The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1905-04-13
THE INCREASED COST OF FOODS.

Most exasperating of all in the in
creased cost of living is the increase in
the cost of food. When it is considered
that the average American family
whose income does not exceed $1,000
spends las has been ascertained by
government investigatOrs) nearly As
per cent of its entire income on food,
| it is easily seen how great a difference
| is made by rise in prices of ten to
twenty-five cents on every dollars
, worth of edible supplies, covering
meats, vegetables, and. practically all
other eatables. AS compared with the
average prices governing during the
period from 1890 to 1900, it is reckOned
by the United States Bureau of Labor
that hams and salt beef have gone up Il
per cent, salt PORK and bacon 80 per cent,
lard 35 per cent, fresh vegetables 10
per cent. corn-meal IS per cent, crack
ers 10 per cent, New Orleans molasses
20 per cent, beans 81 per cent, nerrings
81 per cent, salt 81 per cent, pepper p
per cent, and currants l21 per cent.
These are only few illustrative items.
Poor Mrs. Benedick, when she goes
to market, finds that her housekeeping
money does not go very far. She does
her best, pricing various articles from
stall to stall and buying each thing
where it is cheapest-or, one should
rather say, least dear-but the result
is very discouraging. Less beef than
that, must be made to do. AS for fresh
vegetables, they are likely to be so high
as to be impossible. Eggs have climb
ed nearly 80 per cent, and the best ones,
which are the only kind worth buying
come at twenty-eight cents dozen in
summer, whereas half-a-doZen years
ago they could have been purchased
for twenty-one or twenty-five cents,
Sometimes, indeed they went lower
but we are speaking here of average
prices.
In those happy days choice ''chuck"
roast could be had for six cents a
| pound; now it costs nine cents. Prime
| rib roast Of beef was fifteen and a half
cents; now it is seventeen and half
| Soup meat came at eight and half
cents: now it is eleven cents. Porter
| house steak was tWenty-one cents; now
| it is twenty-five. SirlOin steak was
seventeen cents; now it is twenty
Round steak was sixteen cents: now it
is eighteen Meanwhile, chickens have
| gone up enormously. Fowls that used
to cost twelve cents a pound are now
eighteen cents, while roasting chickens
| have assembled from twenty cents to
twenty five Turkeys are no longer for
poor folks, even at Thanksgiving and
| Christmas.
No wonder that Mrs. Benedick finds
| that her market money runs short. Ii
she would have a decent quality of
butter on her table, she must pay
thirty cents a pound for it, whereas
only four or five years ago it could be
| had for tWenty-four cents. The cheese
that used to cost fifteen cents now
comes at eighteen. MolasSes is sixty
milk is eight cents quart, instead of
seven; lard is thirteen cents pound in
stead of nine, and, when it comes to
| fish, the rise is proportionate. Cod
steak, for instance, has climbed from
fifteen to eighteen cents pound.
| Bread, luckily, still remains at five
cents pound loaf in most places.
| Mrs Benedick's marketing account,
only the other day. showed that pota-
| toes cost her twenty-five cents a
peck, whereas the price five or six years
| ago was only eighteen cents. But, of
| course, one cannot get along without
| potatoes. Rice is an economical vege-
| table, but it has gone up a cent and a
half pound incidentally to the general
| rise in the necessaries of life. She
buys good deal of pork, because it is
| cheaper than other kinds of meat but
the fact is that it is pretty nearly as
dear as beef used to be, chops having
gone up from eleven to fifteen cents,
and roast pork in nearly as great a
proportion. Hams that were formerly
twelve cents pound are now sixteen
cents. Most kinds of groceries, happi-
ly, do not seem to have increasd much
in price, but it is certainly true that
| the quality of tea which brought forty
cents pound in the nineties fetches
! fifty cents today-Pearson' Magazine
for April.