History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

578 POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.
buttons, for woollen and cotton goods, including carpets,
blankets, flannels, jeans, linseys, kerseys, and
cassimeres, for many articles of furniture, and for the
most needed articles of cutlery and hardware. 18
The prices of most necessaries of life were moderate
throughout the territory, but on account of high
freights—averaging from the eastern states about $28
and from the Pacific seaboard $50 to $60 per ton
imported commodities were inordinately dear. 19 The
cost of luxuries mattered but little, however, to a
community that subsisted mainly on the fruits and
vegetables of their own gardens, and the bread, milk,
and butter produced on their own farms.
Wages were somewhat high at this period, common
laborers receiving $2 per day and domestic servants
$30 to $40 per month. Lumbermen, wood-choppers,
brick-makers, masons, carpenters, plasterers, and paint-
ers were in demand at good rates; though until 1857,
and perhaps for a year or two later, their hire was
usually paid in kind, as there was still but little money
in circulation. Thus, a mechanic might be required
to receive his wages in hats, boots, or clothing, whether
he needed such articles or not, and must probably
submit to a heavy discount in disposing of his wares
for cash or for such goods as he might require. Some
commodities, however, among which were flour, sugar,
coffee, and butter, could usually be sold at their par
value, and some could not even be bought for cash in
large quantities. Most of the stores divided their
stock into two classes of wares, which they termed
cash-goods and shelf-goods, and the tradesman objected
to sell any considerable amount of the former
unless he disposed, at the same time, of a portion of
18 For list of premiums and diplomas, see Burton's City of the Saints, 384-7.
19 From the list of prices-current at the tithing-office in 1860, we learn
that cereals were rated in Salt Lake City at $1.50 per bushel, butcher's meat
at 3 to 12^ cents per pound, chickens and ducks at 10 to 25 cents each, eggs
at 18 cents per dozen, milk at 10 cents per quart, and butter at 25 cents per
pound; but sugar worth in New York about 6 cents per pound cost in Utah
35 to 60 cents, while tea ranged in price from $1.50 to $3.50, and coffee from
40 to 60 cents per pound, or at least fivefold their cost in the Atlantic states.
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