Mexico weekly ledger., 1895-07-25
UDG E. H. NORTON
Rebukes the Calamity Men Some
Prices in the Fifties- Times Then
and Now.

From the Platte City mo Landmark.
In these days when the calamity
bowler is abroad in the land and the
pesslmists, who see nothing good in
anything, but wrong and evilin every
thing, are rampant and open mouthed,
it is well to review the past for the
of comparison (if for no 9TH
er reason with the present.
came to Platte City on the Sth day
of January, 1915, more than fifty years
ago, where | have ever since resided,
and have always been proud of my
home and county and propose, in this
communication, to give some OF the
prices which then prevailed and con-
tinued to prevail until in the sos. l
boarded in the best hotel in Platte
City, kept by Richard p. Gaines, at
$3.50 per week, and had as good and
substantial meals ard as well served as
we now get i'll our hotels. bought i'll
1916 a fine, large, black horse, well
formed, five years old, well broke as a
saddle and driver, for forty dollars.
The owner had been trying all day, it
being a public County Court day, to
sell him for forty-five dollars. Came
near selling at seven, eight and ten
dollars. David Johnson, a merchant
of Platte City, during that time bought
net pork delivered at his warehouse
at one and one-fourth cents per pound,
made bacon of it, shipped it to New
Orleans and lost money on it. In those
days nearly every family had a smoke
| house in which they cured their W
bacon and in the winter of 1850 and
1851 l bought six hogs weighing net
about 200 pounds, for II cent and a
half a pound, also a hind quarter of
beef at the same price, fore quar-
tiers being worth cent and a quar-
ter per pound. Corn was only worth
from ten to fifteen cents per bushel.
Wheat, which we then had to cut with
cradles and bind by hard, thresh GU on
the ground with horses and clean with
an ordinary hand fan mill, ranged in
price from forty to fifty cents. In 1854
| raised, in conjunction with John Cain,
forty-five acres of wheat OF land now
owned by Mr.. Thomas Cockrill, six
miles east of Platte City. We cut and
bound it by hand, threshed it with a
thresher by horsepower, hauled
it to Weston, fourteen miles, and sold
it for fifty cents per bushel. Labor
could be obtained at fifty cents per day,
and Rev. A. P. Williams, Il of the
most distinguished preachers of the
Baptist church in this part of the state,
said to me on one occasion, that he
had split thousands of rails at twenty
five cents per hundred.
In the time | speak of ten to fifteen
acres of wheat was the general aver
age for a crop of wheat and was Us
much as the farmers could take care
of. Now with the improvements in
machinery a farmer, with two well
grown boys, can SOW eighty acres, cut
the Same with improved machinery,
and put the same in shock, without
other help, readyfo for the thresher, and
when dry enough to thresh, can have
it threshed and sacked in a day.
Now instead of pork being worth
one and one-half cents per pound net
it is worth, and has been for some
years past, five and one-half cents per
pound. Beef instead of being worth
one and one-half cents per pound, is
now worth net, five and six cents. Or
binary wages now are n dollar per
day, instead of fifty cents as in the
times l have referred to. Lands in
those days ranged in prices from fif-
teen to twenty dollars per acre, the
same lands being now worth from
forty to sixty dollars per acre.
The rate of interest on money was
then from ten to fifteen per cent. now
from six to seven per cent.
One of the greatest differences be-
tween the times now and then con-
sisted in the fact that then, in almost
every family, you would find a spin
ming wheel and a loom; now they are
things of the past. Then the ladies,
God bless them, generally dressed in
linsey, made by themselves, and /
thought they looked as we'll in that garb
as they now do in a fine quality of
goods. Then the men dressed in jeans.
For every day wear they wore yellow
or butternut jeans, the cloth being
dyed with walnut bark. On Sundays,
and special occasions, they wore gray
jeans as the dress suit and the women
thought the men looked about as well
in that clothing as they do in the shod-
dy of the present day.
Then every household was a hive of
industry, thrift and economy, and the
people generally seemed to be more
happy and contented than at the pres
ent time, for now discomfort runs
riot and you will find, on almost every
corner, men who have lever conduct
ed, with success, their own financial
affairs, who undertake to formulate a
financial policy for this great nation,
and solve financial problems which
puzzled the mind and almost added
the brain of such men as Adam Smith
and the most distinguished statesmen
this country has ever produced. 1 am
no pessimist, and do not believe that
all patriotism has He'd from the hearts
of the people, nor do | believe that all
our statesmen have become corrupt
and dishonest and the men tools of the
money power, but on the contrary my
belief is that the second sober thought
of the people is animated by patriotic
impulses, and that in ninety nine cases
in a hundred it will be found to be on
the right side.
We have made great progress as a
nation and will continue to do so as
long as reason dominates passion and
prejudice and reigns supreme in the
minds of the people.
Everything indicates that the storm
OF 1899 has passed away and that not
withstanding the calamity howlers,
we are on the V of as prosperous
times as this country has ever G
Iron and steel are the great ba-
rometers of trade, and whenever there
is n demand for those products every
other branch of trade is revived by it.