper and breakfast for $1 apiece at Oxford the same thing with a fine great fire cost $1 apiece in Edinburgh they had lodging and breakfast for a week for $3.50 apiece in London and the large cities it is the custom to go out for dinner London restaurants are more costly than those of the same grade in the states and so London is not the cheapest place in which to dine to live in this way abroad is much simpler than at home for restaurant life is so much more common it has been said that a third of the people of Paris dine at cafes women seldom have any serious trouble in finding a restaurant where they can dine unmolested and a great many of the art students abroad live in this fashion often not spending $1 a day for the whole cost of existence furnished rooms however are not so easily to be found in Paris as in London but they are there such a room in or about the Latin Quarter ought not to cost more than $10 or $15 a month wherever you take lodgings whether in London or on the continent be sure to learn the price of all the extras in advance in Germany indeed it would not be a miss to learn how much butter will be served with your morning coffee people in Europe do not throw in the things the smallest expenditures are discussed and determined with exactness a fire costs in London all the way from 12 to 24 cents a scuttle for the coal kindlings usually extra lights cost from 24 to 84 cents a week unless you furnish your own lamp and candles baths are usually 12 cents in an English town if you have the address of no house it will be safe to inquire at the shop of a chemist stationer or pastry cook for clean respectable lodgings while hunting them up your luggage may be checked at the station to be sent for as soon as you have hired a room the tourist in Great Britain who takes lodgings instead of going to hotels who frequently stays more than a week in a place and who exercises economy can keep his or her average expenses inside $2 a day for $3 many a luxury can be enjoyed if then the voyage over and back should cost $120 a two month tour can be paid for not far from $200 three months not far from $260 but a great deal more pleasure may be had by spending $250 on the two month tour $300 on one of three months extending to the continent means much more expense by reason of the car fairs distances in England are short tourists who have visited Russia will advise taking furnished apartments at Petersburg housekeeping if a man tells you living is cheaper in Europe than America ask him to prove it item by item don't accept as proof his statement doubtless true that he has spent less in a year abroad than in a year at home make him go into details if he kept house did he have a bathroom with hot and cold water was there a range in his kitchen was the house heated by hot air hot water or steam if it was an apartment house did it have an elevator where they set tubs in the laundry 10 till one you will force him to confess that in these details and others he did not have in Europe the conveniences he thinks he cannot live without in America try him on the matter of food and he will admit that taking an average of all the raw materials he has bought the European cost has not differed much from the American ask him about clothing and at last he will smile triumphantly and tell you how cheaply he bought a suit in London or gloves in Naples but do you demand how did they wear and how did they fit then he will evade again the assertion that living abroad is cheaper than here is a half truth deceptive and dangerous undoubtedly most Americans who go abroad live cheaper than at home but the reason is simply that they are contented with less from necessity or without unhappiness they dispense with many things that in America they deem indispensable either for bodily comfort or to maintain social position in New York, Philadelphia or Boston they must dwell in the aristocratic quarter in Paris or Berlin or Vienna it matters not where they are well, so long as the surroundings are not squalid in Rome even that matters little and because it was once a palace a dirty crumbling tenement house may without disgrace shelter an American family of high degree it's so picturesque and so romantic you know it is not to be denied that there are many compensating advantages the chance to study art music, language the neighborhood of fine galleries contact with an old world life that sobers refines and cultivates the somewhat rank and florid American spirit freedom from irksome social duties and responsibilities annihilation of the need of keeping up appearances of trying to go the pace set by neighbors and friends with more money than fortune has given you is this statement of the case not enough to show that accurate comparison of the cost of living abroad and at home is impossible yet if you still demand figures I can give a few thanks to William Henry Bishop's book a house hunter in Europe and Margaret B. Wright's hired furnished and articles by other writers in France Paris in some regards the costliest city in the world certainly is not such in the matter of rents in ordinary years whatever it may be in an exposition year statistics show the average rent paid by Parisian families to be $80 a year contrast this with Boston where according to the elaborate figures of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor statistics the average rent paid