Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 319, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1920 — NOTHING NEW IN H. C. O. L. [ARTICLE]

NOTHING NEW IN H. C. O. L.

tople of the Lona Ago Raised the Same Wall, Apparently to V- - - Httlo Purpose. •" « Is always soothing to learnrtWHr OUr ancestors were kicking about th* aarne things that rile us today. Next time you are Inclined to believe that high prices have been sent by the frowers above to vex this day and generation alone. Just ponder upon these words written by John F. Watson of New York city In 1843, under the head. Ing “Changes of Prices,” In a book of fate published in 1847: “It is curious to observe the'change* which have occurred in the course of years, both in the supply of common articles sold In the markets and 1* seme cases in the great augmentation of prices—for Instance, Mr. Brower, who has been quite a chronicle to me, has told me such facts as the following, Viz.: “He remembered well when abundance of the: largest- Blue Point oysters could be bought, opened to your hand, for 2s a 100 such as would now bring from three to four dollars Best sea bass were but 2d a pound, now at Bd. Sheephead sold at 9d to Is 3d apiece,and will now bring $2. Rock fish were plenty at one shilling apiece for good ones. Shad 3d They did not then practice the planting of oysters. Lobsters were *not then brought to market. “Mr. Jacob Tabelee, who Is as old as 87. and of course saw earlier than the other, has told me a sheephead used to be sold at 6d, and the best oysters at Is a 100. In fact they did not stop to count them, but gave them tn that. proportion and rate by the bushel. Rock fish at 3d a pound. Butter 8d to 9d. Beef by the quarter in winter 3d a pound, by the piece 4d. Fowls about 9d apiece. Wild fowls in great abundance. He has bought twenty pigeons in their season for one shilling; a goose was 2s. Oak wood was abundant at 2s the load. Thus Mr. Watsen of the early nineteenth century thinks longingly of liow easy it must have been to live when Brother Tabelee was young. He continues: “In 1763 the market price of provisions was established by law and published in ’ the Gazette. Wondrous cheap they were, viz: A cock turkey 4s, a hen turkey 2s 6d, a duck Is, a quail I%<L a heath hen Is 3d, a teal Bd, wild goose. 2s, a brant Is 3d, snipe Id, oysters 2s a bushel, sheephead and sea baas three coppers per pound,, milk per quart 4 coppers, clatos 9d a 100, cheese 4%d. . “Those celebrated *Blue Points’ were destroyed by -an intended kindness. A law was passed to exempt them from continual use, and by not being continually fished up they got embedded in the mud and wholly died out I”