Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/156

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A STUDY OF MEXICO.

pound; lard, twenty to twenty-five cents; coffee, twenty-five cents; sugar, unrefined, twelve to twenty cents; table-salt, six cents; kerosene, eighty-seven cents per gallon; potatoes (city of Mexico), twenty-five cents per dozen; butter, fifty cents to one dollar per pound; flour, ten to twelve cents per pound; corn-meal, not usually in the market, unless imported; candles, thirty to fifty cents; un-bleached cottons, ten to fifteen cents per yard; calicoes, fifteen to twenty cents per yard. Utensils of tin and copper are fifty per cent dearer than in the United States; while the retail prices of most articles of foreign hardware (and none other are used) are double, treble, and even four times as much as in the localities whence they are imported. "Between the extremes, a modest and economical lady's wardrobe will cost, at the city of Mexico, about fifty per cent more than the same style in the United States. This, however, is modified by the climate, which requires no change of fashions to suit the seasons, as the same outfit is equally appropriate for every month in the year."—Strother.

Imported articles of food are exceedingly high at retail in the city of Mexico. American hams, in canvas, forty to fifty cents per pound; American salmon, cans of one pound, one dollar; mackerel, eighteen to twenty-five cents each; codfish,