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'/'///: .-/.i/AYiVc'./.v JI)('/\.\AL OF SOCIOLOGY
iblic moiKv was \\orth only five to ten cents of American money. The method of determining this depreciation was to note the prices at which clothing and other goods from outside would sell at auction to the citizens in their currency, compared
with the customary prices for the same in American cur- rency. The ratio between the two prices would give the rate of depreciation. The causes of this growing deprecia- tion were for several months inexplicable to either the citizens or their patron. It involved serious problems in the dis- tribution of wealth and the contentment of the citizens. Out of it sprang the heated political
campaign between the "People's Party" and the "Free Tin" Party. The government being constantly in receipt of more money than it could use, owing to the growing surplus in the community at large and the feeling that something ought to be done to keep it in circulation, projected large public improve- ments, such as building highways, side-walks, drains and laying out parks. These were let to contractors, who, by paying their laborers fifty cents a day and foremen one dollar, were them- selves often able to make as profit $ I 50 out of a $200 contract. They thus became "millionaires," and flaunted their riches in the face of others, living at the most expensive hotels without the need of work ; and the high prices which they paid both
A PAUPER
