The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-01-15


The circumstances of extortion which
surround the market for materials of live
lihood in St. Paul have lately become so
grievous in extent and character that thew
are pest and proper cause for public
complaint. From the size and situation
of this city it must necessarily be looked
to and considered in a business and
economic view as, to great extent, the
standard by which people not living among
US are to judge of the pecuniary prospects
and domestic advantages Of Minnesota as
home.
Now there are no well founded reasons
why the expense Of living, or in other
words the cost of the necessaries of life,
should be at least one-third higher in St.
Paul than at any other place in the State.
This city contains at least five times as
many inhabitants and a much greater
excess in proportion of wealth than any
other town in Minnesota. Its facilities for
business and accommodations for comfort
able and even elegant residences are
Incompatible with any northwest of Mil
waukee. The price of real estate here is
by no means exorbitant, and rents are
extremely low and reasonable. There are
in the relations growing out of trade which
exist between the country and the city of
st. Paul, no changes or fluctuations which
nationally can be traced to the changes of
the seasons or the suspension of naviga-
ton, which ought to initiate against the
interests and very livelihood of our citi-
zens. In word, we are no richer here
in town in the winter than in summer-in
fact, we do not make in any equal degree
so much during the former as the latter
season-labor is scarcer and lower, and
the country consumer or customer pays
no higher for his purchases of merchan-
die or wares than the established price
which has prevailed for the balance Of the
year.
Yet the moment navigation closes, or
if not then, so soon as New Years day,
up goes the prices of everything produced
or taken from the farms of the surround
ing country. Now why should the first
cold day in the year double up the price
of every vegetable the farmer brings to
market? Why should fire wood go on a
strike for extravaganza prices every time
the mercury falls in the thermometer?
And why should butchers meat actually
coin itself into specie as soon as the holi-
days are over?
1t is a common complaint that let a
cold day come and the farmer will ask
more for load of potatoes standing in
the street than he will ask to deliver the
same load the next spring after being at
the risk and trouble of storing them all
winter A wood hawker measures his
price more by the state of the weather
than he does by the size or quality of his
load. In fact he waits till bad day be-
fore he comes to market, and after adding
on dollar or two to pay for his lost
time during good weather, he not unfte-
quently drives his load about town all
day rather than relinquish one dime of his
extortionate price. So too, the farmer
thinks that no sooner has that season
come which is proper in temperature to
enable him to bring his beef pork and
mutton to market with safety, than by in
fluence of imitation or by that villainous
custom of extortion which has become q
a sort of second nature with him than the
price which while competition was possible
was comparatively moderate, rises to an
almost Southern starvation altitude.
Now all these grievances are owing
entirely to two causes: sort of spirit of
unfairness, which makes near approach
to dishonesty, on the part of those who
supply the winter market, seconded by
the petty retailers of provisions in our
city, conspiring to measure everything
they sell, as well in quality as price, by
the actual necessities of the people more
than by fairness and the actual volue of
the commodity they vend. These retailers
so manage as to forestall the market, and in
fact use that circumstance which ought to
enable them to furnish cheap market, so
as only to be the means Of extortion.
(. Our citizens are loudly called upon to
devise some measures to put stop to
these things, and to unite in uass to OPP
pose these infections, or the time is not
far distant when the fear of hunger will
be joined to the fear of Indians, to scare
people away from St. Paul.