SOCIAL BACTERIA AND ECONOMIC MICROBES. 321 



It will be remarked that when the government again derives a 

 revenue of $2.50 per head or $200,000,000 per year from liquors and 

 tobacco after July 1, 1902, that revenue will constitute a little less 

 than eleven per cent, of the total expenditure for liquors and tobacco 

 computed at $1,840,000,000. 



Again, assuming that these expenditures for liquors and tobacco 

 are equal to ten per cent, of the entire cost of living of the whole 

 population, then the government tax upon liquors and tobacco comes 

 to a little more than one per cent., which is assessed upon the total pro- 

 duct of the entire country estimated at $225 per head at retail prices. 

 Yet this tax is a purely voluntary contribution to the support of the 

 government. Those who consume neither liquor nor tobacco pay none 

 of this tax; those who do consume these articles pay the tax in the 

 exact proportion of their consumption. 



Item jSTo. 3, Wheat or White Bread. — A few years since a well- 

 established estimate of the consumption of wheat flour per head of 

 population was one barrel, say 200 pounds, per year. Since then the 

 increased product of wheat, the lessened price and the greater ability 

 of the masses of the people to consume white bread brings that estimate 

 up from 200 pounds to at least 230 pounds of flour. Assuming that the 

 retail price of flour on the average of all parts of the country is two 

 cents a pound, or four dollars a barrel, or $4.60 per head of population 

 on a consumption of 230 pounds each, the cost of flour to 80,000,000 

 persons would be $368,000,000. Two hundred and thirty pounds of 

 flour will make 325 pounds of bread, yielding a little short of a pound 

 of bread a day per head of population. 



I can make and bake six loaves of bread, weighing twelve pounds, 

 in an Aladdin oven with an expenditure of less than two cents for 

 fuel oil burned in a common lamp with some trifling addition for yeast 

 and salt. In other words, a little over eight pounds of flour, costing be- 

 tween seventeen and eighteen cents for the best kinds, can be converted 

 into twelve pounds of bread at a cost of much less than two cents a 

 pound of bread. What then is the cost of bread to the mass of the con- 

 sumers? What proportion make their own bread? What proportion 

 buy it ? This is a problem of difficult solution. 



I find that the price of bread in Boston, delivered by grocers and 

 bakers, ranges from a little less than five cents a pound for very poor 

 bread up to ten cents a pound for very good bread. Bread delivered 

 in New Ycrk of an average better quality costs less to the consumer. 

 What it is in other cities or in the country I am unable to state. 

 But in view of the large amount of wheat flour which is converted into 

 cake, into fancy biscuits and into pastry, it may not be out of the way 

 to compute 325 pounds of bread per capita at four cents a pound or 



VOL. lxi. — 21. 



