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CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 422. NEW SERIES. | SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1852. | PRICE 1½d. |
CHEAP LIVING.
In the interior of Bulgaria and Upper Moesia, the low price of provision and cattle of every description is almost fabulous compared with the prices of Western Europe. A fat sheep or lamb usually costs from 1s. 6d. to 2s.; an ox, 40s.; cows, 30s.; and a horse, in the best possible travelling condition, from L.4 to L.5 sterling; wool, hides, tallow, wax, and honey, are equally low. In the towns and hans by the road-side everything is sold by weight: you can get a pound of meat for a halfpenny, a pound of bread for the same, and wine, which is also sold by weight, costs about the same money. In Servia, pigs everywhere form the staple commodity of the country. I have seen some that, would weigh from 150 lbs. to 200 lbs. or more offered for sale at 300 Turkish piastres the dozen; in the neighbourhood of the Danube they fetch a little more. The expense of keeping these animals in a country abounding with forests being so trifling, and the prospect of gain to the proprietor so certain, we cannot wonder that no landowner is without them, and that they constitute the richest class in the principality. In fact, pig-jobbers are here men of the highest rank: the prince, his ministers, civil and military governors, are all engaged in this lucrative traffic.—Spencer's Travels.