Besides the hotel there is the P.R.R. commissary, the government
department stores. It is likewise laundry, bakery, ice-factory; it
makes ice-cream, roasts coffee, sends out refrigerator-cars and a
morning supply train to bring your orders right to your door--oh,
yes, it strongly resembles what Bellamy dreamed years ago. Only,
as in the case of the hotel, there seems to be a fly or two in the
amber.
The laundry is tolerable--fancy turning your soiled linen over to
a railroad company--all machine done of course, as everything
would be under socialism, and no come-back for the garment that is
not hardy enough of constitution to stand the system. In the
stores is little or no shoddy material; in general the stock is
the best available. If a biscuit or a bolt of khaki is better made
in England than in the United States the commissary stocks with
English goods, which is unexpected broad-mindedness for government
management. But while prices are lower than in Panama or Colon
they are every whit as high as in American stores; and most of us
know something of the exorbitant profit our private merchants
exact, particularly on manufactured goods. The government claims
to run the commissary only to cover cost. Either that is a crude
government joke or there is a colored gentleman esconced in the
coal-bin.
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