Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/157

Rh twenty-five cents per pound; cheese, fifty to seventy-five cents.

It is also an undoubted fact that, in the matter of supplies of Mexican domestic products, a larger price is sometimes demanded in a wholesale transaction than for the supply of a smaller quantity of the same article. This was the experience, in at least one instance, in railroad construction near Tampico, when it was desired to contract for railroad-ties, although there was no scarcity of timber; and the following story, illustrative of the same point, is told of one of the leading hotels in the city of Mexico, to the manager of which the agent of an American excursion party applied for accommodations. "How much are your rooms per day?" asked the agent. "Four dollars," was the answer. "But suppose I bring you eighty people?" "Four dollars and a half per head in that case," returned the party of the second part. "That makes more trouble."

In short, this condition of affairs in Mexico, in respect to wages and the cost of production, is in strict accord with what has been deduced within recent years from the experience of other countries; namely, that the only form of labor to which the term "pauper" has any significant or truthful application is labor engaged in handicrafts as contradistinguished from machinery production;