ITEMS OF INTEREST January 8, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The state investigation of the price of milk in New York city, shows that one well-known company, controlling twenty-eight per cent of the milk trade in the city, credits seventy-five per cent of its twenty million dollars of capital to "trade-marks and good-will." On this capitalization six per cent was paid on the preferred stock and ten per cent on the common. Another company, capitalized at half a million, which figured "good-will" at three hundred thousand dollars, paid fifteen per cent dividends last year, twenty-two per cent this year. Still another company paid twenty-six per cent. These companies sold milk at eight cents a quart and desire to increase the price, claiming they cannot make a fair profit at that figure.

Of the total net indebtedness of the 158 cities in the United States which, in 1907, had an estimated population of over thirty thousand each, 39.2 per cent is credited to New York city, which has more than seven times the indebtedness of any other city, and more than one half of the total of the twenty-seven largest cities of the country. The per capita net debt of New York city is $142.52; and the only other cities having a per capita net indebtedness of over one hundred dollars were: Cincinnati, O., $123.85; Boston, Mass., $120.37; Galveston, Tex., $115.78; Pueblo, Col., $108.23, and Newton, Mass., $105.83.

Every person in America, practically, sustained a fire loss of $2.58 in 1907, whereas the per capita loss in Europe for the same year was only forty-eight cents. The total fire loss in America in 1907 was $215,000,000 and, including the cost of up-keep of fire departments, the loss in this country might be estimated at $500,000,000. If safety devices were used here as generally as in Europe, there would be an annual saving of $360,000,000, enough "to build a Panama canal every year."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST