Morning journal and courier., 1886-08-18
The story of Some old Bills.

Turning over some old papers the other day we came upon two or three bills for car penter-work and plastering, dating back to 1891 and 1922, which have certain interest as showing the value of work and materials at that time compared with the prices now current. One thing which surprises us, and will perhaps be equally surprising to our readers, is that the cost of lumber, keeping in view the comparative purchasing power of money, was at that time far greater than it is now. Sixty-fve years ago large part of the United States, which is now cleared, was an unbroken forest, and every township in the eastern States must have contained 8 good deal of timber vf the original growth
 yet we find ''refuse boards" charged in 1891 at eleven dollars thousand feet, which would be hign price now, while painters work which is the only labor we find charged in the bills just now before us, is put down on the bill, which would naturally include profit, at seven shillings and six pence, or one dollar and twenty five cents per day. The inference is that it would have taken painter or carpenter in those good old days at least twice as long to earn money enough to pay for boards to cover his house as it does now, notwithstanding the fact that the timber is brought ten times further to mar ket now than it was then, and that the SUD- ply is, according to all accounts, nearly eX- hausted. Among the other items we find laths charged at seven shillings or one dollar and seventeen cents per thousand, and clap boards at Twenty-Five cents for ten" or twenty-five dollars per thousand. This would be a low price for pine clapboards now in Massachusetts, but it was high price then compared with the value of labor
 Contrary to the general impression, spruce and hemlock seem to have been very gene rally used, and we find items of hemloek boards at eleven dollars thoueand feet and spruce at fourteen or fifteen. Clear pine plank, which many people imagine to be a much searcer material now than in the days when second growth timber was unknown is charged in the bills at fifty dollars thou sand, which would he tolerably high price in the same locality to-day, and corresponded then to about twice the value in the form of labor and cost of living that it could be ex- changed for now. Of some materials the cost seems to have been even greater then than st the present. In a bill for painters work, dated 1897, we find oil charged at twenty three cents quart, which, even all lowing for profit, is a higher price than most architects would now approve in deyse work bill, and yarnish is put down at tha rate of four dollars a gallon, a charge which would just about pass an architects criticism in theas days. One of the items is for green paint for chairs," that if any of our readers are of an archaeological turn of mind, they may make note here that the fashion of covering furniture with this ugly and adhesive coating, which has not died | out even in our own college days, dates back at least fifty nine years. The credits on this bill, which amount to about seventy dollars include items Of shirty five bushels oi potatoes at thirty cents bushel, and two
 barrels of cider, differing apparently either I in size or quality, is credited at two dollars and the other at eight shillings, Mas sachusetts currency, or one dollar and thirty three cents.