the crop short and the price of flour high, but it was said that the
latter would probably go up to fifteen or twenty dollars a barrel. In
Troy, a great depot for State flour, it was stated that there were only
four thousand barrels against thirty thousand at the same time the
previous year. As February came on, a report circulated in the city that
there were only three or four weeks' supply on hand. This was repeated in
the penny papers, with the information added, that in certain stores were
hoarded vast amounts of grain and flour, kept out of the market to compel
a still greater advance in the price. This was very probably true, as it
is a rule with merchants, when they have a large stock of anything on
hand, of which there threatens to be a scarcity, to hold on in order to
make the scarcity greater--thus forcing higher prices. This will always
prove a dangerous experiment in this country in the article of flour. It
is the prime necessary of life, and the right to make it scarce for the
sake of gain, and at the expense of human suffering, will always be
questioned by the poorer classes.

Although the stock of grain on hand at this time was small, there was no
danger of starvation, nor was it to the instinct of self-preservation that
demagogues appealed. They talked of the rich oppressing the poor by their
extortions--of monopolists, caring only to increase their gains without
regard to the distress they occasioned.

There was, doubtless, much suffering among the poorer classes, not only on
account of the high price of flour, but also of all the necessary articles
of living. Meat advanced materially, while from some strange fatality,
coal went up to ten dollars a ton. There seemed no reason for this, as the
amount sent to market was said to be largely in excess of the previous
year. In Canada, coal was so scarce, that the line of steamers between
Montreal and Quebec was suspended before winter set in.