Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1885-02-14
BIG PROFITS.
What the Grocery Keepers I'm the New
York Tenement House Region Make Out
of Their Patrons.

VI 1ncIF faiFOn3s
The corner groceryman in tenement
house districts charges the highest prices
for the necessaries of life, and reaps
therefrom the greatest profit. Bread,
butter, coal, tea, coffee, potatoes, and
the like all these he makes a profit
OF 100 or 150 per cent. The continual
mortgage on the poor mans salary at
the close of the week by the claims of
the grocer, the uncompromising refusal
to take cent less than the amount
shown on the pass-book, the threat to
sell him out if he won't pay, the neces-
.sity of feeding his wife and children
all combine to make hundreds of honest
and hard-working men subject to the
leeches who cling to their purses and
grow fat and sleek. The cost of living
to a poor man is considerably greater,
in proportion, than that incurred by the
richest railway magnate in the country.
He is taxed for everything. When the
Government reduces the taxes on tea or
coffee the consumer derives no adyan-
tage. The price of the adulterated ar
ticle is the same as that of the unadul-
terated. The extremely poor man may
theoretically be the child of the State,
and his interests as carefully conserved
as those of the East India Company, but
in reality he is allowed to shift for him
self and to defend himself from all the
enemies that his paltry income of two
dollars or three dollars day raises up
against him.
Good potatoes can be bought at the
market for $1.80 barrel They are
not the highly cultivated vegetable
the Early Rose or such varieties but
they are big, wholesome potatoes that
contain fully as much nutriment as the
more expensive kinds The price
charged at the corner grocery for. a
small measure of ordinary potatoes is
ten cents. As not few of the meas
llres are arranged with false bottoms,
there is sometimes five of them to the
peck. But allowing that the men are
honest enough to give fair measure, the
cost of peck is forty cents. or SLIGO a
bushel, and S6.40 q barrel. This method
of selling potatoes enables the grocer to
obtain profit of 225 per cent. on a
single barrel of potatoes. The profit
when the question of credit arises is
considerably larger. Then the custo-
mer is required to pay fifteen cents a
small measure, sixty cents peck, 80. 40
a bushel and $3.50 barrel, or a modest
gain to the dealer of 500 per cent.
Corner grocerymen say that they would
rather sell barrel of potatoes than a
ton of coal. Notwithstanding the fact
that they make $50 per cent on the lat
ter commodity. When false measure
ments are reckoned. the enormous profit
on a single barrel of potatoes win be-
come nearly double. The grocer in these
stores does not deliver articles that are
purchased. The cost of help is reduced
to the minimum, and almost the only
thing that eat into a corner-grocery-
mans profits are the expenses of sup
| porting his own family. Although it is
criminal offense to defraud persons by
! means Of weights and measures of false
quantities, the inspectors usually either
| wink at the violations of the law or are
| believed to be satisfied with little
| present now and then.
Coffee is capable of more adulteration
| than perhaps any other article of do
mestic consumption, without the fraud
becoming manifest. With this fact in
| view the groceryman uses the facilities
| for cheating to their full extent and
reaps the consequent profits. Lower
| grades of coffee only are sold in the
/ low groceries. Mocha and Java seldom
find their way among the very poor,
simply because they cost too much. To
adulterate ground coffee, powdered
locust bark is used in combination with
the we'll known chicory. 70 increase
the quantity of the bean coffee a small
edible bean is roasted and mixed. 1t is
/ so like the coffee bean in size, shape and
color that it is difficult to distingu sh
| the one from the other. An enterprsino
Jerseyman managed to invent a ma.
| chine to turn out coffee beans in black
walnut and stained pine woods, and
i these also are used to adulterate the
better quality of coffee. Brazilian coffee
is generally used by the cheap grocers
/ It comes in prettily plated Bags IN
quantities of seventy-six pounds A bag
costs $3.50, or ten cents pound fol
large quantities. Byjudicious adultera
ton of one-fifth of a pound of wooder
bean to four-ffths of q pound of coffee
bean, the price is lowered two cents
and makes the coffee, as sold, cost eigh
cents pound. For cash this quality o
coffee is sold for twenty cents hal
pound or thirty-fve cents whole pound
At this rate bag of coffee that origi
nally cost $7.60 would sell for $780, 40, OF
at a profit of about 800 per cent. Al
the price of coffee is raised ten cents
pound when sold on credit, a half poune
would cost twenty-five cents and bas
would be sold for thirty-eight dollars
leaving profit of $40. 40 on seventy-si.
i pounds of Brazilian coffee. The pro
fuse use of the bean in adulteration i
extremely injurious, and causes sleep
lessness. The adulterations of coffe,
are much more fiagrant than the use o
/ glucose in sugar or oleomargarinc il
butter, and yet the Government ha
taken no measures to suppress it by law
In. consequence, the person who is no
able to go to an importer and pa,
twenty-five dollars for bag of Moch;
is in considerable danger of drinkin,
walnut infusion instead of honest coffee
1t is only the poorest persons who ar
anxious to secure credit. The American
workingman is nothing if not independ
ent. So long as he pays cash on tn
nail he will do SO with promptnes
that might be emulated by more ia
Iyored persons. It is his wife, usually
who runs him into debt and makes hin
adopt the credit system willingly. Iti
distasteful to him at first. Then h
! begins to see that once in he can no
get out of the meshes that the corne
groceryman has spread for him, and h
makes a noble effort to break loose
He struggles, but in vain, and eve
afterward is the slave of remorseles