from the Lakes to the Gulf, asking the prices of certain commodities, among them illuminating oils; 1,578 replies were received. The tables prepared offered striking examples of the variability of prices—thus:
In Colorado the wholesale price of illuminating oil (150° test) varied from 13 to 20 cents; in Delaware, 8 to 10; in Illinois, 6 to 10; in Alabama, 10.50 to 16; in Michigan, 5.50 to 12.25; in Missouri, 7.50 to 12.50; in Kentucky, 7 to 11.50; in Ohio, 5.50 to 9.75; in California, 12.50 to 20; in Utah, 20 to 22; in Maine, 8.25 to 12.75 (freight included in all these prices).
The difference between the highest and the lowest wholesale prices in the same states varies from 8 cents in Oregon (12.50 to 20.50) to 1.50 in Rhode Island (8.50 to 10). Of course, in the former case, two or even three cents of the difference may be due to freight, but hardly more. Take adjoining states, for instance. In Vermont there is a difference of 4.50 cents between the highest and lowest price of oil; in New Hampshire, only 1.75. In Delaware there is a difference of 2 cents; in Virginia, of 6.
Compare, now, the lowest price in different states. In Ohio and Pennsylvania oil was sold as low as 5.50; 6.50 is the lowest in New York State, 8.50 the lowest in Rhode Island, and 7 the lowest in New Jersey. In Indiana oil sells as low as 5.50, but in Kansas nothing below 8.50 is reported (the freight rate to Atchison, Kansas, from Whiting, Indiana, which supplies both of these states, is 1.7 per gallon. The freight rate from Whiting to Indianapolis is .5 per gallon).
Not long ago there fell into the writer's hands a sheet from one of the ledgers forming a part of the Standard Oil Company's remarkable system of bookkeeping. This sheet gave the cost and selling price per gallon of different grades of refined oil at over a dozen stations in the same state in October, 1901. In the account of cost of oil were included
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