The daily bulletin. [volume] (Winchester, Tenn) 1862-1863, 1862-10-04
FLOR the Daily Bulletin.
WINCHESTER, Tenn, |
October End 1862. !

October End 1852.
Editor Bulletin:
The extortion of the extortioner, is the cry
ing evil Of the land which you and all editors
should turn their attention to.
Take the article of boots-the boot maker de-
tends his enormous prices by pointing to the
high price of leather, but this is shown to be
the boldest subterfuge the moment you pro-
pose to furnish everything and have him make
the boots; by his answer he at once shows
that his boot making is extortion.
The material for a heavy pair of boots at the
present high prices, will cost from 81 so to
SIS 90 land by the way most of our tanners
are selling leather to the citizens at almost one
half the prices paid by speculators,)
Now it takes the boot maker from one to
two days to make the boots which he sells at
500 CO.. Say it takes two days, and the ma
terial cost SIS 90, and you have a dollars
per day, or $2347 so by the year. Now the
soldier who sleeps upon the grounds exposed
to rain and cold-lives hard and sees his FAM
lily once in twelve months, and defends the
boot makers home gets $1S2 90 q year-dif-
ference $22l5 so. Thus while the soldier, and
all other classes, except the speculator and ex-
t.rtioner, are going to ruin in property,
and striving only to feed their families, until
their independence is achieved, the boot ma
ker is growing rich by extortion; and here in
the town of Winchester we have several of
those men, Il mean $40 dollar gentlemen
some of whom have very lately refused Con-
federate money for q pair Of boots. The sold
Ter who wears boots will nave to work at least,
| four months to keep himself in boots one year.
This four months service is just equal to 81
days labor of the boot maker or extortioner.-
Now will not this inequality produced by the
%avarice of the extortioners ruin any country.
Certainly the soldier who fights the enemy is
between two fires, and the fire in the rear is
more to be dreaded in some respects than that
in front. But the boot maker is not alono-
there are MANY other extortioners.
Take the spinner of Cotton yarns. Before
the war he sold thread at from 8 to 123 cents
per dozen; this thread he now sells at from
% to $50 cents per dozen, mostly at the latter
figures Most of the spinners bought their
Cotton at lower prices than it could be bought
before the war.
Now Cotton Yarns are a necessity with the
poor people in the country and they cannot
clothe themselves without them.
Nobody doubts but that these prices are
making these s%pinners overgrown fortunes
The high prices are not the only complaints
against some of our Cotton spinners. 1t is said
that quasi Yankee peddlers get thread to ped.
die on whilec:tizens are told there is no thread
on hand, and are turned away.
Should this extortion be the means of produ-
cling great distress among the poorer classes,
(the former dependence of whole families for
bread and clothing being in the war; it will
become the imperative duty of the government
to take steps by which the country shall be
saved from such extortion. By common con
sent this revolution was undertaken, and hence
no man has the right to seize upon the dis
tresses of the country, occasioned by the revo.
luton, to make overgrown fortunes. u .
Patriotic men have q work to do, and while
they are doing it, the extortioner should not be
permitted to bring confusion into all the rela.
tons at home by crying ''beef," ''beef,'
'beef." G.
Gen. YIN. B. Bates.-This eminent