by people living in tenements is $17 $26 a month or a trifle more than $200 a year but undoubtedly there are many more of high-priced sweets in Paris that in Boston are very expensive because apartment life is so much more general the inference may be that the Parisian masses pay far lower rents than those of an American city and that the world to do pays somewhat lower rents than ours unfurnished apartments are much cheaper than furnished considering what you get for example an unfurnished suite consisting of parlor, dining room, bedroom and kitchen on the fifth floor cost Mr Bishop all told about $180 a year a suite of only one flight might have been had at the same cost but it had no sun in the suburbs he found apartments larger and not so high up at corresponding prices but with no great advantage over those in the city contrast this with the experience of another American who took a furnished flat in one of the aristocratic quarters three long flights of stairs had to be climbed and when my apartments were reached there was a small hall three chambers also small a salon and a kitchen about 10 feet square the only water was in the kitchen I had one fair sized closet for clothes but no cellar or storeroom or refrigerator one servants room in the sixth story the furniture was not very clean but fairly comfortable glass and china were of the most common quality I was obliged to hire bed and table linen and silver for this flat I had to pay $70 a month one month's rent in advance and sign a lease that I would be responsible for three months this was the cheapest furnished apartment I saw and people who reside in the city have told me it was a great bargain when compared with their apartments in America supplied with bathrooms hot and cold water steam heat elevators closets and all modern improvements I think the balance is largely in our favor Americans are at first puzzled by the nomenclature invoke here as elsewhere on the continent for what we call the first floor is the ground floor is not there known as such the French name for it is ready to show say above this may or may not come an intermediate floor known as the ultrasound then comes what they call the first story corresponding to our third or second story according as there is or is not an ultrasound so when one is told that his friend dwells in the fourth story he may expect to climb either four or five flights of stairs Paris houses seldom exceed six stories and seldom have elevators in our apartment houses without elevators every additional flight detracts from social prestige but that view of it is of less consequence abroad and one may approach the stars without losing prestige indeed by reason of the want of light and of the humidity the lower stories especially the ground floors are often rented at a lower price than the others even in buildings where the upper stories contain costly sweets the custom is to have shops of the most plebeian character on the ground floor the usual Parisian servant for apartment work is called the fam de ménage she comes to do your days work or any part of it you like for about six cents an hour and returns to her home to sleep it is a recognized thing like going to trade or any other occupation you do not have to provide a chamber for her and if she comes for only a part of the day you do not even have to feed her if kept all the time her wages would be eight dollars a month which is of course much below American prices but on the other hand one good servant in America does about as much as two or three abroad partly by reason of the fact that American homes are better arranged for housekeeping there is no chance in Parisian sweets for washing or drying clothes and the laundering charges add to the servant expense good beef mutton or veal costs about 22 cents a pound trice fillet or tenderloin twice that butter is 40 cents a pound but it is fresh and delicious eggs are three cents a piece at their dearest everyone perfect poultry is deer but you have some good substitutes for it such as rabbit and hare fruit is plentiful and cheap salads and green vegetables generally owing to the milder climate are much longer in season and always cheaper milk is 6 cents a litre a little more than a quart but it is always thin ice is almost unknown but you get along very easily without it having no refrigerator you buy in smaller quantities a distinct advantage for small families because as a consequence the meats are cut differently and everything else is adapted to this system you can buy excellent juicy roast beef to the value of a franc and a half 30 cents if you like whereas the very smallest piece two people could buy at home without being ridiculous would have to keep reappearing in various forms for several days coal is 11 dollars a ton for the kind used in ranges and stoves for the few furnaces about a dollar less gas is more expensive than in our country and inferior in quality at pow in a short promenade Mr Bishop found three lodgements any one of which would have done the price of the largest with several more bedrooms than needed by a couple was 160 dollars a year another a first story in the house of a respectable official consisting of antechamber kitchen dining room parlor two bedrooms and servants bedroom was but 110 dollars in Blois one house 14 rooms with a garden was about 240 dollars another was 140 dollars had three