The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-11-12

Quite war is being waged in Richmond
between the market huckters, by which the
community at large are saving many pennies
The Times, of late date, says yesterday
morning the war ragged so fiercely that when
q huckster offered bunch of fish for fifteen
cents, another offered and actually sold him
n bunch of fish and a head of cabbage for the
same amount. The first huckster then, not
to be outdone, made the purchasing party
free gift of bunch of FISH. TIL. Times ex-
claims success to the opposition and fish for
the multitude.
Such contest in St. Louis Just at this time
would be a very wholesome thing. But here
the hucksters cling together like the Fenian
Brotherhood, and the consequence is the most
exorbitant prices are asked and paid for
everything family consumes. The grievance
has become very serious one, and we are in-
duced TO think that our whole market system
is wrong.
We know that many contend that huckster-
ing should not be suppressed; that it is the
surest means of keeping our markets supplied,
and that the argument is urged that competi-
ton among the hucksters have tendency to
keep down the prices ave don't see it. "
There is no competition among hncksters in
St. Louis. They are a brotherhood that
work into each others hands, and their con-
slant aim is to keep the prices up to the very
highest figure that the people will submit to.
Go through any one of our markets and you
will find that one price rules at all the stalls
of the hucksters. They fix the. prices every
morning, and if farmer happens TO drop in
with load of produce they soon relieve him
of it, and up goes the articles, whatever they
may be, to hucksters' prices. In correcting
or preventing these abuses, the market mas
ters generally are about as much account as
fifth wheel to wagon. They pay but little
attention to the evil complained.
We don't know what remedy to suggest,
unless it be an entire change in our market
system, by sbolishing market houses 'and let
the supplying ofmeets and vegetable be done
by shops as any other business is conducted.
The most enterprising would then obtain the
the business, and at the same time whole
some competition would be introduced into the
system.
We have heard that this plan works admi-
rably where it has been tried, and we can see
but that it would work well in St. Louis. IL
would certainly be great saving TO the
city, for, if we are properly informed, our
public markets are not revenue paying insti-
tutions
We clip the above from St. Louis paper,
because the statements and suggestions are
generally applicable here. The only compe-
titiou we have ever witnessed in the matter
alluded to in this locality, is the competition
in purchasing at low figures from the farmers
and selling at high prices to the citizens of
the town. And the farmers constantly play
into the hands of the huckster, for they find
out what prices the hucksters are selling at
and then they go round and demand the same
prices of the citizen. While their true policy
would be to split the difference between the
buying and selling price of the huckster, and
divide that difference between the citizen
and the farmer.
But the evil complained OF, is chronic and
universal, and we fear without any adequate
remedy, as the world goes.