n back to the city, for the purpose
of noting the effect of this monopolized transportation, on city rents.
Baffled in his desire to live in the country, he seeks to make the best
of a bad situation. As a consequence, he is obliged to pay to the owner
of some tenement house, a rental of fifteen dollars per month for three
small rooms; poorly ventilated, unfurnished and unheated. These rooms
are so undesirable on account of difficult access, bad location,
unsavory smells, and the immediate presence of other tenants in the
house, who are quarrelsome, drunken, filthy and generally disreputable;
that but for the prohibitory tariff maintained by the railroads they
would remain unoccupied, even if the rent should be reduced to seven
dollars and fifty cents per month. However, poor workmen receiving scant
wages, may not expect to be choosers. They with their wives and
children, must ever bravely strive to adjust themselves to their
environments, which more often than otherwise, prove cruelly bitter and
oppressive.

"In the case of our artisan, who is a brave, industrious, hopeful
fellow; after paying his rent, he will have left from his monthly wages,
the small sum of twenty-one dollars. Providing of course, that
throughout the month, he has been so fortunate as to remain well and to
lose no time. With this amount, (seventy cents per day) he must manage
as best he can, under such adverse circumstances, to feed, warm, clothe,
shoe, and protect his family. With such a meagre sum to supply so many
wants, it is impossible for him, even under the most favorable
circumstances, to make petty savings with which to meet emergencies.
When the misfortune of sickness overtakes him, the situation becomes
appalling!

"From this illustration, we may judge how much the city is indebted to
the railroad monopoly for its high rents. To great cities, high rent is
a matter of the utmost importance. Take all rent advantages from them,
and the entire list of their manufacturing industries, could be carried
on in country villages with equal profit. It is quite evident then,
that these cities are alive to the fact that rent is a measure of the
value of locations."

"Before going farther, Fillmore, allow me to inquire! Why could not
these working men and their families, who are confined to the city by
the high rates of the railroad monopoly, find cheap country homes near
the city; say within a radius of from five to ten miles?"

"Thank you George,