stories and a sunny terrace in Spain an apartment of 11 rooms up two flights was offered to Mr Bishop in Granada for 145 dollars a year the dearest apartment he saw in Seville would have been 225 dollars summing up Spain he says in a general way you may count on having a highly presentable apartment for 400 dollars this in the large expensive cities including Madrid perhaps even one of the famous houses of Seville with patio or half Moorish courtyard could be had for that if one of them could ever be found vacant the cost of provisions cannot vary greatly from what it is in France in servants wages there is a notable reduction you can have an excellent cook for 7 dollars a month and are made of all work for 3 dollars or 4 dollars in Italy on the Riviera Mr Bishop spent a year in a large villa with 10 or a dozen rooms in the centre of an estate in which he had the right to promenade with oranges, lemons, roses and lovely views for which the rent was 120 dollars a year his experience in house hunting at Rome was distressing some of the prices were an apartment on the Pincian hill at 900 dollars a year another at 430 dollars a second story apartment in the Palazzo Odescalci at 1000 dollars in a modern building on the Forum of Trajan 8 rooms in the third story at 180 dollars near St. Peter's 6 rooms in the 5th story at 216 dollars for a 12 room apartment in the freshly built quarters 600 dollars Florence is cheaper than Rome to sum up a fairish apartment would cost from 240 to 360 dollars a year, a figure for which you could make yourself very much more comfortable in or about Nice the best of his bargains was at Verona where he passed 6 months in a house of which the rent was 72 dollars a year a grand apartment with frescoes in the style of the old masters could be had down in a wing of the Duce the palace if one preferred for about 240 dollars a year for what would be a very modest scale of expense in America one could hear keep horses and live like a sort of Sardana Palos the chief defect in the experiment says Mr Bishop is that your cheap habitation, no matter how excellent artistic and original in itself must always throw you into pretty close relations with persons quite able to pay the same low rents who will have very different ways of living and these will be very likely to bring your own to naught Venice has perhaps the best chances of any of the cities Mr Bishop tried apart from the liberal provision of dear furnished lodgings for the strangers who come to pass a month or two in the spring and autumn there is very little to choose from the most reasonable thing was an apartment of 5 rooms for 320 dollars 3 of the rooms were each about 36 by 21 feet it looked on the grand canal a small single house not far from the grand canal nearly without modern improvements had half a dozen rooms, 3 stories and cost 96 dollars a year Theodore Purdy says that for furnished apartments comprising nearly all of a small palace on the grand canal he paid 44 dollars a month his dining room was the large ballroom possibly 60 feet long and besides this he had 7 rooms fully furnished including linen and a solid silver service one who served as gondolier and butler cost 72 cents a day for made-of-all-work 18 cents our living expenses including rent, food, wages of two servants gondola and small extras such as fees, fruits, the profusion of plants and flowers, excursions, wines papers and books for a party of six persons came to a total of 1 dollar and a half a day each this is not the smallest amount for which one could keep house in Venice for we occupied rather expensive quarters and we had a private gondola at our door and many other unnecessary luxuries in Germany Philip G. Hubert Jr in describing his experience in seeking furnished apartments in Munich and Presten says that after hunting all day in vain in Munich he did what all Americans should begin by doing that is call on the American consul for help the consul took him to a house agent and also suggested advertising he found that advertising is the quickest and virtually the only way of getting what one wants for as nobody makes a regular business of furnishing apartments for rental and the real estate agent is almost unknown there is no regular market or exchange for apartments but in every large city there are people who for one reason or another want to get away and have apartments on their hands a short advertisement setting forth exactly what you need the number of rooms, quarter of the city and length of time required is pretty sure to bring scores of answers have the advertisement written by a German and the answers with the price demanded sent to the newspaper office if any strange turn or expression betrays the foreigner the price will rise if no price is mentioned in some answers that promise well get a German acquaintance to call the price before making your appearance on the scene finally when you have found an apartment that suits you as to position, character and price consult some residents of the city concerning it in this way you may avoid settling in an inconvenient part of the city or in some quarter exposed to nuisances of which no stranger would suspect the existence there are parts of Munich and Residen so inaccessible from the shopping quarters the opera and the picture galleries were poorly served by the cars as to make them out of the question for Americans