Show thanksgiving Thanks 1868 In An Expensive Day 0 K k JE zo 9 n Costs of oi Holiday f Run High ign w. w Housewife Offered Hered Solace in ill Contrast Sugar and Tea Prove Rare Treats to Early Settlers Set Set- tiers Sa Salt Lake Lake Daily Telegraph Gives Quotations on Staples WHEN the Salt Lake housewife of 1868 armed herself with VV market basket an and set out to buy the Thanksgiving dinner for her famil family an infinitely more difficult price problem confronted her than is encountered by the housewife of today who sets out on ona a similar mission Despite the cry from every quarter that the prices of the necessities of life are unreasonable and extortionate and that the profiteer seems to have foisted himself upon the country as a permanent institution present day prices fade into insignificance compared with 1868 quotations in the Salt Lake i f valley Burled Buried deep in one of the columns of the now extinct Salt San Lake Daily Dally Telegraph Telegraph Telegraph Tele Tele- I graph for February 18 1868 1863 is a list of price quotations of many of the common table and household commodities ties which Is replete with interest forthe forthe for forthe the modern housewife and which may afford her some little consolation when she realizes the difficulties of her alai ala ala- i ter tel of fifty j years ears ago ago The good old days may have been I simpler days in Utah Uta and it may not notI I j have required the same number oCI of oC delicacies to tempt the palate of the pion pioneer Eer but foodstuffs which are now I considered ted the bat a ft g gin s st essentials must mustin I in many cases in t thole l e days have been i iI considered luxuries fit only to grace I the tables of the chosen C few w. w SUGAR TOO HIGH 1 The ordinary dweller in Salt Lake in I 1 would not hav have dr dropped three lumps of sugar n into his cup of tea for sugar sold from 40 to toj I j 45 cents a pound and tea tga t a of the better variety from to 10 a pound To brew tea tea of the variety which now sells for foe 75 cents a pound was a a. matter matter matter mat mat- ter long to be pondered over and more than one lump of sugar or a scant teaspoonful teaspoonful teaspoonful tea- tea spoonful would have been reckless ex ex- ex Today sugar in Salt Lal Lake is quoted at 12 IZ i cents a pound And when it came to making the thet t I mince pie or the pumpkin pie or the pudding which is the essential finale of oC every Thanksgiving spread Mrs Eighteen Hundred Sixty-eight Sixty was thrown into a most perplexing dilemma di di- di lemma The Dally Daily Telegraph quotations quotations quotations quota quota- show the prices of some of the spices necessary for these festive con con- Cinnamon sold for 2 50 a pound which is per cent higher than the price asked by local merchants merchants merchants mer mer- chants today for fer the ordinary grade of the spice A like comparison serves for Cor nutmeg which then brought 5 a pound Prices on ginger allspice andI and cloves are today much lower I GOODIES ARE DEAR Merchants are now asking askin 40 cents a pound for currants and 25 cents a I. I pound for raisins while these thes ingredients Ingredients Ingredients of ot holiday fruit cake plum pudding pudding pud pud- ding and mincemeat sold for 65 cents I and 75 cents re respectively fifty years ago sago I Molasses can now be purchased ed edI for 75 cents a n. gallon rallon AS ns compared with I the price mark of 2 which the old i time merchant hung out on his comI com com- I Certain other household articles not lof of mulch much service in preparing the Thanksgiving dinner to be sure but nevertheless essential in the home I I show a a. marked marled decrease in prIce For example coal oil selling then for 1750 17 50 a a. can can now be purchased for tor less than a sixth of that price Of course cours the old economic law of supply and demand enters Into the price here for Edl Edison on hadn't perfected the Incandescent incandescent Incan Incan- descent light at the time CLEANLINESS COSTLY It cost more then to send the schoolboy schoolboy school school- SChOOl SChOOl-I boy of off t to the adobe schoolhouse with witha a shining face newly scrubbed with castile s soap ap Cleanliness when ac accomplished accomplished ac- ac d with the aid of ot this variety I of soap was three times as expensive as it is now A pound bar of ot castile soap is quoted as costing costinA 80 cents In 1868 while the 1919 quotation for the flip same article is III 1 for Cor a two and a 11 half- half I pound bar this b be he bej I A comparison c of sort t may j I somewhat misleading due to the fact Cat i that tha t all products shipped to Utah from i the East at that time had to be bp bpI freighted b by wa wagon apon on from Cheyenne I This was wa an expensive Pr process es but die- die in tales rates 10 and and recent adI ailI ad- ad I ances In charges have to La some orne exi ex- ex i lit offset the prices charged during I the Ih time of oC slow and cumbersome j travel Another consideration witch whIch made the Ihl ft of the fiOs Os painfully I is the fact that the buying power of the i dollar In l was wa 1 greater then than thin i now The Th tc ten tea a which then cost oot 10 a II mound 11 would have cost the th early set set- UE tier r 20 had the the- value of the dollar been the same me as It is today In comparison comparison com com- parison with 7 75 rents a pound the cost i of the tea h the nf neighbors sip when they fon t on in for fo an nn afternoon chat hat Today the cost Olt to 10 the who In 1868 had ten Irr friends was enough tl tn to tempt he heij hes to pull in hn the i latch string and pretend to be bEl not at I home I i |