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Show The Cost of Living. The average householder finds some difficulty in getting the full measure of satisfaction from the return of the country to trade activity, for the cost of living, which has been Increasing so rapidly for most of the past thirteen thir-teen years, is again advancing from the slightly lower levels brought by the depression of 1908. All through the past summer thb prices of the necessaries of life have been Blowly advancing, reaching on Aug. 1 the highest high-est figure reported for that date, save one in 1907. It is rather startling to see that the average cost of the supplies practically every household must buy has increased over 49 per cent since 1896. The Bradstreet agency has selected se-lected 106 articles of domestic consumption con-sumption and has kept a careful record of their prices, month by month, for seventeen years. The highest point ever reached was on March 1, 1907, after which came the medorate slump caused by the financial disturbances of that year. We are now marching steadily back toward this high record, and the August figures are only 6.8 per cent below be-low it. Some of the individual cases of increased costs are much more impressive impres-sive than the average. Rubber has advanced ad-vanced from SI cents a pound in 1896 to 51.98 a pound now; pork, from $8.25 per barrel to $21.75; ' eggs, from 12y. cents a dozen to 28 cents; mutton, from 5 cents a pound to 11 cents; wheat from 64 cents a bushel to $1.20, and so forth. The figures given are wholesale prices, and as a rule the advance to the ultimate consumer has been decidedly greater. Review of Reviews. |