They know nothing about it.

(It is a government concern, but so is the telegraph and the post-office, and they are remarkably good and swift.) You can't buy a newspaper on the street, except in the afternoon.

Cigar-stores are as scarce as hen's teeth.
Barber-shops are all "hairdressers"-- dirty and wretched beyond description.

You can't get a decent pen; their newspapers are as big as tablecloths.

In this aquarium in which we live (it rains every day) they have only three vegetables and two of them are cabbages.