Arizona republican., 1897-12-08

| life compare with the price of gold. I took considerable pains to investi- gate these. Laborers get all the way !! from one dollar to six dollars per day the average will not exceed three dollars. Carpenters get the highest, i six dollars. Then as to prices, I con- suited Mrs. John Stuart She is the wife of Col. Stuart, the general agent Of San Jose, on big salary, $4OO month in gold, and the mother of ] Henry Stuart, who is a member of l the second class of the same com mandery as you and I, the Colorado while the colonel belongs to the Cali fornia commandery, I believe. She has lived the most of the time for sey- i enteen years in Guatemala, part of the time in the capital and part of the time at San Jose, hence ought to be able to give correct answers. I wrote them down as she gave them, so as ! to make no mistakes. Here are a w: Butter, $2 pound; coal oil, S1,5O a gallon by the quantity, and $1. .75 small quantity; eggs, 75 cents dozen: four. 15 cents a pound; potatoes, IS cen. $ a pound; meat, from 31A tIoi 50 cen s a pound; ham, S1 pound, etc. Sup pose you make a little computa ion Take the highest, a carpenter. Sun pose, on his way home after dsy's work, he buys five pounds of four. i've pounds of potatoes, a haf dozen eggs, ha,f gallon coal oil, two pornds of meat, one-quarter pound of butter. a half pound of ham, and you will find he will have but little left for rent clothing and many other necessarias of life, while the man who earned S2 day will be in debt $40. You will observe that the quantities given are not large. and that with a family of a half dozen, not much of it would be left in twenty-four hours. Jus, stoD and consider for short time what must be the condition of the grea masses of the country where prices wages and money are as above. Y-u can readily see they can't buy flour eggs, potatoes, butter, etc.. but have to live in a much humber wy. 'Mr. Knutsen, partner in a ,omi- nent business house in San Francisco Is on our steamer. He was te ling me his experience not long since in gcine on horseback with mpzo tor servant from one town to another. They be- came very hungry. Finally they came across home or hovel, stopped and asked for something to eat There was absolutely not a bite of anything ii that home to eat, only some cooke ] beans, which they had to eat with ut | knife, fork or spoon. Guess our labor i ing men and farmers in the Limited States better not ask to exchange places.
 'And yet, this is wonderfully r,ch country in a great variety of resources Immense forests of mahogany. ro-e- wood, lignum vitae, coffee and sugar indigenous to the soil, all fruits and grains abundant, etc. It will have a prosperous future. Some of the ma. hogany trees are sixty or ninety feet to the first limbs, and six feet through These valuable woods are used fol railroad ties, same as other wood friend told me of a case that he thought fully authentic, in which h< saw l. V. post about eight inches through, which had been use1 for 1 years to tie cattle to that were to b: killed. A deeply worn ring around it nearly half worn off for a foot or two showed the many hard knocks it had had from their horns. He dug dow1 beside the post and tried to cut the post, but could not. It seemed to ha become as hard as iron, instead of rot ting.
 Many fortunes have Teen made 1T this country during the last few years in coffee. Some fincas Ca coffe; plantation or farm is called finca netting as much as $50,0O0 a year i1 gold.
 During our stop in Guatemala Vt visited tho market. It occupies z whole square (perhaps two) in tht heart of the city. Such a crowd, sucf variety of things to sell, such-wen doctor, I'll leave this slIbjec it'll set you and tell you. A large per cent o. purchases, in number, woud n-t ex' ceed media or real (6A or 21s centsl
 "At Acajutta we had grand view of the burning volcano, Izalco. Some good friends in Phoenix had given u: fine pair of glasses. These were o, wonderful help to us in watching tn