the sum demanded was paid. People grumbled and denounced the charges as outrageous, but they generally paid them and went on.
"In the city the same high scale of prices prevailed. In the shops the prices were about three hundred per cent, above the cost of goods. Lodgings were in great demand; the meanest kind of an unfurnished room was worth ten dollars a week, and two poorly furnished ones were from twenty to thirty dollars a week. Hotel-keepers turned their stables into sleeping-places, and a man paid five shillings a night for a third of a horse's stall, good straw, a blanket, and a rug. One landlord had seventy of these five-shilling lodgers in his stable nightly, in addition to the occupants of the rooms in the legitimate portion of his house."
BOARDING-HOUSE OF 1851.
"I wonder the people didn't live in tents till they could arrange to go up country," one of the youths remarked.
"They did so," was the reply, "and so many tents were spread on the waste ground outside the city that the place became known as Canvas Town. The Government charged five shillings weekly for the privilege of putting up tents on this waste ground, or at the rate of sixty dollars a year. Of course all were anxious to get away as soon as possible, but they were often detained three or four weeks, or even longer, waiting to obtain their goods from the ships."
"Was there much security for life and property in those days?" Frank asked.
