The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-12-06
COSTS MORE TO LIVE NOW
Dun's Review Shows That New
Workers Pay High Prices,
Expenses Exceed, by Twenty Per Cent.
Any Record Ever Made-Burden
Heaviest Upon Poor.


New York City is higher to-day than it
has been since 1880, not counting rents.
If rents are considered, living is more
expensive than it has ever BEEN, and
exceeds by over twenty per cent. any
record ever made.
Meats and general groceries are
higher than during the panic prices of
the Spanish Wal time. Vegetables of
all kinds are too high to be bought
by the poorest class of consumers.
Rents are ten to twenty-five, per cent.
higher than a year ago, although the
real estate men then thought that high
tide had been reached and that, subur-
ban extension would lower rents rather
than raise them.
These are a few of the facts shown
by recent figures complied by the
statistician Of the Department of the
Interior. Dun's Review gives the
same general results boiled down into
what it designates as "Dun's Index
Figure" which is now 103. 1858, or near
ly forty per. cent. higher than a year
before the Spanish War, from which
all authorities date the period Of high
prices. ...
The burden, according to the figures,
falls heaviest upon those least able to
bear it. The very poor are forced t,
pay nearly twenty-five per cent. more
for their meat, and forty per cent.
more for their potatoes than before.
Their rent has advanced from twenty
to thirty per cent. for apartments In
the lower East Side and ten to twenty
per cent. in the upper East Side. On
the West Side rents have advanced
about twenty-five per cent. on ,moder-
ate-priced tenements, and on those of
higher price the advance is smaller.
The manager Of the largest renting
concern in the city said:
1--WE are powerless to control rentals,
and they have steadily gone up. An
apartment that could be rented for S35
last year is easily placed now at $45,
with slight concessions that make the
figure about $3.50. All of our last
year $500 apartments are rented this
veal for $3.50, while the $1,000 to $500
list shows a uniform advance Of ten
per cent. The list above $500 shows
slight advances, but nothing like so
much. The poorer class Of storekeep-
ers have had to pay about thirty per
cent. more this year. The poor man
gets it in the neck every time, and the
rich man is hurt very little"
The manager of one Of the largest
wholesale and retail grocery houses in
the city said:
Tomatoes have gone up 81 PEI
dozen-gallon cans in the last month,
and fruits are so high that packers
are using two and one-half pound cans
instead of three pound cans, and pack
ing them light in order to keep the quo
tations down to living figures. The
public would not buy If the cans were
packed as they were a year ago and
sold at proportionate price, We simply
have to do it.
"Hams and bacon, the best. are SELL
ing at twenty to twenty-four cents,
four cents above the price of q short
time ago, and even the poorest qualities
of hog products are three and four
cents higher. All dried meats and fish
are higher. Goldfish that could be
bought from four to six cents per
pound is held:at six to seven and a half
cents and taken readily at the adj
vance.
Beans that were S1.40 now ON
mand $1.85 per bushel. Flour is fifty
to eighty cents per barrel higher on
wholesale quotations, and that means
that Mrs. Jones, who buys a quarters
worth, pays half Il cent a pound more.
The same thing may be said of all the
cereal products in the raw state, and
the loaf of bread is lighter now b a
ever before for the money" q
The biggest dealer in dried vegeta-
bles, such as potatoes, beets, turnips,
cabbage, ETC., said:
Potatoes are way up, 1925 to $3.50
per barrel, according to quality and
place of purchase, with no relief in
sight. At this rate the poor woman
who buys from the huckster or grocer
by the small basket pays about ~
per bushel, and the better class, who
buy by the bushel, have to pay S1.5O OH
the average. Apples are all the way
from $3.50 for a poor quality to So for
extra stock, and some Of the fine
Western stock brings sc a small box.
The figures are proportionately high on
everything, with the possible exception
.,of cabbage, and they are high enough.