'Oh, Nelly, the rugs, the jewels, the servants we used to have,' they'd say — though the truth was we didn't have such great carpets in Egypt, and the servants cost nothing, everybody had them.
Labour sources listed raising the personal allowance costing as £6.5bn, raising the higher rate income tax threshold as costing £3.9bn, an extra £8bn a year for the NHS, volunteer days for civil servants costing £1.25bn and five years of rail fare freezes costing £1.8bn.
The raise would be automatic any time the General Schedule of federal civil servants received cost-of-living increases, which were to be annual unless the president declared a national emergency or the existence of "serious economic conditions" under which ordinary federal workers would receive no raises.
What of the practical argument against relocation, in terms of the servicing of the elected lords by ministers and civil servants, and the cost?
State salaries are also paid according to official rates, meaning the 6,000 won a month paid to a civil servant just covers the cost of a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
The looking glasses they produced were must-have accessories for Europe's elite and were immensely expensive; it would cost a servant seven years' wages to replace a broken one.
Finally, the rising cost of servants boosted demand for such labour-saving devices.
Transport department civil servants insisted that the cost of the project had been estimated over the next six years, and that they would keep trying to produce savings.
The reasons for living there include the climate (2nd best in the world next to Nairobi), the attraction of low property taxes & high return on invested capital, the low cost of servants (a full-time maid costs $10. a week).
But this superb strip was built just as the era of the big urban mansion was coming to a close, bedeviled by the cost of servants and taxes and, especially near Fifth Avenue in Midtown, increasing crowds and traffic.
It's true -- having quality public servants does have a cost.
