The Charlotte Democrat

The Good Old Times.

A table of wages and the cost of living, with the price of staple articles of commerce, going back as far as the year 1200 has been published lately. It shows that wages during the thirteenth century were about 50 cents a week. In the next century they advanced some 15 cents, and continued to advance slowly until, in the last century, they had reached $1.87.... The average for farm labor at present in some of the Northern and Western States is $13.50 per week. Wheat in the thirteenth century averaged 71 cents, or eight and a half days' labor, a bushel. Now wheat is worth, wholesale, about $1.46 a bushel, or two and a half days' labor. In six centuries meat has nearly trebled in price; but wages have increased more than seven-fold. Thus it will be perceived that the improvement in pay for labor, while it may better the laborer's condition, does not tend to increase his contentment. Subsistence is surely easier than of old, though the laborer is not satisfied to live as his ancestors lived. It is with him as it is with all of us—his desires have augmented more rapidly than the means to gratify them. Our wants are innumerable, and, to a large extent, artificial. Luxuries, as they were once considered, have grown to be necessities. We think sometimes that we can dispense with necessities, but luxuries are essential not only to our contentment, but to any tolerable degree of well being.—N. Y. Times.