The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-05-25
HOUSEHOLD TALKS.

The American dollar, say men who
Know, IS worth only about ninety
cents compared to the buying power
of dollar a few years ago, and how
to get one hundred cents of value in
food is the problem the woman who
markets must solve.
Fifty years ago the market place of
city was its business center and in
the larger cities of the country this
condition is recurring, at least in the
markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Washington, Cleveland and New York,
the picturesque old scenes of a gen.
Grafton ago are faithfully reproduced.
New things to eat have been in
vented, and new ways of living have
been invented but wives of men on
moderate salary realize it pays to
go to market. So with market money
gripped in safe purse and heavy
laden baskets on he- arm in the place
of a shopping bag, she makes her
purchases and plans her dinners for
several days to come. Last year there
was sold from the city markets of the
country more than a hundred million
pounds of meat and millions of
pounds of poultry and fish besides,
| today more and a better class are
trading at the curbstone counters and
sidewalk aisles than ever before: it
, is the visible struggle of the people
I for relief from high prices.
Farmers willingly drive all night
to reach the city before dawn, saw
! ing the profit of the middleman for
themselves, but the market shelters
the middleman and the worse than
middleman, the huckster. who in or
der to meet competition must sell in
ferior goods.
If you stand at the door of Wash
ington market, or on Market Hill, in
Baltimore or at Sheriff street corner
in Cleveland you will see every type
represented during the day. In the
early morning the keepers of small
restaurants and the buyers for large
ones, and boarding houSekeeperS and
/ a few thrifty housewives who do not
mind early rising if they scent a bar
gain, are on hand first. There is lit
tie pickering at this hour for the buy
ers are old players at the game and
the market people know them and
must have their trade, so that by the
time the Average Man is sitting down
, to his coffee and rolls the best of the
days supplies are gone.
In the middle of the morning you
will see a different class of buyers,
the housekeeper who goes to market
because she wants a larger selection
to choose FROM stands first in front
OF stands piled high with poultry and
| looks at turkeys, ducks, geese and
chickens and then saunters over to
where the utility of the humble hog
is displayed, almost every part of the
creatures anatomy is now used in
sausages and buildings and in it's nat
ural shape, then her eye lights on the
ton and she feels called upon to han
die, punch and inspect these before
buying the round of beef that she has
had in mind all along.
The lady who always buys the
/ best" is also in evidence at the morn
ing market, she ScrutiniZes everything
through her 1orgnette, including the
edibles and then turns to her man or
her maid and asks advice. These
customers are the delight and de-
iT- of
The Panama commission report
speaks of cooperative buying it has
often tried with varying success but
| this commission. which buys for all
the hotels, all the families and thir-
teen branch stores. and is in reality
one of the great markets of the world
| says that it has brought the price of
meat steadily down, and other things
| in proportion, when the cost of living
| has been aeroplaning in the states
and that every day sees a new nail
i driven in the coffin of the middle
mans profits in the Isthmus.