Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1910 — COST OF YOUR EYEGLASSES. [ARTICLE]

COST OF YOUR EYEGLASSES.

This Is Not a Trust—Hour Could tho Statute Create a Monopoly T Fixed prices to be charged the public for Its eyeglasses and spectacles, are the subject of a controversy among the wholesale opticians. The officers of the Optical Society of the State of New York'distributed recently a minimum prloe list. These prices are higher than those charged by many of the opticians. The action of the New York society is likely to be followed in other states, as soon as they get optometry laws like New York’s, which restrict the number of men who may legally fit eyes with glasses, the New York Sun pays. This city Is the headquarters of a campaign for optometry laws which are pending at the presentStesslons of the legislatures of "New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and several other states. P. A. Dllworth, the secretary of‘the Optical Society of the State of New York, is one of the officers who prepared the price list. He said yesterday that the new list is not binding ofi the members and has been Bent to them for their information with the explanation that it is the average minimum of the prevailing prices. Mr. Dllworth said that there is no Intention to force up the prices or form an eyeglass trust. Since the optometry law was passed in this state two years ago, he said, 2,100 men have received certificates and it would be Impossible to have them all agree as to prices. Besides publishing the mlnmum lists for the information of members most of the societies are urging the members to give up the old practice of announcing free examinations of the eyee and to charge for the service as doctors do. The examinations have never been really free, it is said, because the practice has been to add to the cost of the glasses an extra sum to pay the examiner for his time, but the customers have not known this.