The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

The Cost of Living.—The late issue of the Massachusetts Labor Report gives the following interesting statistics in regard to the comparative cost of living in America and Europe: One dollar will buy twenty pounds of flour in Boston, one or two pounds more in several European seaports, but the same or considerably less in a majority of the places compared. In Boston one dollar will buy a little over five and a half pounds of fresh beef, roasting piece. In no place in England will it buy so much by a pound or more, and in Europe still less. Copenhagen being the only given place where it will buy more. Butter in Europe averages a pound more to a dollar than here, cheese less by more than that except in a few spots. As for potatoes they are cheaper here than in England and dearer than in Ireland or Germany. Seven or eight pounds of pork for a dollar are sold here, and not much over half as much can be obtained for that sum in England or Europe, and nowhere as much. In rice, milk and eggs they have the advantage of us. Tea costs less here than in England, but more than on the continent. With coffee it is about the same, though the difference is little. In sugar the British are a little better off. The continentals a good deal worse. Coal is cheaper here than in Germany, and dearer than in England. Merrimac or common prints are cheaper here than anywhere in England or Europe. Boots are about the same here as there, generally speaking. There are but two or three places in England or the continent where brown sheetings are cheaper than here while in brown sheetings the foreigners are better off. Rent for four-roomed tenements is from two to four times cheaper in Great Britain and on the continent than in Boston, in Austria fifteen times cheaper. Board is from one and a half to twice as cheap in Europe and Great Britain as in Boston.