and yet they are among the prettiest quarters of both cities a resident will give advice on these points he will also tell you that new buildings are to be avoided in Munich for they are so solidly built and so thickly covered with tons of mortar put on to imitate stone that they require in so damp and colder climate more than a year to dry new houses are rented at a discount for the first year or two the tenants taking the risk of sickness Mr Hubert ended his Munich house hunting by taking a small apartment three flights up consisting of parlor, dining room, kitchen two good sized bedrooms and one very small one all the rooms were bright and sunny the building was of a good class in a quiet street the furniture was of an excellent character and everything excepting silver but including linen was supplied for this apartment he paid 18 marks a month for six months a trifle less than 20 dollars a month it must be said however that he was particularly fortunate the owner or tenant a lady who answered his advertisement had to leave Munich for the summer on account of sickness in her family and sublet the apartment rather than leave it empty other apartments he saw of about the same character were nearly twice the rent and he would say that the average rent of such an apartment in Munich would be about 150 marks a month the regular rent of the apartment he had unfurnished was 200 dollars a year he had paid 600 dollars a year in New York for an unfurnished flat in no way superior to this one domestic servants ask in Munich about half the wages the same girls would receive in New York once they are able to speak a few words of English a very good cook is well paid with 8 dollars a month and expects to have only two evenings a month to herself for outing purposes a good chamber maid or waitress seldom receives more than 6 dollars a month if one will consent to take girls fresh from the country wages are lower but foreigners have to employ maids familiar with city ways and a cook competent to do the marketing and wrangle with a janitor is a great personage counting for much in the welfare of a tenant personal service of every kind costs in about the same proportion many families in Munich perhaps most of the well-to-do people have their washing done outside of their apartments and it is therefore cheap the weekly cost for four persons was never more than a dollar including a gratuity of 10 fenigs or 2 cents and a half to the pretty peasant girl who came for a weekly and with the help of a little handcart and a big dog carried it no one knows how many miles into the suburbs personal service of any kind is rewarded with a few fenigs the man who brings the coal and wood the boy or girl who brings a parcel from a shop, the grocer boy etc all expect a small tip but it is so small as not to be worth considering in making up the cost of housekeeping 10 fenigs seem to go as far as 25 cents in New York for similar purposes meat seems to be dear all over Germany and not so good as at home to its high cost and the absence of refrigerators and ice is due probably the habit of relying largely upon the delicatessen shops where the German housewife buys daily just enough roast meat sausage or ham to suffice for dinner vegetables are remarkably cheap the ordinary price of soup greens for a family onions, carrots, celery root and parsley 5 fenigs, one cent and a quarter excellent lettuce costs from 3 to 5 fenigs a head spinach is about one quarter the price it is in New York potatoes are 4 fenigs a pound, apples are 10 fenigs a pound bread and milk cost about the same in Munich as in New York but both are always excellent the authorities keeping a sharp eye upon the dairies and milk dealers tea, coffee and sugar cost about the same as at home but fancy groceries such as crackers or biscuits as the English call them jellies and marmalade not being in common use are very dear for instance, scotch orange marmalade that we buy for 17 cents in New York costs just double in Munich and Dresden coal and wood for the porcelain stoves to be found in every German room cost a trifle less than at home in Germany a tenant gives his landlord six months notice of his intention to leave and no furnished apartment is rented for less than a year so that although many houses have bills on them these refer to apartments that will be vacant five or six months later or even a year later it is not worthwhile to try to find a decent apartment for less than six months whenever one asks the price of an apartment for three months he finds that the sum named is very little if any below what would be asked for six months Germans cannot understand people they want to move every three months as for Germany take the testimony of still another correspondent writing from Heidelberg to correct the impression prevalent in the United States that rent and living are cheap in the Fatherland taking into account the antiquated construction and absence of all modern conveniences in their houses the rent is very dear the older houses seem to be built almost square about 25 feet in width and depth each floor has its one flat with many windows upon the street and rear the buildings are generous also with their stairways our house has three flats each contains a large parlor bedroom on each side a small dining room and kitchen but no bathroom or clothes closets they are heated by two porcelain