The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-11
RESSOR'SARMATCOLU
TWo-F0R-FIVE CAKES ARE NOW
THREE CENTS STRAIGHT,
While Outside the Pale They Are as Low Is
Two Cents-A Cry Goes Up In the
Columns OF the Columbia Spectator"
Against the Greed OF the Tea Tray.

Columns OF the Columbia Spectator"
Against the Greed OF the Tea Tray.
The food trust has turned its guns upon
Columbia University. For some weeks a
steady advance has been going on in the
price of such necessities of life as are served
out at the Tea Tray" a department OF
the university commissary, until the out
ragged students nave nov been forced to cry
out against the extortion to which they
lave been subjected.
The Tea Tray deals in the accessories
Of the quick lunch, such as corn cakes,
pies, sinkers, chocolate and vanilla eclairs,
napoleons, sandwiches and other alleged
edibles with which the Columbia under
graduates have been wont to fortify them
selves at the noon hour before returning
TO the consideration of the binomial theorem
or the aorist.
There has been no less than a 20 per cent.
boost all along the line. All the cakes
which have for years been vended and
ended at the uniform rate of two for five"
have been hoisted TO three cents straight,
and a cry of anguish has gone up from the
massacred.
But this is the home Of the free and the
land of the outspoken. There is no press
censorship here, at least, and the down
trod have at last found a spokesman and.
a publication brave enough 10 voice their
complaints. The publication is the Co!Um-
bid Spectator and the spokesman is n
who signs himself "A Sufferer" At the
office of the Spectator il was denied yester-
day that the writer of the complaint &-
sired to be understood as being in internal
agony. 1t was distinctly affirmed, on
the contrary, that his insides we're all right.
IL is only his sense of justice that smarts.
Like Gorky, he is merely coming to the
front 10 behalf Of an oppressed people.
After stating the pecuniary extent of
this gastronomio pogrom, Sufferer thus
continues:
This was without any change in quality
or service. This raise caused the writer
to investigate prices in two other bakeries,
chosen on account of their accessibility.
At one, not far from the university on
Amsterdam avenue, in which the quality
I was better and the surroundings infinitely
more prepossessing than acre, the price for
similar cakes was tw~ cents each, 20 per
cent. less than the former price in the COM
mons. At the second bakery, a downtown
store. where conditions we're similar TO
those obtaining here, a patronage large at
noon but nevertheless very small in the
morning and evening, the price for food
stuFs the same in quality and amount as
those served here was five cents for three,
30 l-3 per cent. less than the old price at
the In this case the surround
mrs were very similar to those here.
A about 500 men are affected it seems
as though the university authorities might
with profit turn their attention to the way
in which the digestion and pocketbpoks of
the students are treated instead Of trying
TO prevent bodily contact Of the same men,
since the latter is at least voluntary on
the part OF those concerned. At several
other universities the authorities supply
the students with good food at cost prices
Repeated efforts were vainly made TO
learn the name of Sufferer" In the in
terest of humanity it was desired to ask
him for further details OF his anguish.
But all these efforts were fruitless.
IL should be entirely unnecessary TO state
that an effort was made TO get the views OF
Prof. Brander Matthews upon this burning
question, But he was not found. A
friend of the great simpliier said that while
prof. Matthews had not confided in him
regarding his ideas OF the proper price OF
cake he had stated in his hearing that the
next list of simplified words would include
several employed in the daily operations
of the Tea Tray" For example, pie
was to be deprived Of its entirely supertu-
GUS and, 10 the young, perplexing final e
This would. in Prof. Matthew'S opinion, &C
cording to this informant, reduce this tne
old word TO the Greek letter from which
such profound philologists as Andrew
Carnegie and Paddy the Pig are nov con-
vinced that il originally sprang. Whether
pi would be simpliied in price as well as
in spelling Prof. Matthews's friend did not