Dennis Kelly wrote: > > Does anyone have a handy comparison of what a dollar bought in Huck Finn's > day? Victor Doyno places a 1990 value between $572 and $693 for the $40 Huck received in the smallpox incident (_Writing Huck Finn_,142). > What did it cost to buy a loaf of bread or a chicken? Clemens reported that the price of "Flour ranges from from $8 to $9 50" on the St. Louis market, 5 Nov. 1855. I do not know the unit of measure or how much flour is needed for bread. Items in the report with a unit of measure include "Potatoes $2 to $2 25 per bushel" and "Eggs (retail) 30c per dozen" (_MT's Letters_, I, 56). On 21 Nov. 1860, Clemens, who was then speculating in commodities to be sold in New Orleans, complained to Orion that the price of chickens sold on the New Orleans market fluctuated from less than $3.00 to $7.00 per doz. Meanwhile, eggs which had been selling at 40c per doz dropped to 12 1/2c after Clemens invested in 15c eggs (_Letters_, I, 103). > How much was deck passage up the Ohio? I don't know, but you might extrapolate from the two dollars Clemens presumably paid for deck passage for the fourteen-hour voyage from Saint Louis to Hannibal in 1855 (_MT' Notebooks & Journals, I, 18). (It now takes considerably longer and a lot more money by steamboat.) thanks, larry marshburne