Republican Campaign Text Book

In Germany each member from childhood inured to incessant toil and privationluxuries unknown-Butter and meat are luxuries-Poverty verging upon squalor -A weary lot.

The Consul at Bristol states that:

"No laborer should allow himself to be enticed by imagining that he could better his condition by leav ing the United States to return to his native country, if born in Europe. A number of such laborers and

also some mechanics have, during the last two years,
called upon this consulate for help to get back to the
United States, cursing the day when they left America
for Europe, where neither milk nor honey is flowing.
Compared with Europe, the United States is a paradise for
sober and faithful workingman."
The Consul at Sheffield says:

Barmen.-The condition of the laboring classes of the mining and iron industries is very distressing; the price of iron is so low that nothing can be earned, and coal is 40 per cent below the average of the last twenty-a five years. Wages are reduced and many hands discharged. In this district it is at present difficult, if not impossible, for a workingman to earn more than enough for his individual support, and every member of the family must contribute to the general fund; hence, from their earliest years, each member is inared to incessant toil and privation.-From the Report of Consul Stanton.

Bremen.-In order to make life possible, at this rate, women in the country raise garden produce and work in the fields; in the towns they keep shops, peddle, wash, sew, etc.-From the report of Consul King. Brunswick. With steady work and the assistance of each member of the household, the workingman can "make both ends meet."-From the report of Consul Dresden.The laborers are really part and parcel of the estate. Wages in money are often merely nominal."

-Consul at Dresden.

* There is in this town a far greater popu lation of women employed in the heavier kinds of labor than will be found in the cities of the United States, excepting, it may be, the great cotton-manufacturing centres.'

***

There is nothing, however, in our Consular Reports touching the terrible condition to which labor in the mines and factories of England has been degraded, which at all approaches the evidence brought out a few years since by a Parliamentary Commission in England. In the coal mines, men, women and children of both sexes worked together in an almost nude condition. The Report says:

of the men and the abasement of the women are well them."

described by some of the witnesses examined by

Peter Garkel, collier, testified that he

Leipsic.-Females are largely employed in business "In the Lancashire coal fields, lying to the North houses, and a person traveling through the country and West of Manchester, females are regularly emreceives the impression that all the work in the fields is done by women.-From the report of Consul Stewart.ployed in underground labor, and the brutal conduct Chemnitz.-At the present time large numbers are unable to obtain employment; the country is full of tramps, both honest and vagabondish; and almost every dwelling in this city is visited daily by at least half a dozen beggars, although begging is prohibited by law. In this district (Saxony) labor is subdivided, giving one man's work to two, in order to employ the argest possible number. As the husband's earnings are not sufficient for the support of his family, the wife and older children must contribute their share of the Weekly earnings. This is a general rule, and applies to all families whose support is dependent on labor.-From the report of Consul Griggs.

Frankfort-on-the-Main.-The condition of the laborer s not enviable; his opportunities are few; luxuries are almost unknown to him; and he is even obliged to se frugally the necessaries of life in order to live upon what he can earn. Butter and meat are luxuries. The American people would consider such a life bitterly hard and joyless.-From the report of Consul-General Lee. Sonneberg.-The workingman rarely eats meat at all in any other form than sausage, and his wife and children scarcely know its taste, so little do they get of it. There is poverty in superabundance in the workingman's home, often verging upon squalor; his children are generally barefooted, and his wife looks haggard and weary of her lot. ** * *

may be easily imagined from the foregoing figares, showing the wages of the laboring clases of Thuringia, that their daily fare is of the simplest sort, and that their life is, at best, a struggle for existence for themselves and families. Their principal food is ryebread and potatoes.-Consul at Sonneberg. Mannheim.-The wages paid hardly cover the necesSaries of life; many seldom taste meat more than once Week-Consul at Mannheim.

In England-The “struggle for existence" -The United States a Paradise for the Workingman-White slaves of England -Men, women and children working in wet mines, naked !—Women working on "all fours" as mules!

***This disposition of living each day in itIf-coupled with the periodic strikes, which break up the even run of wages and bring so much suffering his wife and children-renders the life of the Engsh workingman a spasmodic struggle for existence; and it may be doubted whether the family of the averge English laborer or mechanic is any better off, year and year out, than the family of the German or French laborer or mechanic."-Official Report.

"Prefers women to boys as drawers; they are better to manage, and keep time better; they will fight and shriek, and do everything but let anybody pass them." Betty Harris, aged 37, a drawer in a coal pit, testified:

"I have a belt around my waist and a chain between my legs to the truck, and I go on my hands and feet; the road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope, and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys or girls in the pit I work in; it is very wet, and the water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs; my clothes are always wet."

Patience Kershaw, aged 17, testified:

"I work in the clothes I now have on (trousers and ragged jacket); the bald place upon my head is made by thrusting the cones; the getters I work for are naked, except their caps; they pull off their clothes; all the men are naked."

Margaret Hibbs, aged 18, testified:

"My employment after reaching the wall-face is to fill my bagie or stype with two and a half or three hundred weight of coal; I then hook it on to my chain and drag it through the seam, which is from twentysix to twenty eight inches high, till I get to the main road, a good distance, probably two hundred to four hundred yards; the pavement I drag over is wet, and I am obliged at all times to crawl on my hands and feet with my bagie hung to the chain and ropes. It is sad, sweating, sore and fatiguing work, and frequently maims the women."

R. Bald, Government coal viewer, testified:

"In surveying the workings of an extensive colliery under ground, a married woman came forward groaning under an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said, in a plaintive and melancholy voice, 'Oh, sir, this is sore, sore, sore work.'"

