Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-10-25
ten ounces, which sold at five cents, the
price of q one-pound loaf now.
COndftfnna I'm Naxv
Of The Evening Star.


One Of the hardest and. appropriately
| enough, one of the most indigestible prob
| lems that the student of economies in this
| city mas TO tackle is that of cheap bread.
What with the hard times and the hun
| dreds of hands loafing about in east-side
| bar rooms out of work; with the various
| bakers unions, such as the National and
| Independent, fighting against each other,
| and 50 bringing about their own impotency
| for any concerted and useful action; with
| the almost invariable filthiness rampant in
| the bakeries both large and small, of this
| city, brought before the public eye by cru
| sading papers, and with the most cursory
investigation, proving the journeymen bak-
ers of the east side to be the hardest work.
| ed and worst-paid men in the city, not even
| excepting those bent under the yoke of the
sweating system, there is, indeed, cause
| for dire complaint, both among those who
| make and those who buy the staff of life"
| The root of the whole trouble, both for
bakers and purchasers, really lies In New
York's strange forgetfulness as to legisla-
| ton In the matter of making and selling
| bread. New York, which has enacted an
ordinance regulating the weighing of q
| pound of sugar, has practically left each
| baker to follow his own methods unre-
| strained by either state or municipal legis-
| lation, with the pleasing result that the
| expansion or contraction of the average
| loaf for commercial purposes is almost I'M
| limited.
Every baker being untrammeled by legis-
| lation, bakes his bread In weights and sells
| it in prices to suit himself ASK ten bakers
the average price of a one-pound loaf Of
| bread and every one of them will tell you
| different price, varying with the class of
| customers to whom he sells. Baked bread
| should, of course, be divided into two great
| diviSiOns-the bread used by the well-to-do
and middle classes, and that used by the
| poor east side, principally foreigners. The
| bread used by this latter class is of all
| varieties of weight, cheapness and worth
| actN hAfn In a
national bread of the country from which
the consumer originally came. Below 14th
street and east of the Bowery a pound loaf
of SO-Called white bread can be obtained
for cents, rye bread being generally half
| a cent cheaper. On the other side of town,
where the population, If not indigenous
American, is at least, thoroughly Ameri-
| canized-from the North river up through
| 18th, 10th, 9th, Sth and 18th avenues-the
bread is, as a rule, bought in one-pound
and two-potnd loaves, selling, respectively.
on the average for cents and cents
These prices obtain for white bread only,
of course, rye being slightly cheaper and
sold in larger loaves, some of them weigh
ing as much four pounds.
Getting nearer to Broadway means, as
rule, an increase of a cent on the pound,
the one-pound loaf averaging cents and
the two-pound loaf cents, and sometimes
as much as 10 cents. The customer in all
asks for ''5-cent loaf" or an Scent Loaf
without any reference as in England or
Germany, to the weight
And, after all, a man who buys two
pound loaf because he thinks 1t weighs two
pounds is in ten cases out of twelve getting
short weight. The Star correspondent the
other day on putting on the scales loaf
represented by the baker to be a two-pound
loaf found il over three ounces short Of
weight. The bakers reply, when asked for
an explanation, was nothing if not in
genuous:
oh" he said, II put in more than two
pounds of dough, but 1t must have shrunkP'
But II is safe to say that the shrinkability
of dough would be largely diminished If the
law would step in, and by a common-sense
ordinance protect the purchaser of bread.
But not only is the public at the mercy OF
the master baker; so in a different and far
more vital way are his employees. The
Bakers Union has a highly pleasing scale
Of wages, but as far practical results are
concerned they are unable to enforce it,
and the scale merely stands for the golden
ideal Of journeymen bakerdom. According
to the union, a foreman is to receive SIS
per week, a second hand" $12. and a
third hand" $40. the hours being from
eleven to twelve a day, inclusive OF
neal time. AS a matter of fact, the ma lori
lucky just at present when they can get a
job working from twelve to sixteen hours a
day, boarding out for 81 a week.
Others, a plenty of them, are getting
from IS 10 $50 a month with board-boarG,
it must not be forgotten, that II requires
long habit and considerable strength of
And yet the master bakers profits are
greater today then almost ever before.
Within the last two or three years flour
has dropped down from $3.50 to 81 and S375
barrel. But the public has not found
any proportionate reduction in the retail
price Of bread or any increase in the
weight of the loaf, in spite of the half
hearted declarations of sporadic bakers that
their loaves are fully<a cent cheaper to-
day than they were three years ago. The
five-cent loaf of 1890 and 1891 is the five
cent loaf of 1894. with the shrinking quail
tiles Of the dough as active ever, If not
more so.
Chicago and Her Bakers.
Correspondence of The Evening Star.
CHICAGO, October %, 1894
Neither the price nor the weight OF bread
has been fixed during the last three years
to correspond with the reduction in the
price of -four. Housekeepers pay just as
much for a loaf of bread today as they did
when flour cost 81 more barrel than 1t
does at present.
There are regulations in Chicago as to
the weight of loaf of bread. A provision
of the Illinois statutes says that the weight
of loaf of bread, baked, must be at least
sixteen ounces. But the law is a dead let
ter. 1t Is not observed, and the violators
are not punished. The large bakeries, with
but few exceptions, turn out loaVes that
weigh from sixteen to twenty ounces, and
sometimes twenty-four ounces, and these
loaVes retail for cents. But the smaller
bakers do not observe the law. They make
loaYeS, and put them on the market, which
do not weigh more than twelve ounces.
Many of these lOaves are retailed at D
cents, but some are sold at cents; and
few of the bakeries in the tenement dis
tricts turn out loaves weighing twelve
ounces, which are retailed at cents each.
These loaves, however, contain very little
lard or sugar. There is not much chance
,F,,t frAr no NTar
account of the price Of bread, as they can
buy bread which retails at cents for
cents a loaf when the bread Is a day old
These 2-cent loavcs can be secured at the
large bakeries, and the bread is exception
ally good and weighs fully sixteen ounces
a loaf. .
Journ eymen bakers are reasonably well
maid The prevailing rate of wages Is
S13 a week for eight hours day work.
The bakery people claim that they have
increased the weight OF a loaf OF bread
since the reduction in the price of flour, but
they say they are not doing as much busi-
ness or making as much profit as when the
price of -four was at the top notch. The
reason for this is because the housekeepers
are buying -four by the barrel and are max
ing their own bread" said one of the big
bakery proprietors. "Our sales have fallen
off considerably since the price Of -four
went down. We cannot afford to reduce the
price of a flve-cent loaf to four cents, be-