THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 591 



733, and the number of car-passengers increased to 11,951,630. In the 

 third year, with a reduction of foot-fares to one fifth of a cent, the 

 number of foot-passengers declined 440,395, or to an aggregate of 

 3,239,337 ; while the number of car-passengers (with a reduction of 

 fare from five to two and a half cents) increased 10,130,957, or to 

 21,843,250. For the year ending December 1, 1887, the number of 

 foot-passengers further declined 574,929, or to 2,064,413, while the 

 number of car-passengers f ui-ther increased 8,097,063, or to 27,940,313 ; 

 or to a total aggregate of 30,604,313. A correct explanation of these 

 curious results may not be possible, but one inference from them that 

 would seem to be warranted is, that when the American people find 

 their pecuniary ability is abundantly sufficient to enable them to satis- 

 fy their desire for cei'tain commodities or services, they will disdain 

 to economize ; and this idea may find illustration and confirmation in 

 another incident of recent American experience. Thus, when the 

 great decline in the price of sugars occurred in 1883, the American 

 refiners expected that, whatever of increase of consumption might be 

 attendant, would occur mainly in the lower grades of sugar ; but, to 

 their surprise, the actual increase was largely in respect to the higher 

 grades. A leading refiner, who, somewhat puzzled at this result, 

 asked one of his workmen for an explanation of it, received the fol- 

 lowing answer: "I give my wife fifty cents every Monday morning 

 with which to buy sugar for the week for my family, and, as she finds 

 that fifty cents will now buy as many pounds of the white as we once 

 could get of the yellow sugars, she buys the white." A European 

 workman (certainly a Frenchman) would probably have acted differ- 

 ently. He would have taken the same grade as before and got two 

 pounds of additional sweetening for his money ; or, more likely, he 

 would have bought the same quantity and quality as before, and saved 

 up the measure of the decline of price in the form of money. 



Another explanation of the bridge phenomenon may be that the 

 average American, who is always in a hurry, may think that, with the 

 privilege of riding for two and a half cents, he can not afford the time 

 to avail himself of the privilege of walking for a payment of one fifth 

 of a cent. 



Mr. Robert Giffen, in a review of the " Recent Rate of Material 

 Progress in England" (British Association, 1887), recognizes an evi- 

 dent tendency, as that country increases in wealth, for the numbers 

 employed in miscellaneous industries, and in what may be called "in- 

 corporeal functions " — that is, as artists, teachers, and others, who 

 minister to taste and comfort in a way that can hardly be called ma- 

 terial — to increase disproportionately to those engaged in the produc- 

 tion of the great staples ; and that, therefore, the production of these 

 latter is not likely to increase as rapidly as heretofore. All of which is 

 equivalent to affirming that, in virtue of natural law, the evils result- 

 ing from the displacement of labor, through more economic methods of 



