THE TIM BUNKER PAPEKS. 291 



The same social disease is beginning to work in this 

 country. The price of food has more than doubled within 

 a very few years, not only in cities but in the farming dis 

 tricts. Flour in Hookertown has been selling this fall at 

 $15 a barrel, butter at 45 cents, and beefsteak at 30 cents 

 per lb., and these things are just about a fair sample of 

 everything else. Eight years ago these things could have 

 been bought for less than half the money. This shows 

 that mouths have multiplied faster than food. There are 

 more consumers than producers. Farm labor in the same 

 time has increased in value, but it has not kept pace with 

 the increased price of food. Wheat has gone up from $1 

 to $2.50 a bushel labor from five Yankee shillings to 

 nine , which is an increase of more than one-half, and the 

 labor is not near so good. The native born hired man of 

 a generation ago, who worked for $12 a month and board, 

 the year round, has pretty much disappeared, and we have 

 in his stead the unskilled immigrant. This shows that la 

 bor is not comparatively as well rewarded. His day s 

 work will not buy him as many comforts as it did 20 years 

 ago. This shows that something is &quot; rotten in Denmark,&quot; 

 for the condition of the laboring class, and not that of the 

 rich, is the measure of the prosperity of a country. It is 

 a bad state of society where only a few are growing rich, 

 and the many are just getting a living or suifering for the 

 comforts of life. 



Then, Mr. Spooner said, the Societies in the cities for 

 the aid of children, were another indication of the same 

 evil. Thousands are left every year in circumstances of 

 extreme want, and there is no efficient remedy for their 

 case but to find homes for them in the country, where they 

 can help themselves. Thousands are sent off every year 

 through these Societies, and a little is thus done to restore 

 the disturbed balance of society. 



The pith of the discourse was, that Hookertown was the 

 center of the universe, that farming was the best business, 



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