The House of Representatives in Session.
The Camp resounded with the outcries of citizens at this unexpected step. Dover bought a box of sardines, and peddled them out to those who vowed they would starve before they'd stand the raise. Rows of small boys stood disconsolately in front of Sherry's, with sad memories of the last gumdrop and caramel.
But it is well understood that waiters and dishwashers get their meals for their services. For several days the proprietors could not get hands. The dishes went unwashed; the floors unscrubbed, while the Board of Health gathered in the fines. Now happened what the government anticipated. After going without one meal, the little boys and girls literally tumbled over one another to get places in the restaurants. There was a corresponding rush for employment in the shops and on the government works. The opening of the store, as was intimated in the beginning, ended the crisis. The money of the Republic went to par, for, as every citizen knows, United States money will buy nothing in Camp.
The opening of the store was significant. In a few weeks the summer citizens would go back to town. In the store were dresses, shoes, bonnets, shawls, suits of clothes, resplendent neckties, some finery, many useful things. These had been sent in by the Republic's many friends, and were for sale at much the same prices as they can be bought for in the United States. A good pair of shoes might be three dollars; a coat and waistcoat, five dollars; a nice dress, four dollars. Nothing is a gift in the Junior Republic. Citizens who are content with rags wear rags. It was not uncommon to hear somebody accost a citizen in this fashion:
"Say, you'd better sew up that hole, or you'll get run in," there being laws that bore on such matters.
But it was a reasonable ambition in each citizen to want to go back home well clad and take presents to the folks. Saturday afternoon shopping was, in consequence, an event in Camp. Lively was the discussion of tastes and prices over the counters, girls knee-high bargaining for grown-up wrappers, little boys considering striped worsted shawls with a knowing air. For it is in such manner, and with the products of the farm, that the money of the Republic is redeemed.
The money graciously corresponds to our own currency, dollars, half-dollars, quarters, dimes, and pennies; looks like it—with a difference that secures it against any charge of counterfeiting by the greater nation; and jingles pleasantly in the pocket. It passes into the hands of the citizens from the government treasury but in one way—by work. This is not necessarily manual labor. There are official positions with salaries attached. Such are the Representatives of the people, the Judges of the Civil and Criminal Courts, the Commissioner of Public Works, the Chief of Police and his staff, the Warden of the Prison. The judges are the best paid, receiving one dollar and twenty cents a day, the legislators getting one dollar and ten cents, and the police, ninety cents, the same price that is paid to skilled carpenters. In general wages there are three grades. The foremen on the farm and the section boss of a street-cleaning gang get fifteen cents an hour, while the men only receive eight and ten cents an hour, as their abilities warrant. The same prices rule in the millinery and dressmaking departments, where doll dresses and hats are made for sale when no citizen requires a bonnet; and in
