Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-05-02
Leaves for butchers meat, tea, sugar,
soap, lights, pepper and salt. clothes
for seven persons, boots and
shoes for seven persons, beer, med
icine, and pocket money, per

0nau We leave Tile prODlem ID ueS-
pair, and echo the little woman's s'God
knows how it is donea'' Attached to
the cottage is little plot-a few yards
square-of garden ground; but that
does not grow butchers meat, tea or
boots. All the assistance received, I
was assured, was three cwt. of coal in
winter, and for short time in the cold
season quart of soup once week.
Dinner consisted of potatoes fried in
some scraps of bacon rind that had
been left over from the half pound
that had constituted yesterdays fare.
Sometimes the family, whose guest
am, dine off salt herring obviously to
be divided into seven portions. Often
the only fare is dry bread sometimes
it consists of chef d'euvre IN cookery
known as "tea- kettle broth "a con.
coctiop of hot water with few green's
and herbs, and "tag-end or two of
bacon. Potatoes cost As. Cd. per Gig int
gallons, so we could not afford to be
heavy eaters. In a military prisons
the dinner diet used to consist Of three
pounds of potatoes and half a
We had no milk, and among
the eli ht of us was certainly not the
rations of couple of prisoners.
have not yet dined an hour, and feel
as hollow as drum, but resist any
fesh-pots that may be accessible, and
turn my thoughts longingly for supper,
which is to consist of bread
and boiled potatoes, without the
fragments of bacon rind, which
the children devoured at dinner time.
What kind of days work can you
expect from a man fed like this ?-and
am assured that our to-day's fare is
an average sample of the family's diet
throughout the year. A mans blood
must be sky-blue who lives as does this
laborer. He is not by any means a
little man in bodily frame, but there is
no hardness about his muscles. From
poverty of blood he is vexed with IN
dolent leg sores, that force him at in.
tervals into hospital, and then his fam
lily go on the parish. The family is
better off than it was a few years ago,
when -four was at IFS I'D per bushel-
they used bushel in the week; and
when as yet the eldest boy was earning
nothing. For the article of bread alone,
it will be noticed they were actually
paying I'D per week more than the hus-
band was earning in his regular wages.
The weekly fourpence accumulated at
the chandler's shop till harvest time,
when the wages are FL a week for a
month. I fancy this harvest bounty
cannot be always forestalled at the
shop. have visited one family where
the harvest bounty OF 1872 is already
]
well be otherwise when the family is
large. But it is fact, as any one may
ascertain by simple calculation, that
if the family, whose day border I now
am, ate the whole of the bread-winner's
wages of lbs. per week, the money
would give by three pence penny fol
each meal throughout the seven days
for each member Of the family, reckon.
ing an allowance of three meals pei
day.
I stroll on the road to aid diges
ton, and meet Barford man,
who has lost his work, and got
notice to quit his cottage, because he
would not pledge himself not to join
the Union. The Barford man has like.
wise seven mouths to feed. He has
five children the eldest boy eight and
a half-"Oi be noin," interpolates the
youngster who accompanies the parent.
The Barford mans wages were lbs. ,out
of which came rent of Is. 3d., leaving
lis. Cd. to feed the seven hungry
mouths; for none of his family contrib
ute to the treasury. The Hartford g
MANS budget is very simple:
| Wages. ............ go 10 0
Cottage per week.. is. I'd.
10 loaves at 71sd each 9s. 119d.
2 children at school. .Os. Sd.
| 90 10 81