Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-05

] Is Cldlilleu lDdl Nllt MOIlu >
! kN IN high water mark in the cost of
M living has been reached. The
lM price of everything, from the
! lM Isl 6annels in which the new
ssg1x born babe is wrapped to the
coffin In which the aged man is laid to
rest. has climbed to an unprecedented
| height. The whole world is trying to
ascertain the cause, but every man de-
MES responsibility. There are so many
twists and turns in the path that leads
| from production to consumption that
| it is difficult to fix responsibility, but
| every American consumer has turned
| detective and the search for the guilty
| ones is on.
! Fortunately there are o number of
clews which suggest where TO look for
| the trouble. First of all, it is found
that the income of the average Amer
| lean family is 5000 a year. of which
about S240 goes for food and drink. As
! there are some 100000 families in
the United States, this means that the
| nations food bill is-about $4,000, ,000,0 900
| a year. OF this one-third goes for the
| purchase of meats. The American peo-
| pie are now eating something like
| 10000, 100000 pounds of meat q year.
! and for every cent that Is added to
the pound cost of that meat the con-
sumner has to bear an additional bur-
R-bNlbbNtNNNs
the price of other foodstuffs would
mean a total increase of about $780,
000000 a year in the burdens of the
consumer for food alone. Therefore it
is plain that the increase in prices is
a case of grand larceny and not of
petit larceny.
In following out clews the price of
beef claims first attention. 1t IS not
a new subject More than fifty years
ago people were asking why there was
such a great margin between live cat
tie and a steak or roast. To settle
the matter the American Agriculturist
of New York followed an average sized
bullock through the shambles and on
to the man who bought the steak and
the roast. 1t was found that the
dressed beef cost upward of 10 cents
a pound, which Is at least 20 per cent
more than the average retailer pays
today. Yet when the man with the
market basket came in he got his cut
of porternouse for II cents a pound
and his round steak for less than 12
cents. Many retailers who pay
cents pound for q carcass today
sell the porterhouse at % cents and
the round steak at IS cents.
In this year of grace 1910 another
bullock was followed through the
shambles to the price-fixing of the re-
tail cutter. Cattle quotations show
that in the Chicago market for the
week ending January 15 the average
price on the hoof was 6.55 cents a
pound. A st. Louis butcher bought
the carcass of an average steer for
s cents a pound and in order to
disprove the conclusions of Secretary
Wilson published a detailed account
of how he cut it up and sold it. 1t
weighed 500 pounds and cost him $40.
He sold the porterhouse steaks at
20 cents, sirloin and prime rib at II IL
cents, round steak at IL 1-2 cents and
other cuts proportionately. He re-
ceived S51.S5 for it at retail.
The only trouble seems to be that
he placed his prices at retail too low.
Most people pay 25 cents for porter
house, 20 cents for slrloin and rib and
Is cents for round with the other cuts
in proportion. On this basis he would
sell $62.24 worth of beef from the car
CASA gross profit of over 55 per
cent. Mark you, this with no change
in his figures other than to increase
his retail quotations to what the aver
age American is now paying at the
butcher shop.
One is not entirely dependent on
Secretary Wilson's figures or upon
those of the st. Louis butcner to show
IIle gross prOllLS oL ING TeLdlleF. .1He
butchers have text books and they Of
fer further corroboration. One of
these is 1.-THE Modern Butcher" and
the author, a meat cutter of thirty
years experience, shows how a car
cass must be cut up and priced at re-
tail in order to yield a profit of 20
per cent In an Scent carcass, to yield
this profit, the porterhouse and sirloin
must be retailed at II cents and the
round steak at 13 cents. In a 9-cent
carcass the former must be sold at Is
cents and the latter at Is, with the
other cuts in proportion. Let the
reader compare these prices with those
he pays and figure out his percentages.
What obtains in beef prices is true
of other meats. Chickens that sell for
IL cents a pound $50 miles from Wash
ington bring % cents when they reach
there. A young man residing in
Washington is part owner of a farm
in Virginia, within $50 miles of the
national capital. He relates that when
the corner grocer sells Indifferent eggs
at 40 cents a dozen those on his farm
are bringing 80 cents. When apples
sell at $1.00 a bushel on the farm the
reigning price at the corner grocery is