A. D."
The first thought that will arrest the attention of some in reading
this report is the smallness of the figures. It does not appear to-day
that the corporation was much of a financial affair, for there are
thousands of persons in our land now who could easily sustain such an
institution and pocket its yearly losses; but we must bear in mind that
the intervening years have changed the value of money, and its relation
to property. A fair price for a mechanic's labor then was a dollar for
a day of ten to twelve hours; the same persons would now receive three
to four times as much for less hours. We should remember also that the
colossal fortunes of to-day were not in existence then. The means at
the command of the Association were very small, and the wonder is that
with so little money capital the enterprise should have attracted the
wide notice it did.
In this report was an allusion to the Graham table. In the dining room
there was always, at the time of which I write, one table of
vegetarians--those who used no flesh meats, and generally no tea or
coffee. They passed under the name of "Grahamities," from the founder
of the vegetarian system in America, Dr. Sylvester Graham, whose name
is still connected with bread made of unbolted wheat because it was by
him considered the very perfection of human food.
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