The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-05-17
STATE WITHOUT A CENT.
something about the Expansive
Methods of Trade In California.
Correspondence Of the Press.l


sui refuses to take coppers. They turn
up tdeir noses at cents. Nothing goes
under nickel. When incidentally and
accidentally | have offered here some
pennies brought from the east have felt
Inundated at the lofty air which accom-
panied their rejection It said as plainly
as words: Here is narrow, stingy,
picayunish easterner, fresh from the con-
strained, one horse pastures of Connecti-
cut, and not at all up to our broad, breezy,
expansive way Of doing business"
1.-THE Californians, you know, don't
bother with that sort of change" was
the remark made at one of these re-
fusals.
"How long have you been in Califor-
MAI? l asked.
eight years."
| meditated. | came to this state in
1856 and remained until 1870. | saw
the state in her flush days. Here was
man eight years in California looking
down at me from his lofty perch Of ex-
perience. HE a CALIFORNIAN said
Scorn. Eyes, Californian" said Com
mon Sense-"as good as you are. What
though you were out here in the early
days and saw it all? Is it any credit to
you? Are you any better for it than he
is? Only you're angry because he won't
take you're contemplate little coppers."
So l carried at last my coppers to the
postoffice and humbly exchanged them
for two cent stamps, and felt somewhat
relieved because the general government
was not above taking its own money in
California.
But California today wants money as
much as Connecticut. California with
all her immense resources is in some re-
spects poorer than Connecticut. Cali
fornia prices for provisions, clothing, ETC.,
are as low as eastern prices. California
today is not the California of 1855, when
the miner was singing his buckslin full
of gold dust wildly about, paying for
poor whisky fifty and twenty-five cents
drink, and foolishly imagining that be-
cause the place had given him few
thousands in gold it was inexhaustible.
California is land of wonderful posi-
bilities and immense resources. She
should be the richest state in the Union.
She will be in time. But she needs the
cent in her daily currency as much as
does the opulent city of New York.
You may here in the course of day
want half dozen small items, which in
the east can be bought for cent or two
When here you shovel out your nickel
every time; you find it great factor in
,,,al+;nor axxyoxr x-o,1r doiIx, ,,ooI>at a11ox,,
ance Result, it checks trade. People
do not buy as they do in eastern cities.
Ii you want a sheet of paper or sin
gle envelope you must plank down your
five cents for it. If you buy matches you
must buy five cents worth and pack
cord abont with you. You must buy
five cents worth of candy or none at all.
The cent stick of candy, the cent or two
cent apple, the cent cake, tart or roll at
the bakers, the cent or two cent or three
cent anything are here impossibilities
notice that in the worlds great CEN
tiers of commerce like London, Paris and
New York do you find the smallest sub
divisions of circulating currency.
Now, as to some results. In New
York city the Italians fruit stand is
seen on almost every other block. In
San Francisco it is hardly seen at all.
And California is the fruit paradise Of
the United States. The Italians retail
fruit business in New York is, in the ag-
gregate, an immense trade. Many is
the ton sold daily from those corner
stands. 1t depends mainly on the one,
co1oe,. lv,,Aa1~ ~
penny out and the business would be
ruined. Therefore is not the despised
copper in the hands of boys and girls as
well as grown up people means of put
ting and keeping in circulation a great
deal of cash every day? If | can buy
twenty small articles with 81 instead of
$40, for the reason that / can by means
of a small currency cut that dollar up
into twenty pieces instead of ten, is not
that dollar when capable of such
division worth more to me? You are
charged here fifteen cents at some houses
for a glass of beer if you are unwise
enough to lay down quarter of dol
lar. That is at the rate of "bit' a
drink. A 'bit" is either ten or fifteen
cents. A ''long Bit is fifteen cents. A
"short bit" is ten cents. People who put
on style here and do the magnificent and
wish to stand well in the estimation of
the bar keeper seldom proffer "short
Bit for drink. No. They lay down
their quarter every time and the bar
keeper calmly shoves ten cents back,
which the customer pockets, and his
reputation is intact. In this way a
princely man can pay sixty cents for four
short bit business.
The daily paper here is five cents. As
a result, you see in the street car and
ferry boat nothing to compare with the
newspaper reading by the masses while
in transit from shop or store to their
homes as in New York, where every
body's nose is buried in paper when
going from or returning to their homes,
which they buy for one and two cents.
The entire sentiment on which this
royal contempt for small currency is
based always was humbug. The miner
of the flush times after living a few
years where dime was the lowest coin
in circulation raked out of the soil a
few thousand dollars. He went with it
t. his eastern home, turned up his nose
at coppers, spent his money, came back
for more, i'll most cases never got it, and
lived on bread, beans and bacon in a
cabin which his eastern friends wouldn't
take as hen coop. He was the man
above coppers.
It seems to me bit of ridiculous old
49, pride and usage, as ridiculous as a
French door key, which must weigh
nearly half II pound because all ancient
door keys weighed near half pound.
Or the English railway persistency in re-
fusing to check baggage and tumbling it
out on the platform for you to select your
plumber the best way you can, because
such has ever hoo" +ho "-'sto'' and in
convenience.
ID Nr