In summer we sorely miss the cold, pure ice-water of our native land, and we long for it with a thirst which vin ordinaire and Bavarian beer are powerless to assuage.  The ill-tasting limestone-tainted water of Paris is a poor substitute for our sparkling draughts of Schuylkill or Croton.  Ice-pitchers, water-coolers and refrigerators are unknown quantities in the sum-total of Parisian luxuries.  The “cup of cold water,” which the traveler in our country finds gratuitously supplied in every waiting-room and railway-station, every steamboat, every car and every hotel, is here something that must be specially sought for, and paid for at an exorbitant price.  Ice can be purchased only in small quantities for immediate consumption.  Ten cents for a few lumps swimming in water on a tepid plate is the usual tariff for this our American necessity, this rare Parisian luxury.

The scant supply of water for ablution is another annoyance to the American traveler accustomed to the hot-and cold-water faucets introduced into private bed-rooms and hotel apartments, and the capacious bath-tubs and unlimited control of water in his native land.  To be sure, one can get a bath in Paris, as well as anywhere else, by ordering it and waiting for it and paying for it; but the free use of water and its gratuitous supply in hotels, so entirely a matter of course with us, is here unheard of.  As with ice-water, the bath is an American necessity, a Parisian luxury.  However, the latest erected dwelling-houses here have had water-pipes and bath-tubs introduced.  Wealth can command its bath here as well as its gaslight and its supplies of ice, but wealth only.  The humblest abode of a Philadelphia mechanic contains comforts and conveniences which are wellnigh unattainable luxuries in all but the most splendid apartments of the most luxurious city of Europe.

Nor do all the delicate artifices of French cookery suffice wholly to replace for an American palate the dainties of his native land.  The buckwheat cakes and waffles, the large, delicate-flavored, luscious oysters, the canvas-back ducks, the Philadelphia croquettes and terrapin, find no substitutes on this side of the water.  The delicious shad and Spanish mackerel have no gastronomic rivals in these waters, and the sole must be accepted in their stead.  We miss, too, our profusion and variety of vegetables, our stewed and stuffed tomatoes, green corn, oyster-plants and sweet potatoes.  As for fruits, the smaller varieties are far more abundant and much finer here than they are with us.  Strawberries, cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, apricots—­all of great size and exquisite flavor—­tempt and enchant the palate.  But our rich profusion of tropical fruits, such as bananas and pineapples, is wholly unknown.  Peaches are poor in flavor and exorbitant in price.  As for meats, poultry is dearer in Paris than at home, a small chicken for fricasseeing costing six francs ($1.20 in gold), and