Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1910 — COST OF lIVING IN 1851. [ARTICLE]

COST OF lIVING IN 1851.

Were Bicker, bat Moat ot Tbem Lower tban at Preseat. An old memorandum book. In which some Interesting prices are recorded, has just been brought to light by the Brooklyn Eagle. The prices afford a basis for comparison; and as one reads them one begins to believe what the >ld people say—that former times were indeed better than these. The woman who kept this account book paid, to be sure, hi 1861, three dollars and twenty-five cents to go from Westfield, Mass., to New York, and three dollars more te go from New York to Philadelphia, but she paid only twenty-eight cents a dozen for her washing—beautifully ironed and brought to her door—and ten dollars a month for her board, and It was good, too. She bad her daguerreotype taken, & single picture, and paid one dollar and a half for It. We can improve Oh that price now. She bought a pair of shoes for one dollar and twentyfive cents, and had a dress cut for thir-ty-seven and a half cents. The accounts bristle with half and quarter cents. Things cost sometimes a “Up,” sometimes a “levy.” The former was six and a quarter cents, the latter twelve and a half cents. She bought a pair of rubbers fbr eighty seven and a half cents, and wrote them down as "gums.” For her pew rent at church she paid sixty-six and two-thirds cents. Her gown was made of - “debagej” “delaine” and “mull,” and she paid one dollar and seventy-five cents for the fitting and making of one. She paid the exorbitant price of two dollars and twentyfive cents for a pair of congress gaiters. For teaching school elevenr weeks this woman received eighty-two dollars. She has a tooth drawn and pays twenty-five cents —this was before the days of anesthetics. We find an efitry, “wafers,” and we remember that there were no envelopes in those days, and that all letters were simply folded and then stuck together with red wafers. Perhaps you majr remember that your grandfather kept a box of them on his desk, close beside the sand-sprinkler with which he blotted his letters. What we call the cachou dates backa long way. This lady of the accounts was buying cachous in 185 i. They are small lozenges, with no other purpose, so far as is generally known, than to promote the fragrance of the breath. She burned In her lamp “fluid” —a highly inflammable oil which preceded the safer kerosene.