Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-06-25

duced, and not as much Of that. proba-
bly,, as 80, 900 tons yearly; for twenty
| years later the product was but 53, 600
| tons. Even Great Britain in 17SS pro-
duced only 6S, 900 tons-not as much as
either one of several furnaces IN this
country now turns out yearly. The
manufacture of steel was just beginning
| here; twenty years later only 917 tons
were produced in the country. The
coarsest pig iron then cost about as much
as steel rails do now. A single railroad
now buys yearly more iron than both
Great Britain and this country then
made. but there were neither railroads
then nor iron bridges nor buildings; no
petroleum pipes, for there was no petro-
leum; no gas-pipes, for there was no gas
lighting even in Europe until later.
Washington lived in an age of darkness:
instead of the electric light the millions
had candles costing about two cents
apiece. In all the departments and ap-
plications of chemistry the century has
simply created new world. American
pressed glass. which has completely rev.
olutionized the supply Of table and house
ware, is an invention of the last sixty
years. The silk manufacture has not
existed in this country half a century;
the paper made hundred years ago
would hardly be thought tit for use since
modern methods have been invented;
the only use discovered for india-rubber
then was to erase pencil marks; and
while the town of Lynn made 100, 900
pairs of hoods and shoes in 1888, they
were not the shoes of today, and the
manufacture Of machiners is wholly due
to inventions since 1900. Sew
ing machines for any purpose were I'M
known, and salt was made by boiling
sea-water, though in 1877 it was first
made from the springs near Syracuse at
the rate of about ten bushels per day,
and the cost soon fell to 80 cents per
bushel.
Farming in Washington's day knew
nothing Of machinery; even the first
iron plough, patented in 1879, was fail
ure, for New Jersey farmers thought it
poisoned the soil. Mowers, reapers and
harvesters began to be invented about
the same time, and even the ordinary
implements were such as it would not
now be thought possible to use. The
steamboat was practically unknown, and
the railroad entirely until forty years
later, and the cost of transportation by
wagon confined the area of possible pro-
duction with profit, as to most crops, to
the margin of navlgable waters. The
whole nation could not produce in
Washlngton'S day as much wheat as
single territories not yet states now eX-
port each year, and when the accounts
of century ago tell of ''vast quanti-
ties" exported, they really mean less in
y-ear than the country has since moved
in single week.
Volumes could be filled and yet
but a small part Of the change
in industry within the century
could be mentioned. But the revo-
luton in the condition of the laboring
population has been the browning result
of all this progress. Of wages, it is
enough to say that masons century ago
earned 81 cents per day in Massachu-
sets, carpenters SO cents, blacksmiths
70 cents, and ordinary labor 80 cents.
Food near the farms was cheap, but
pork is quoted in Massachusetts, at 16
cents per pound. flour at S. IS per bar
rel, corn at 76 cents per bushel, and ham
at 20 cents per pound. Calico cost IS
cents per yard, broadcloth $2.70, buck
ram % cents, cotton cloth So cents, and
tow cloth 30 cents; hose cost $1.35 per
pair and corded Nankeen breaches
S.. 80; buttons from 1 to 5 shillngs per
dozen, shoes of lasting "a cents per pair,
and sugar from Is to % cents per pound. |
One does not need to study such figures |
as these very long to discover that the
world and the living of today were SIM
ply impossible for the working people of |
a century ago. The whole world has |
but nowhere has the marvel
ous advance been greater, or for the |
millions more beneficent, than
in these United States.