Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1891 — Eggs for Wagers. [ARTICLE]

Eggs for Wagers.

River men have already begun to make predictions regarding the opening of navigation, and many have backed their prophesies with something of a tangible form, says the Albany Express. Strange as it may seem, in nearly all the bets made by river men on the time of breaking up of the ice, or the opening of navigation, eggs are the stakes. Whether the reason is that the wagers are paid about Easter time is not known, but certain it is that when all bets are settled, some river men have eggs by the barrel, enough in some cases to last their families for months. Most of the Hudson River “sea dogs” think that navigation will be open about the last of March, but Captain Corey, of the bridge tug Julia Brainard, laid a wager of 100 eggs that there would not be a passenger boat running on the river until after March 20. The captain said that the betting of eggs among river men was nothing new, but had been a practice for years. The St. Louis Grocer, a high-tariff trade journal, remarks; “Contracts for futures in canned salmon, tomatoes, peas, and corn are now made at as low prices as a year ago. The claim of a big rise in prices on account of the new tariff law vanishes into thin air. ” In reply to which the New York Merchants' Review says: “When that claim was made it wasn’t supposed that the canners were going to gouge the farmers outof enough to pay for the increased tin-plate duty when purchasing vegetables. As regards salmon futures, opening prices ought to be lower than a year ago, considering the low price of spot goods. ” It is said by a California paper that the prune crop of that State this year will reach 25,000,000 or 30,000,000 ptfunds. Eleven cents a pound is considered the average wholesale price Of these prunes in New York, making the California crop worth at least 42,750,000. The McKinley duty on prunes is 2 cents a pound, making the protection guaranteed the California prune growers $500,000 for this year. A fat sum on so insignificant a product. Belgium Is the most compact little beehive of industry in Europe. Without any of what we call “protection to home industries,” her commerce has increased tenfold in a half-century. It is said that Belgium will probably make still lower the duties which interfere with the cheap manufacture of articles for export to the United States and South America. A committee appointed by the Omaha Board of Trade has reported that tin in paying quantities does not exist in the Black Hills. And it was especially to protect these Black Hills tin mines that McKinley placed a duty of 4 cents a pound on tin coming into this country after July, 1893, for the use of our new tariff tin-plate mines.