Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-02-16
FORTY YEARS AGO.

To 90 back forty years, fully as useful
contrast and as instructive a comparison
may be made as to bring the early settlers
from ENGLAND. Holland and France in op-
position to their descendants of two hun
dred years later. Ia 1913, and for some
period thence onward, money, as currency,
was scarce. Possibly general business suf-
fered for want Of the medium Of exchange.
Money, in bills or coin, hsd value that
would be looked upon now as almost a
worshiping of fetch. ''One dollar a
day was "a good days pay" and so it
was considered even for fairly skilled labor.
Several men, for instance, were employed
in suuaring, by chalk line and broad ak,
the round timbers to form the framing of
dam. Others bored the holes for NOR
tises and chiseled them out. Others did
the scribing" the saving and dressing
of the lemons. Few of these got over one
and quarter dollars per day from sun
MP to SHUTDOWN" The man who could
SCRIBE" and who laid out the job, got,
perhaps, one dollar and fifty cents. The
machinist got from one dollar and fifty to
two dollars per day; and he who got the
two dollars was a fortunate man, and f ON
that time he was a competent man. Labor
ers had fifty cents per day, and in haying
time, when several days ordinary work
must be crowded into twelve, fourteen, or
possibly sixteen hours, they got seventy
five cents. Special workmen, apt at any
Jobs, one dollar. Now this is a fair show
! ing of the value of labor forty years ago.
! What was the relative value OF housing,
fuel, food, and clothing? Rents were low.
A good house for the times cost from S25 to
! Z IN Il hat
| less then than it can be furnished, as coal
now, at any place remote from the mines !;
say for an ordinary family six cords of
/ hickory, S24; now four tons of coal two
/ tires), about equal. Food cost less forty
years ago than now; but it was not the
same food, Fresh meat once, or at
most twice, week. and rarely that, ex-
cept in the "killing season :" fish caught
at the stream or pond, or hawked
about at four cents a pounds dressed.
| Vegetables from the garden, or from
| the market at twenty-five cents a
bushel for potatoes and less prices for
turnips, Onions almost as dear as now,
and cabbage no cheaper. Clothing can be
bought cheaper now than it could forty
years ago, and it is cheaper in more than
one sense. Perhaps it would be better for
the country at large II better clothing at
higher prices should be the rule. 1t is
scarcely necessary to add to Z" how we lived
forty years ago any statement of how we
live or how we might live now. 1t is
enough to the present Garner of his bread
by labor to know of the annoyance and
lack of opportunities of his predecessor.
a glance over the condition of forty years
ago and the present condition will convince
any appropriated mind that an improve.
ment has been made in the condition of
our workers, and that the worker of to-
day gets better return for his labor than
he did forty years ago. And this statement
applies as nearly to the unskilled worker as
to the adept mechanic. Only that the ad-
vantage now, as ever before, holds with
the intelligent, skilled, experienced me-
chanic.-[Scientific American.