stoves the ceilings are high the floors painted and walls covered with inexpensive paper the top or third flat rents for $20 a month the second for $30 and the ground floor for $50 in this house a retired army officer lives on the third floor a Heidelberg professor on the second and the ground floor is divided into two small shops one for the sale of small notions and the other for cigars handsome furniture lace curtains, statuary, books, pictures and bric-a-brac give a genteel appearance to the apartments but a clerk on $1,200 a year in Chicago would not think of living in a flat of such primitive sanitary appliances as for the cost of living that is even dearer perhaps Heidelberg being an educational town should not be taken as a criterion for smaller places a visit to the public market shows that although the greatest care is taken in preparing the produce to prevent loss to the consumer prices are higher than in America soup beef costs $0.20 a pound veal cutlets $0.08 each mutton chops $0.28 a pound kidney roast $0.30 pork chops $0.20 boiled ham $0.50 beef steak $0.59 geese are from $0.75 to $1.50 a piece docks as dear as in America turkey, rare $1.50 to $2 each pigeons very much in demand at $0.50 to $0.60 a pair young chickens $0.50 to $0.75 a piece wild hair about as large as jack rabbits $0.75 to $0.90 a piece it may not be a miss to inform persons planning residents in Germany that if they live in houses or flats they have furnished they are subject to the German income and other taxes after a sojourn of one year the fact that they are paying taxes elsewhere would not exempt them from those levied there in England housekeeping in London says Margaret B. Wright is no dearer than in American cities perhaps a trifle less ordinary provisions such as meat, fish and winter vegetables are about Boston prices the greater costs of fruits some of vegetables and rarer provisions is equalised by the cheaper rents and labour wage gas and coal are cheaper than in America at least in New England very many wealthy English women absolutely refuse to keep warm when coals rise to $5 a ton country housekeeping is cheaper than in our own country are excessively low compared with ours except in the height of the season furnished country cottages are easy to find at an even absurdly low rent for the dampness of England is an enemy to unoccupied houses she gives instances of such hirings at prices running from $1.50 to $5 a week for any time from a week up her advice to anyone wanting to dwell in rural England after this delightful fashion is to make choice of a locality and then advertise in a local paper being sure not to give an American address but to have letters forwarded the big dailies do just as well although more expensive and they do not forward letters when you hire take extra towels and tablecloths Mr Bishop thinks that in London, Oxford or other English cities it would be safe to count on a rent of about $300 a year he says a maid servant would cost from $60 to $100 a year but another writer declares that one is obliged to keep more servants than in America the work being so divided that a servant will refuse to do certain duties on the plea that it's not my place mum the wages of servants like every other expenditure in England are deceptive to the uninitiated the nominal amount seems small but the little charges add up like extras in a hotel bill one terrible item in the housekeeping expense is the washing every bit of which is sent out of the house the servants washing is paid for by the mistress the weekly washing bills of a moderate establishment generally amount to more than the weekly wages of a good servant in America who would not only do the family washing but cook as well another authority suggests that taxes must be taken into account and may amount to a quarter of the rent in conclusion and it applies to the continent as well as to England too many hopes should not be built on some of the figures that have been given Mr Bishop admits that some of his have already passed into history for rents are rising furthermore a great deal depends on the point of view apartments or a house that would satisfy one American might seem despicable to another I find Mr Hubert avering that a mark or 24 cents will go almost as far in Munich as a dollar in New York and I find the next writer declaring that as far as casual observation goes nothing in Germany is cheaper than in America except wine cigars beer and music Algernon Doherty who has rounded out a quarter of a century in American legations from Mexico to Rome concludes that as Mark Twain discovered the cheapest city in Europe is Vienna next to which he puts Brussels then Paris then London and he declares Madrid the dearest on the other hand a medical friend who has studied long in Vienna asserts to me that it is by no means the cheapest of European capitals he points out the weather unit of value is higher living is costlier and says that many things which cost a mark 24 cents in Germany cost a golden 40 cents in Austria from all these conflicting views my own conclusion is the notion with which I began this section that quality for quality living is as dear abroad as at home and that where in the aggregate it costs less one gets less though the deficiency is for the time being more than made up by many compensating pleasures and benefits end of section 9 recording by Kate M