626 



APPENDIX. 



investigation was made by a sub-committee on tariff, with Nelson W. Aldrich 

 as chairman. 



The comparative percentages on prices are based on quotations of wholesale 

 prices of 223 articles, covering the period from 1860 to 1892, and of 85 articles 

 covering the whole period from 1840. In most cases these were actual prices 

 paid during the month of January, and not average prices for the year. In a 

 few instances, when the January price is not the typical price for the year, the 

 quotations for another month are taken; potatoes, for example, being quoted 

 for October. All these quotations of the 223 articles were reduced to relative 

 percentages with 1860 as 100. 



It would be manifestly unfair to give equal weight to all the quotations and 

 strike a general average for each year, so the attempt was made to give each 

 quotation the weight it would have in the expenditures of the average family. 

 The basis taken was the investigations of the Commissioner of Labor as reported 

 in the seventh annual report (1891), in which the average expenditures of 2,561 

 normal families are found to be as follows: 



Kent, 15.06 per cent; food, 41.03; fuel, 5.00; clothing, 15.31; light, 0.90; all 

 other purposes, 22.70; total, 100.00 per cent. The articles included in table of 

 prices constitute 68.60 per cent of the expenditures of an average family, 



RELATIVE PRICES AND WAGES IN CURRENCY, GOLD AND SILVER.-1840 TO 1892. 

 [All figures are in percentages, with the year 1860 as 100.] 



I 



