information on the subject, one gentleman
says: "Since the year 1850 Rio de Janeiro
has been thoroughly paved" —this is better
than Buenos Ayres anyhow—" and a class
of carriages and horses, formerly unknown
to our habits of life, are now considered
indispensable to any well kept up
establishment; but the introduction of these
European equipages, and thorough-bred
horses from the Cape of Good Hope, have
fully quadrupled the expense of carriage
and horses to any one called upon to keep
up such an establishment."Another
gentleman, who has had twenty years'
experience, remarks: "Greater luxury in dress
and equipages, more public entertainments,
and doubled taxes, further stimulate and
oblige greater expenditure, and as marks
of progressive indulgence, I may quote
the use of ice and abuse of tobacco as
dating from two or three years previous to
the period of this comparison."

It is hard for this anti-tobacco gentleman
to fall foul of ice which is probably not a
very tremendous expense, even in Rio, and
which, properly used, saves about half its
cost. At any rate, it is small consolation
for the unpaid attaché, or secretary of
legation, with seven hundred a year, who
can only live (unless possessed of private
property), by the exercise of the strictest
economy, to reflect that their troubles
are caused by the increased extravagances
of the people among whom they live, and
whose incomes grow in some sort of
proportion to their expenses. Life in Rio de
Janeiro is complicated by a singular and
unpleasant custom which drives into large
hotels, conducted on the United States
board-and-lodging system, everybody
fortunate enough not to be obliged to take
a house. This remarkable custom causes
houses to be handed over to incoming
tenants in a state of complete internal
dilapidation; and, as the Brazilian law
has the peculiarity of annulling a lease
on the sale of the property, it has occurred
to our minister, as he dolefully observes,
to find himself, after spending large sums
on repairs, suddenly houseless, without the
smallest compensation, and with all the
trouble and expense to come over again.

The difficulties of persons with fixed
incomes, in Rio and Buenos Ayres, are
pnr.illeled in Bogotá. Seventy- five per
cent appears to be the average rate of
increase in the prices current in the capital
of Colombia; and matters are further
complicated by the fact that the general style
of living among the society in which
members of the diplomatic body move, is
much more expensive than it was in 1850.
A similar cause of increased expenditure
exists in Carácas, where Venezuelan society
has gradually become more and more
luxurious, while prices have largely increased;
and where the government has taken
advantage of the large and increasing demand
for articles of foreign manufacture, to
impose a duty of somewhere about sixty per
cent upon them.

It will be readily conceived that matters
are little more agreeable in Washington
than in the cities of South America. Fifty
per cent is mentioned as the rate of
increase in prices in that straggling capital,
and it is hardly necessary that we should
be informed that "the general style of
living among the society in which the
members of the diplomatic body are in the
habit of mixing is much more expensive
than it was fifteen or twenty years ago."
Our minister estimates the lowest figure at
which a married man with a couple of
children can possibly manage to exist
decently, at something over a thousand a
year; while it is considered impossible that
the most economical of bachelors should be
able to manage with less than six hundred
and fifty pounds a year.

Knowing what to our sorrow we do know
of London fife and London prices, the reports
from the great European cities will excite
no surprise. The luxurious city of Vienna,
always sufficiently expensive, is doubly so
now. Paris is in the same predicament, as
many of us can testify. But in coupling
these two great capitals in this connexion,
it is well to note a direct conflict of testimony
between Lord Bloomfield's report of
the social calls upon the junior members of
the diplomatic body in Vienna, and Mr.
West's view of the case in Paris. Lord
Bloomfield says: "As regards the maintenance
of their social position by foreigners
whom their official character admits into
the best society in Vienna, the fact that
this society is composed of persons of
wealth, as well as rank, has at all times
rendered Vienna an expensive place of
residence for any young man .... I am
decidedly of opinion that none of the junior
members of this embassy can maintain the
position assigned to them in Vienna society
by their connexion with a great embassy
without largely exceeding their official
salary."Again Lord Bloomfield discreetly
declines to commit himself to any precise
statement of the amount of expenditure for
board, lodging, and the maintenance of his
social position, necessary to be incurred
by his juniors. Mr. West, on the other