Mormon History
Mark Twain on Utah High Prices - 1861
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it." Page 85
I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to what state of things
existed there--and sometimes even questioning in my own mind whether a
state of things existed there at all or not. But presently I
remembered with a lightening sense of relief that we had learned two or
three trivial things there which we could be certain of; and so the two
days were not wholly lost. For instance, we had learned that we
were at last in a pioneer land, in absolute and tangible reality.
The high prices charged for trifles were eloquent of high freights and
bewildering distances of freightage. In the east, in those days,
the smallest moneyed denomination was a penny and it represented the
smallest purchasable quantity of any commodity. West of
Cincinnati the smallest coin in use was the silver five-cent piece and
no smaller quantity of an article could be bought than "five cents'
worth." In Overland City the lowest coin appeared to be the
ten-cent piece; but in Salt Lake there did not seem to be any money in
circulation smaller than a quarter, or any smaller quantity purchasable
of any commodity than twenty-five cents' worth. We had always
been used to half dimes and "five cents' worth" as the minimum of
financial negotiations; but in Salt Lake if one wanted a cigar, it was
a quarter; if he wanted a chalk pipe, it was a quarter; if he wanted a
peach, or a candle, or a newspaper, or a shave, or a little Gentile
whiskey to rub on his corns to arrest indigestion and keep him from
having the toothache, twenty-five cents was the price, every time. When
we looked at the shot-bag of silver, now and then, we seemed to be
wasting our substance in riotous living, but if we referred to the
expense account we could see that we had not been doing anything of the
kind.
But people easily get reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond
and vain of both--it is a descent to little coins and cheap prices that
is hardest to bear and slowest to take hold upon one's
toleration. After a month's acquaintance with the twenty-five
cent minimum, the average human being is ready to blush every time he
thinks of his despicable five-cent days. How sunburnt with
blushes I used to get in gaudy Nevada, every time I thought of my first
financial experience in Salt Lake. It was on this wise (which is a
favorite expression of great authors, and a very neat one, too, but I
never hear anybody say on this wise when they are talking). A
young half-breed with a complexion like a yellow-jacket asked me if I
would have my boots blacked. It was at the Salt Lake House the
morning after we arrived. I said yes, and he blacked them.
Then I handed him a silver five-cent piece, with the benevolent air of
a person who is conferring wealth and blessedness upon poverty and
suffering. The yellow-jacket took it with what I judged to be
suppressed emotion, and laid it reverently down in the middle of his
broad hand. Then he began to contemplate it, much as a
philosopher contemplates a gnat's ear in the ample field of his
microscope. Several mountaineers, teamsters, stage-drivers, etc.,
drew near and dropped into the tableau and fell to surveying the money
with that attractive indifference to formality which is noticeable in
the hardy pioneer. Presently the yellow-jacket handed the half
dime back to me and told me I ought to keep my money in my pocket-book
instead of in my soul, and then I wouldn't get it cramped and shriveled
up so!
What a roar of vulgar laughter there was! I destroyed the mongrel
reptile on the spot, but I smiled and smiled all the time I was
detaching his scalp, for the remark he made was good for an "Injun."
Yes, we had learned in Salt Lake to be charged great prices without
letting the inward shudder appear on the surface--for even already we
had overheard and noted the tenor of conversations among drivers,
conductors, and hostlers, and finally among citizens of Salt Lake,
until we were well aware that these superior beings despised
"emigrants." We permitted no tell-tale shudders and winces in our
countenances, for we wanted to seem pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds,
teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain Meadow assassins--anything in the
world that the plains and Utah respected and admired--but we were
wretchedly ashamed of being "emigrants," and sorry enough that we had
white shirts and could not swear in the presence of ladies without
looking the other way.