Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-05-01
From the Boston Post.l
SCARCITY in Plenty.

We froZe I'm January to no purpose. 1t
is not permitted us to take advantage even
of our climate. The streams CONCEALED
last winter for the profit and comfort Of
others than the large body Of our citizens;
IN the verge of the warm season, we are
told that ice is luxury. not to be too com
monty thought Of Old Tantalus has been
around and bought it allup. Next Sum
ner's heats may stew and simmer us, but
last winters ice may not purl its grateful
GOODNESS through our veins. Theice-chests
of the general public may be permanently
locked up, or used to pack the family. turs
in. Such sleeps of prices as we are asked
unmurmuringly to climb! J, Ten dollars for
nine pounds OF ice daily, from May to Oc|
tOber! Twenty dollars for twenty-four
pounds, during the same term b. Orhalf q
dollar for hundred pounds, when taken In
not less Quantities than fifty pounds az a
time! The very glaciers Of the Swiss Alps
are not one-half so cool. The January
pinches and ehills, and aches, and rheqma-
tisms will rise up TO torment us over again.
With coal at fifteen dollars in winter, and
ice at the new figures in Summer, we may
freeze and thaw as community until both
life and lustre are departed from US for
good. --.----
Hard-working Patrick cannot ., take
Bridget on, the coming warm evenings, to,
indulge in plate OF ice-cream and com
fidentialiy talk over their little plans for
the future; the price of ice chokes down
the pleasant desire, No thirsty soul may
settle himself in his armchair after four
o'clock on an August day, and suck uD the
refreshing sweetness of his cool cobbler,
for between the State Constable and the
Ice Company he must think twice before
venturing the eXperimenteyen once. But
ter is almost seventy cents now; but If 1t
Is to be had by mllionaires at any price
nextJuly, it must run in alarm from under
the lump of ice that costs almost as much
as itself to cool it. The fish dealers will
have to pitch their Voices as well as their
prices still higher, to make people under
stand what it costs to keep their stock from
the decay to which all good fish inevitably
tend. Meats will choke US more than they
do now, with the new ice tariff piled on;
and IL would be no wonder II the ewhole
community were driven to browsing on
pulse and pusley. Even to die will make
men hesitate longer than before, unless we
are all ready to be laid away in the earth
before the sun goes down. ..sgy
MOnOtonous moralists may as well stop
tWanging that everlasting string-"Keep
cOOlm 1t will cost too much to think of it.
To aggravate the case still more atrociousiy,
In the very midst of homemade glaciers and
unmeasured ice fields, we shall hopelessly
pant for breath and perspHe without rem
edy at every patient pore. We may go
down and drum our heels off Long wharf
when the summer tides return, and think
sadly of the Spy Pond and Spot Pond OF
other days,-but the mOurniul memory
will be all. For the common tongue the
crystal crumbs are not to be broken: ice Is
henceforth to be luxury, for the few only
to enjoy. 1t is to be gathered in the future
mainly for export. Some Spanish grandee
In the West Indies, some Eeiee Rsjahput
under his bamboo shelter, the rich nutmeg
planters OF the Dutch East Indies, the tawny
nabobs of the tropics in both hemispheres, -
these are the favored ones for whose throats
the geld streams will flow, will lift their
hands in silent gratitude that there sa far
off land so painfully civilized as to deny it
self, like martyr, that they may still live
and be refreshed. To enjoy our own Win
ter products, we must embark without de-
Jay for the blessed regions of the equator.
There we shall find Golconda and Wenham
Lake close together. -gi |.aTi.n9 aHl
What wretches we are, that We have all
this time been so ungrate1ul for our sun
shine without cost. How little we appre-
ciate our common blessings, until they are
run through the hopper of powerful mon
Opoly, and made to pay heavy toll rs they
come out. Large sales and small profits"
was once the maxim in business now it is
large profits and small sales. The military
spirit seems to have infected even the fair
principles of trade, setting up over them
gigantic monOpolies for Provost Marshals.
We shall certainly come to the end of this
ere long, and something will then have to
melt or give way. Will it be by the Fourth
of July, or shall we have to wait till Christ
mas?