When such articles are conveyed to a distance for consumption, if
they are broken, it often happens, from the price of labour being
higher where they are used than where they were made, that it is
more expensive to mend the old article, than to purchase a new.
Such is usually the case, in great cities, with some of the
commoner locks, with hinges, and with a variety of articles of
hardware.
NOTES:
1. The amount of obstructions arising from the casual fixing of
trees in the bottom of the river, may be estimated from the
proportion of steamboats destroyed by running upon them, The
subjoined statement is taken from the American Almanack for 1832:
'Between the years 1811 and 1831, three hundred and
forty-eight steamboats were built on the Mississippi and its
tributary streams During that period a hundred and fifty were
lost or worn out,
'Of this hundred and fifty:
worn out 63
lost by snags 36
burnt 14
lost by collision 3
by accidents
not ascertained 34
Thirty-six, or nearly one fourth, being destroyed by accidental
obstructions.
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