446 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



woman in a tattered shawl and weather-beaten bonnet, 

 carefully counting her scanty stock of change, studying 

 as she walks, how to expend it to the best advantage. 

 Let us follow silently and observe whether her skill is 

 equal to her necessity. First she buys a coarse-grained, 

 worthless fish, because she can get a large one for a 

 shilling. Her next purchase is half a peck of potatoes, 

 at the rate of a dollar and a half a bushel — ^the dearest 

 food in market, unless it is the half of a half peck of 

 turnips, at half the price of potatoes, which she next 

 buys. The large cabbage head, at ten cents, will do but 

 little better. How much better, how much more eco- 

 nomical it would have been for that poor woman, who has 

 a large family to feed, if she had purchased a soup bone 

 of beef, or a scrag of mutton, in place of the fish; and 

 instead of the potatoes and turnips, the same value in 

 dry beans, or some of that sweet-looking hommony, so 

 temptingly spread out upon the next table to that where 

 she bought the potatoes. Yes, and at a less price per 

 bushel than those ; but she knew nothing of the economy 

 of buying one, instead of the other, and therefore fol- 

 lowed the course that long habit taught her, when pota- 

 toes were cheap and corn dear. As we pass up Fulton 

 street, you will be struck with surprise at the enormous 

 piles of baskets and brooms, which pass daily through 

 the ordeal of buying and selling in the immediate vicinity 

 of Fulton Market. 



At some future day, we will accompany you through 

 Washington Market, where more farm produce is bought 

 and sold in the course of the year, than in any other pro- 

 vision mart in America. 



Affidavit for W. G. and G. W. Ewing 



[Ewing Papers, Indiana State Librai-y] 



[December 16, 1850] 



I Solon Robinson, of the County of Lake and State 

 of Indiana, upon my solemn affirmation do declare that 

 I was one of the first settlers of Lake County, Indiana ; 



