30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The fact that in no country do the masses ever experience 

 as much benefit from a fall of prices as they would seem to 

 be fairly entitled to, owing to the great difference between 

 wholesale and retail rates, and that this difference is always 

 greatly intensified in the case of the poor who purchase in small 

 quantities, clearly indicates one of the greatest and as yet least 

 occupied fields for economic and social reform. Flour, in the 

 form of bread, costs usually three times more, when distributed 

 to the poorer consumers in cities of the United States, than the 

 total aggregate cost of growing the wheat out of which it is 

 made, milling it into flour, barreling, and transporting it to the 

 bakeries. The retail prices of meats are enhanced in like man- 

 ner ; and investigation some years ago showed that when an- 

 thracite coal was being sold and delivered in New York city for 

 $4.60 per ton, it cost the people on the East and North Rivers, 

 who bought it by the bucketful, from $10 to $14 per ton. 



Similar results are noticed in all other countries. Out of 

 every £100 paid by the consumers of milk in London, Sir James 

 Caird estimates that not more than £30 finds its way into the 

 hands of the English dairy farmers who in the first instance sup- 

 ply it. In the case of some varieties of fish — mackerel — the cost 

 of inland distribution in England has been reported to be as high 

 as 400 per cent in excess of the price paid to the fishermen. Eggs 

 collected from the farmers in Normandy are sold according to 

 size to Parisian consumers, at an advance in price of from 82 to 

 200 per cent. 



The payment of rent is believed by many to be the chief 

 cause of social distress, and a continual draught on the resources 

 of the poor, for which no adequate equivalent is returned. And 

 yet investigations similar to those (before noticed) which have 

 demonstrated how small need be the first cost of the food essen- 

 tials of good living, have also led to the opinion that, " not much 

 more than half the money that men usually pay for rent would, 

 if expended in the right direction and under easily prepared 

 guarantees, secure them possession of good homes, protected in 

 all the rights given by a title in fee simple, and which they could 

 transmit unencumbered to their families." 



Co-operative associations have done something in the way of 

 remedying the evils resulting from unfair and unnecessary en- 

 hancements of prices to consumers buying at retail or in small 

 quantities ; but as yet the success that has attended their efforts 

 in this direction, although promising, has been partial and in- 

 complete. Associations of this character appear to find much 



in a most satisfactory manner by the manufacture of artificial butter. And it is offered 

 in the mariiets in a condition superior to natural butter as far as cleanliness and careful 

 preparation are concerned." 



