SOCIAL BACTERIA AND ECONOMIC MICROBES. 323 



material after it has been distributed are the real problems for practical 

 economists to deal with. 



Item No. 4, Sugar. — The import and production of sugar are well 

 established in quantity and value ; the consumption per capita is known ; 

 it is one of the articles on which the cost of refining has been reduced 

 to the smallest fraction, and both the wholesale and retail profits to 

 the lowest point. The latest consumption has been fixed at 68 pounds 

 per head, without counting molasses. If we add the molasses at a very 

 small fraction, we may count the average consumption at 70 pounds per 

 head at an average price of five cents a pound or $3.50 per head for 

 refined sugar. But a quantity which cannot be measured is converted 

 over into jams, jellies, preserves and condensed milk. In the latter 

 industry one single establishment is reputed to consume more than the 

 entire product of all the beet-root sugar factories in this country, 

 estimated at about 150,000 tons. If sugar were free of duty an im- 

 mense impulse would be given to agriculture and to fruit growing. 

 A very small number of persons can ever be employed in raising beets 

 for sugar, because the weeding of the beets must be done by hand and 

 there are very few sections of the country where the people are so poor 

 as to find suitable employment in this occupation, but with free sugar 

 an immense impulse will be given to the making of condensed milk 

 for home use and export, and to the saving of fruit now wasted, for 

 conversion into jams, jellies and preserves. We should take the com- 

 merce of the world on these lines, and by free sugar provide excellent 

 employment for ten where one can ever be occupied in raising beets. 



Another large quantity of sugar is converted into candy. None 

 can measure this factor. The highest rentals at the corners of the most 

 frequented streets in cities are paid for occupation in the distribution 

 of candy. I happen to know of four corners now occupied in Boston 

 on which the rental is more than $25,000 a year, these shops being 

 devoted exclusively to retail traffic in candy of all sorts with prices of 

 from ten to forty cents a pound. It follows that at least fifty cents 

 per head should be added to the retail price of the refined sugar, mak- 

 ing the total expenditure for sugar four dollars per head, or on a popu- 

 lation numbering 80,000,000, $320,000,000 a year. 



Item No. 5, Meats and Vegetables. — It will be impossible to deal 

 with the average expenditure for meat at the present time. Poultry 

 and eggs at farm values come to $3.69 per head. The product of 

 slaughtering establishments large enough to be included under the 

 head of 'Manufacturers' in the census comes to $10.31 per head at 

 the works. Butter, cheese and condensed milk at such works as are 

 big enough to be included in the census come to $1.72 per head. But 

 more animals are slaughtered outside the large establishments than 

 in them. The figures of poultry and eggs, of butter, cheese and con- 



