Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/89

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for fuel about £2 for a load of two and a half tons. These prices for fuel would add considerably to the cost of living were it not that fires are rarely necessary except for the purpose of cooking. Bread is quoted at 1s. a loaf of two pounds, but was I think cheaper when I was there. Potatoes were very dear indeed, the price depending altogether on the period of the year and on the season. I doubt whether other vegetables were to be bought in the market, unless it might be pumpkins. Potatoes and green vegetables the inhabitant of Pretoria should grow for himself. And he should be prepared to live without butter. Why the butter of South Africa should be almost always uneatable, culminating into an acme of filth at Pretoria, I cannot say;—but such was my experience. After all men and women can live without butter if other things be in plenty.

Then comes that difficult question of domestic service. All that the inhabitant of Pretoria will get in this respect will cost him very much less than in Europe, very much less indeed than in England, infinitely less than in London. With us at home the cost of domestic service has become out of proportion to our expenditure in other respects, partly because it has become to be thought derogatory to do anything for ourselves, and partly because our servants have been taught by their masters and mistresses to live in idle luxury Probably no man earning his bread eats so much meat in proportion to the work he does as the ordinary London footman. This is an evil to those who live in London from which the inhabitant of Pretoria will find himself free. He will get a "boy" or perhaps two boys about the house,—never a girl let the mistress of