COST OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES.

RETAIL PRICES OF FOOD. According to the bureau of labor statistics of the United States department of labor, all food combined showed an increase in price of 69 per cent for the five-year period July 15, 1913, to July 15, 1918. For every article for which prices are secured by the bureau there was an increase of 50 per cent and more in the five years and for four articles the increase exceeded 100 per cent, as follows: Meal, 123 per cent; potatoes, 105 per cent; lard, 104 per cent; flour, 103 per cent. The following table shows the average retail prices of certain articles of food on July 15 of 1917 and 1918 and the per cent of increase (+) in 1918 as compared with 1913. the relative price in 1918 is not shown it is because the prices for the articles in question were not secured by the bureau in 1913:

Article.

Where

Sirloin steak.

1917. 1918. 1918. $0.327 $0.421 + 59

Round steak

.306

.40373
+66

37975 .523 +88 .487 +73

All combined. The unit for each article is one pound except as to eggs. where it is one dozen, bread a loaf of 16 ounces and milk one quart. DUN'S INDEX NUMBER.

According to the index number compiled by Dun's Review the general level of prices as determined by wholesale commodity quotations was nearly 93 per cent higher on Sept. 1, 1918, than at the beginning of the European war. Monthly comparisons of Dun's index number for the first nine months of 1918 follow:

Breadstuffs include quotations of wheat. corn, oats, rye and barley, besides beans and peas; meats include live hogs, beef, sheep and various provisions, lard, tallow, etc.; dairy and garden include butter, eggs, vegetables and fruits; other foods include fish, liquors, condiments, sugar, rice, tobacco, etc.; clothing includes the raw material of each industry and many quotations of woolen, cotton and other textile goods, as well as hides and leather; metals include various quotations of pig iron and partially manufactured and finished products, as well as minor metals, coal and petroleum. The miscellaneous class embraces many grades of hard and soft lumber, lath, brick, lime, glass, turpentine, hemp, linseed oil, paints, fertilizers and drugs.

ANNALIST COMPUTATION. The New York Annalist's "Curve in the Cost of Living." or index number, which shows the fluctuations in the average wholesale price of twenty-five food commodities selected and arranged to represent a theoretical family's food budget, indicated that prices rose steadily from January to May. 1917, when there was a decline, followed by a gradual rise until Oct. 1, 1918. The index number published Oct. 28. 1918. showed:

Base-averages 1890-99-100 per cent.

Weekly Averages.

Oct. 26. 1918..281.489 | Oct. 28. 1916..196.512
Oct. 27. 1917..277.481

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE
BOARD REPORT.

The national industrial conference board, an organization formed in November, 1916, to improve industrial conditions, in October, 1918. announced the results of its study of the changes that had affected the wage earner's household budget since the beginning of the war in 1914. This budget was divided into five heads-food, shelter, clothing, fuel and light and sundries. The board summed up its findings in this way:

"Taking into consideration all of the factors in the problem, the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that for the great majority of American communities the average increase in the cost of living between July, 1914, and June, 1918. lies between 50 per cent and 55 per cent. Clothing showed the most marked advance of any of the major items in the budget-77 per cent-but quantitatively this is less important than the 62 per cent increase in the cost of food, since food represents about 43 per cent of the average expenditure, while clothing represents only 13 per cent."

In its calculations the board considered the family expenditure as distributed on the following basis: Food, 43.1 per cent; rent, 17.7 per cent: clothing, 13.2 per cent; fuel and light, 5.6 per cent: sundries, 20.4. The percentage of increase in cost during the war period to June, 1918, was: Food, 62 per cent; rent, 15 per cent; clothing, 77 per cent; fuel 146.069 and light, 45 per cent, and sundries. 50 per 80.096 cent. The percentage distribution of expendi109.252 tures reflected the expenditures of 11,000 families.

DAYLIGHT SAVING LAW AND NEW TIME ZONES.

An act to save daylight and to provide standard time for the United States.

standard time of each zone shall be advanced one hour, and at 2 o'clock antemeridian of the last Sunday in October in each year the standard time of each zone shall, by the retarding of one hour, be returned to the mean astronomical time of the degree of longitude Sunday in March at 2 o'clock antemeridian and the last Sunday in October at 2 o'clock antemeridian in each year the standard time in each zone shall be one hour in advance of the mean astronomical time of the degree of longitude governing each zone, respectively. Sec. 4. That the standard time of the first zone shall be known and designated as United States standard eastern time; that of the sec ond zone shall be known and designated as United States standard central time; that of the third zone shall be known and designated as United States standard mountain time; that of the fourth zone shall be known and designated as United States standard Pacific time and that of the fifth zone shall be known and

Be it enacted, etc.. That for the purpose of establishing the standard time of the United States, the territory of continental United States shall be divided into five zones in the manner hereinafter provided. The stand-governing said zone, so that between the last ard time of the first zone shall be based on the mean astronomical time of the seventyfifth degree of longitude west from Greenwich; that of the second zone on the ninetieth degree; that of the third zone on the 105th degree; that of the fourth zone on the 120th degree; and that of the fifth zone. which shall include only Alaska, on the 150th degree, That the limits of each zone shall be defined by an order of the interstate commerce commission, having regard for the convenience of commerce and the existing junetion points and division points of common carriers engaged in commerce between the several states and with foreign nations, and such order may be modified from time to time.

STANDARD TIME ZONES AS FIXED BY INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION IN 1918. designated as United States standard Alaska time.

Sec. 2. That within the respective zone created under the authority hereof the standard time of the zone shall govern the movement of all common carriers engaged in commerce between the several states or between a state and any of the territories of the United States, or between a state or the territory of Alaska and any of the insular possessions of the United States or any foreign country. In all statutes, orders, rules, and regulations relating to the time of performance of any act by any officer or department of the United States. whether in the legislative, executive, judicial branches of the government, or relating to the time within which any rights shall accrue or determine, or within which any act shall or shall not be performed by any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, it shall be understood and intended that the time shall be the United States standard time of the zone within which the act is to be performed.

or

Sec. 3. That at 2 o'clock antemeridian of the last Sunday in March of each year the'

Sec. 5. That all acts and parts of acts in conflict herewith are hereby repealed. (Ap. proved March 19, 1918.)

NEW TIME ZONES FIXED.

In accordance with the foregoing act of congress the interstate commerce commission 18sued an order on March 28 temporarily continuing the old time zones. Hearings were interested, experts were consulted and finally given in the course of the summer to those on Oct. 24 a formal order was issued prescrib ing new time zone limits for the entire United States to go into effect Jan. 1, 1919.

EASTERN-CENTRAL BOUNDARY LINE. The boundary line between the eastern and central time zones as fixed by the commission runs from east of Port Huron. Mich.. along the international boundary line through the St. Clair river, Lake St. Clair, Detroit river and then runs in a southerly direction through Toledo, Fremont, Clyde. Bellevue, Monroeville

Mont., Idaho, Utah

LIQUORS AND SPIRITS PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES.
Year ended June 30, 1917.
State.

South Carolina..
Texas
Virginia

.......286.085,464 New York.

SENATOR LA FOLLETTE CENSURED.