7. New Englanders were engaged in farming, fishing, lumbering, and commerce; the Middle States produced much wheat and flour, and also lumber; the South chiefly tobacco, rice, and tar, pitch, and turpentine. FOOTNOTES [1] The states ratified the Constitution on the dates given below:-- 1. Delaware......... Dec. 7, 1787 2. Pennsylvania..... Dec. 12,1787 3. New Jersey....... Dec. 18, 1787 4. Georgia.......... Jan. 2, 1788 5. Connecticut...... Jan. 9, 1788 6. Massachusetts.... Feb. 7, 1788 7. Maryland......... April 28, 1788 8. South Carolina... May 23, 1788 9. New Hampshire.... June 21, 1788 10. Virginia........ June 26, 1788 11. New York........ July 26, 1788 12. North Carolina.. Nov. 21, 1789 13. Rhode Island.... May 29, 1790 [2] In New Jersey any "person" having a freehold (real estate owned outright or for life) worth £50 might vote. In New York each voter had to have a freehold of £20, or pay 40 shillings house rent and his taxes. In Massachusetts he had to have an estate of £60, or an income of £3 from his estate. [3] In Maryland 50 acres; in South Carolina 50 acres or a town lot; in Georgia £10 of taxable property. [4] When Congress was forced to assume the conduct of the war, money was needed to pay the troops. But the Congress then had no authority to tax either the colonies or the people, so (in 1775-81) it issued bills of credit, or Continental money, of various denominations. A loan office was also established in each state, and the people were asked to loan Congress money and receive in return loan-office certificates bearing interest and payable in three years. But little money came from this source; and the people refused to take the bills of credit at their face value. The states then made them legal tender, that is, made them lawful money for the payment of debts. But as they became more and more plentiful, prices of everything paid for in Continental money rose higher and higher. From an old bill of January, 1781, it appears that in Philadelphia a pair of boots cost $600 in paper dollars; six yards of chintz, $900; eight yards of binding, $400; a skein of silk, $10; and butter, $20 a pound. In Boston at the same time sugar was $10 a pound; beef, $8; and flour, $1575 a barrel. To say of anything that it was "not worth a continental" was to say that it was utterly worthless. [5] In New England it was valued at six shillings; in New York at eight; in Pennsylvania at seven and six pence; in South Carolina and Georgia at four shillings and eight pence. [6] The hour glass consisted of two small glass bulbs joined by a small glass tube. In one bulb was as much fine sand as in the course of an hour could run through the tube into the other bulb. At auctions when ships or real estate were for sale it was common to measure time by burning an inch or more of candle; that is, the bidding would go on till a certain length of candle was consumed.