Show FROM A HEW POINT A Practical investigation of the 1 English Mechanics Condition I THE WAGES THAT ARE PAID The Man Across the PoirJ is in Batter Circumstances Circum-stances Than Americans Generally Gener-ally Believe CLArnAiiJuNCTioxLondonOctrrlS90 Special correspondence of THE HEUALD Xo mechanic in London need be without job if he is willing to work and fit for his screw said a brawny mechanic to me yesterday yes-terday evening down at Clapham Junction that queer locality in the British capital where so many of its laboring men live The fact is he continued that business busi-ness of all kinds seems pushing and he who is right and has got an arm on him can earn good wages Why Ill come near taking tak-ing my three pounds 15 this week and I have taken two pounds ten for a good while No we have nothing to complain of and I have taken care of my family in a prime way wayLet Let me see I said You are a carpenter carpen-ter and take from ten to fifteen dollars a week for nine hours work a day and extra for over time1 HI do not know anything about dollars but I get nine ponce an hour for time work and can make more than a shilling an hour by the piece and ITS A XASTY WHEK when I ito not take two pounds 10 or moreAre Are you not an exception to the ruloP Not at all Bricklayers masons and other mechanics make fully as much because be-cause the price per hour is regulated by the trades societies but when it is possible all classes of work are let out by the piece and then it depends upon a mans skill and in I < iustrv how much he makes but there are cJ few mechanics worth having that cannot can-not take from two pounds up if they choose to After much careful inquiry I had already ascertained the iacts that this strong workman work-man put so clearly There is a wonderful improvement in the condition of all classes ol working people here and the demand for skilled labor can hardly be satisfied even in what most people would call this overcrowded over-crowded metropolis You no longer see the hundreds of poor wretches sleeping at night in Trafalgar square and in the daytime in the park Only three years ago when I spent six weeks poring over the mysteries of this wonderful town that was one of the saddest sad-dest sights I encountered It is no longer there and there are more bright faces on the street and general testimony that those wno are willing to work can and get good wages for it Perhaps the most powerful evidence of that fact is that it is next to impossible now to got a young man to enlist en-list in the army and the government is at this moment making frantic appeals for recruits re-cruits with very few responses It has reduced re-duced the term of enlistment to three years and is constantly making regulations CALCULATED TO ATTRACT THE TODXG HEX of the land to the service If they were in distress it is quite likely that handsome clothes and a lite of comparative ease would attract them But they are getting work at good wages now and the army is next to their last thought I have taken my carpenter friends as an example of the wacres paid to mechanics in London because I found them so perfectly fair and such a perfect type of eighteen other workers among stone masons bricklayers brick-layers makerstand bqilding trades of that character that I had conversed with upon the subject A common laborer of the roustabout sort can command his pound 5 or more a week for odinary enough rough work and very many get 30 shillings TrOj drivers and men of that class from 750 to S3 for six days labor When you come to take into consideration the purchasing power of a dollar to the English artisan or laborer this means avery a-very excellent rate of wages Indeed more than is paid to a similar class of workers in L New York city when the difference in the I price of living is for one moment considered consid-ered and of course the only fair comparison compari-son as to living and rates of wages is between be-tween London and Manhattan island the I mctronolis of the now world ns this IK nf the old Do you live near here I asked when our chat about wages lagged Five minutes walk around the corner Come along and get a glass of bitter My missus got a new keg in last night Together we walked several squares and finally stopped before a very cosy two story brick house with a pretty little garden in front and all THE WINDOWS LAUGHING AVITH FLOWEBS Inside the good housewife brought us some beer and a bit of bread and cheese She was tidy and the house neatness itself It was such a home as any man in ordinary circumstances might be proud of What does such a house as this cost 1I I asked over our bitter 1 am a tenant and pay six and six S162 a week but I have several rooms and a bit of ararden in the back Lots or men do notpay but four and six 112 a week They do not get quite so good a house of course but big enough for a small family As I looked around the nico little home I ivomleiod what a New York workman would think if he could rent a house and garden within five minutes walk of half tile railroads leading towards his work and within a not excessive walk of it if he preferred pre-ferred to foot it rather than take the cars Then if he could keep a small family on five dollars a week and buy a good suit of oihes for another five whenever he ifcded them he would not think himself badly off This is what the English artisan or laborer can and docs do including beer to drink at every meal Of courso a large number of workmen who are obliged to live over in the old city of London or within easy reach of the StranJ that they may bo able to get at their work readily in the morning are obliged to live in quarters something on the order of small fiats but even their rent cnarges do not reach more than twentyfive or filly cents a week more than the mechanic me-chanic WhO has the little house within A ONE OR TWO PEXXY BUS HIDE from the great traffic thoroughfare In fact a very large class of the bone and sinew of London life live in the houses for the natural tendency of a provident Eng lishman is to have a home rather than ap partments Over in the esat end of London in such rough districts as Whitechapel Mile End Houndsditch and other familiar localities many mechanics of the lower order live and are employed in making cheap furniture and doing all classes of rough mechanical work where cheapness and not quality is the consideration Even here the rate of wages is good compared with the class of work done and the m > n earn from twenty to thirty shillings 5 to 750 and the women from ten to sixteen shillings 250 to 54 a week The better class of workers in the various trades will reach from forty to fifty shillings 10 to 1250 for six days work while the lodgings arc by no means as good as many other places they are very cheap are kept clean and people can live very comfortably on what they earn unless un-less they leave their wages at the rum shop before they get home which is too often the case In fact the greatest draft on an English laborers wages is the money ho demands ioroeer no matter how cramped the family store but there is considerable improvement noted even in this phase of life here much less dissipation is reported in past years This week I visited a large cabinet man ufactury and chatted with several of the workingmen all of whom bore the same testimony to good wages and general contentment con-tentment asked the manager to what he attributed the marked improvement in the working classes during the past few years He said o a f3jTho fact is masters who employ men and people in HIGHER JVALKS QF LIFE generally have been paying more attention t o the laboring classes within the last two orthree years The men also themselves have been looking more to themselves Their trades unions have been very well managed and when they have asked for an increase in their pay they have usually gotten it In fact for two years past busi ness has been so pushing that the men have had it pretty much all their own way The I employer was so busy with orders that he could not afford to have a controversy with his workingmen It is a very easy thing to put wages up but very difficult to get them down again But just now noone hasany cause for complaint and the relations between be-tween capital and labor are quite friendly Both navo too much to do to quarrel This condition pf affairs is of two told benefit to our workingmen It makes them contented and to a very great extent keeps them out of the rum shop Consequently there is a great decreaseia intemperance since laboring labor-ing men began to assert themselves and our people began to treat them better I have been In business twentyfour years and have never known our mechanics to be so well to do and I hope no era of depression depres-sion will come upon us to unsettle them Are other trades as well off as your own ownYes Yes some of them even more pushed Plumbers painters carpenters blacksmiths black-smiths and all that class are in demand and although the average rate of wages is nine pence 18 cents per hour the work is so let out by the piece that good mechanics make much more than the standard price which the unions fix In fact wherever it is possible in this country WORK IS ALWATS LET OUT BT THE PIECE and it is better for employer and employed But this wage question is a very important one and it will probably never be solved to the satisfaction of those who have and those wh9 want The London bus driver is a great character char-acter and is in sharp contrast with men employed in the same pursuits in the United States No class of workingmen anywhere of that grade are so bright so welldressed and cockev as the men who guide omnibuses through the busy thoroughfares thor-oughfares of London Many of them with their tall hats kid gloves and buttonhole bouquets and cigars or pipe look more like a passenger than like drivers Then if a stranger wants half an hour of pleasure and good information he can find it better nowhere in this country than in climbing to a box seat by the side of a John and engag ing him in conversation while he is traveling travel-ing on his route Almost universally they are good talkers entertaining and instructive instruc-tive Indeed they seem te study to be all this and they get many a shilling that would never fall into their hands were they surly They quite understand that and make the best possible use of their talents to increase their revenue These bus drivers driv-ers receive from the great companies who employ them six shillings S150 a day and there is no day during good weather when they they do not add something to It through their politeness to the passengers I who travel with them They work fourteen four-teen hours getting rests between each trip and time for meals Most of them live within easy reach of the stables where their work begins and they live in a manner man-ner quite in keeping with their appearance on the box For instance a man who has a fairsized family will join with some friend equally fixed and take A XICE NINE Oil TEN ROOMED HOUSE for which they pay twelve or fourteen shillings shil-lings 3 or 350 a week and divide the rooms and rent between them Those who rent floors or live in appartments only pay from four to six shillings SI to 5L50 a week rent but whether in houses or rooms they have attractive homes to go to when their work is over because dirt and un cleanliness seem to be an unknown quantity in those grades of English life Even the poor besotted devil who neglects his work and is wretched beyond compare from his own misdeeds will brush up a bit two or three times a week and try to have a sprig of grass or an English rose On I the windowsill window-sill I Horse cars cut avery small figure in the life of London except in the outlying districts I dis-tricts and the prices paid to both conductors conduc-tors and drivers are less than given to those who drive the buses but the drivers in either case are the Best paid of the two as the conductors receive only four shillings SI a daj but as they have the handling of all the money there is very little check on their taking what they want it is probable prob-able that they at least even matters up with the driver if not a little more before the days settlement is made But wherever you go and which ever way yon investigate investi-gate the wide difference between the methods meth-ods in this country and our own are apparent appar-ent and it is quite difficult to draw comparisons compar-isons between the conditions here and in the United States even if that was my purpose pur-pose But after a careful search into so many of I THE CKAOKS AND CREVICES LIFE OF INDUSTRIAL both high and low I have not been able to discover that the people who labor here are down trodden and oppressed There are man very many dark phases life and of poverty dire and deep just as we find them in New York city Some grinding employers employ-ers in the lower grades ol manufacturing give out their work at starvation wages and some men and women labor for a pittance pit-tance just as they do in the American metropolis me-tropolis which is but a reflex of this except ex-cept that New York is a city of tenements and this is to a great extent a city of homes Sweating is practiced here now and then just as it is withus but the law watches it quite zs closely as in our country and public pub-lic sentiment is thoroughly aroused against this class of wrong and that means a great deal where as it does here public sentiment senti-ment is the mighty factor and practically controls all political life Parliament heeds a strong impression of public opinion in a flash and the voice of no community in England can be raised in a protest without a hearing Therefore the humblest has an equal chance with the highest to ventilate his wrongs before the highest tribunal in the land aad to get as fair a judgment An inquiry into a study of this life among the lowly has been most interesting interest-ing because it has given me an opportunity of watching phases of human nature never to be found in my own country and it also teaches some valuable lessons of the difference differ-ence between a new land like ours where there is no national habit XO LEISURE CASS and no fixed condition that may not be changed by accident Think how strange it must seem to an American to seea workingman work-ingman go to his labor without his breakfast break-fast Perhaps cup of coffee or a glass of beer is taken before the work is begun then two or three hours of the days toil is over and about nine oclock all hands knock off and a half hour is taken for the first meal of the day This is only because the rich man does not cat until late and the less fortunate ono wants to follow as nearly as possible his example That is also why the entire English nation is mad about all sorts of field sports and talks of little else no matter how little they know of it in reality re-ality It is an old adage that habit is our master This is especially true in this country where habit seems to be cultivated I for tho purpose of masterFUAK FJUXK A BURR |