SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELD.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 467, 30 April 1890, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICAN GOLDFIELD.

THE COST OF LIVING. An English lady, who, with her husband, has just taken up her residence at Johannesburg, South Africa, has sent home an interesting letter giving some facts and figures which will surprise the English housekeeper. She says :—“ We went by train from Durban to Ladysmith, and thence by coach to the Golden City, to Johannesburg. What a journey ! Rough is no name for it. We had ten horses, two drivers, fourteen passengers, did sixty miles a day, with a meal every time the coach stopped at a station. On the way we saw many evidences of the terrible drought which has been afflicting this country, horses and oxen lying dead in great numbers. There had been but two or three showers in eight months, and the grass was, therefore, all burnt up. We reached Johannesburg October 10th, six weeks and one day after leaving Newcastle. The town surprised us. It is the largest in Africa, though only three years old, and 300 miles from a railway. Our lodging cost us £lO each per month, rising to £l2 and then to £ls, so we determined to have a house of our own. One. man asked £3OO a year for a furnished house, and actually got £360. Finally, we secured a fourroomed cottage for £2O a month, taking in three gentlemen lodgers at £l2 a month each. Provisions are at famine prices, and as beer is 4s a bottle, our friends had better sign the pledge before they come out here. Everybody lives well and eats plenty, in spite of the high prices. We enjoy splendid health, and don’t seem to mind the heat. There are Bixty doctors here, and 400 public-houses in the town already. The most disagreeable things are the dust storms, and the streets are not paved at all. My husband got a place with a salary of £240 a year. He met two joiners whom he knew, and they said they were making £l2 10s a week each. Bakers and cooks make most money here. They get nearly anything they like to charge, as people are tond of good living, j Rain has now come, so that we. may expect a return of prosperity and easier prices in the provision markeb. When we arrived prices were :—Flour 14s per atone, butter 7s 6d a lb, eggs 4s 6d a dozen, condensed milk 2s 6d a tin, fresh milk 2s a quart, sugar Is a lb, oatmeal Is 9d per lb, meat 9d and Is, cabbages 2s 6d each, lettuce Is a head, potatoes 14s a stone, bread 6d for a oaf the size of your penny ones. I have just quoted the prices of a few things, but they will serve to show you fctho great cost of living here.”