Said a Sub-Commissioner:

"It is almost incredible that human beings can submit to such employment-crawling on hands and knees, harnessed like horses, over soft, slushy floors, more difficult than dragging the same weight through our lowest sewers."

McMillan.

Page after page of such sickening evidence | very rare occasions mutton or goat's meat and wine is given touching the sad plight of these poor are indulged in."-From the report of Consul-General creatures who are paid less than twenty cents "Turin.-The agriculturist, both farmer and laborer, per day, and of others scarcely less degraded lives very economically, hardly knows what fresh in other occupations in England. And it is meat is, except half a dozen times a year, on State and to a condition similar to this that the Demo- church festivals. Sometimes he eats a little sausage, cratic doctrine of "Tariff for Revenue, and for soups of wheat-flour paste, rice, and sometimes a little but his daily food consists of cornmeal mush,rice-bread, revenue only," if put into practice, would re- lard in the soup by way of luxury, cheese, greens and duce the stalwart, well-conditioned, high chestnuts in their season."-From the report of Consul spirited American laborer and his family! "Messina.-The laboring classes are frugal and industrious. Contented with little, and living on what our among them."-From the report of Consul Owen.

Noble.

In Ireland-Women laboring in fields-workmen would despise, there is very little destitution Miserable food.

"In a large number of cases the agricultural laborers of Ireland supplement their wages by the produce of small plots of ground attached to their cabins. As a general thing, a fair share of the field work is performed by women."-Official Report.

The consul at Cork says of the workman's food:

"The food is made up of a selection from tea, bread, oatmeal, potatoes, dried fish, and, among the poorer classes, a coarse Indian meal instead of oatmeal, at an average expense to each person of fourteen cents per day. The mechanic pays something more for his lodging, but in other respects his living is the same as the

laborer."

The consul at Londonderry states that:

"The food of all laborers here is Indian meal (principally), oatmeal, potatoes, and bacon next. Tea may be said to be in universal use.

In Scotland-Women laborers-Mush, potatoes and milk-“ Hard lines.” The consul at Leith reports:

"Some women' employed by the day at field work get about twenty-four cents per day. * * *There is little variety in the food of the Scottish peasant; it is plain but substantial, consisting almost wholly of oatmeal in various forms, potatoes and milk, with a little meat and beer added in harvest. * * *Strikes are of frequent occurrence in all trades, but as a rule they result in impoverishing the workman, who has in the end to return to his previous wage or accept the employer's terms."

In Wales-Women as bread winners. Consul Wirt Sikes reports from Cardiff, that

"* * * The wives of laboring men here, fill a more active place in the bread-winning scheme than women do in America. Many go off to their work as regulary as their husbands every morning of their lives. They are also very frequently the treasurers of their marital firm, and help to keep the weekly outlay for jollification as near the minimum as possible. Among the occupations followed by women in this district are some which I think women nowhere else in Great Britain engage in, such as let

ter-carriers (in lieu of postmen), mussel-diggers, oyster

peddler, &c."

In Italy-Miserable fare-Meat only on great festivals and holidays."

Genoa. The fare of the Italian laborer is usually very simple, consisting of bread, boiled chestnuts, mush and ministrone, a substantial soup made of vegetables, olive oil and macaroni. This, with an occasional bottle of ordinary wine, a relish of stockfish or cheese, and, at rare intervals, on great festivals and holidays, a dinner of fresh meat, constitutes the homely fare of the Italian peasant.-From the report of Consul Spencer.

"Rome. The ordinary laborer's fare is coarse bread and cheese and raw onions in the morning; at midday, a substantial soup of vegetables and macaroni, with fat pork or olive oil, or a dish of polenta (mush); in the evening, bread and cheese, with onions or salad, as the case may be, sometimes varied with stockfish. On

In the Netherlands-Fresh meat a luxury -Hard work to live.

The consul at Rotterdam, speaking of the food of Dutch laborers, says:

"Meat, excepting sausage and chipped beef, is regarded by the mechanic and laboring man as a luxury, and is rarely indulged in. Bread, rice, fish, potatoes food for the laboring classes of the Netherlands.* * * and other vegetables, constitute the staple articles of With all his patient frugality and practiced economy, the Dutch working man has all he can do to maintain himself and family."

In Spain-Rarity of meat—A miserable mess to live on!

The consul at Barcelona reports that :

"The Catalonia working people live mostly on greens, beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, codfish (dried), and wine. * ** Boots or shoes are very seldom seen worn by laborers (men), the sandal (made of twine or grass) being the common foot cover.

The consul at Cadiz says:

"The farm laborers of Andalusia, fed by their em. oil, and a little vinegar. A portion of the bread is set ployers, are allowed daily three pounds of bread, some aside, with the oil and vinegar, to form the two meals of the gaspacho served to the farm hands. It consists of bread soaked in water, to which the oil and vinegar are added. It is served hot in winter and cold in sumplied by the laborer at his own cost. This cheap ration mer. Any additions, generally of vegetables, are supis generally adopted by the working classes that pay their own board."

The consul at Malaga says:

"* *

* The laborer in the south of Spain is the most frugal of beings. He rarely or never eats meat. Indeed, it would be impossible for him to do so and live on his earnings, as meat is extremely dear; common fresh meat being worth twenty cents and beefsteak thirty cents per pound. The laborer here generally subsists on fish, rice, beans and other vegetables." **

PART XI.

Labor and Wages in the United States During Two Periods— Tables showing the Rise in Wages of American Mechanical and Farm Labor from the end of Democratic Rule in 1860 to 1874.

reau of Statistics, will furnish an interesting The following tables, prepared in the Bustudy to the artisan, mechanic and farm laborer, as exhibiting the rise in wages from 1860, when the Democrats were in power, to 1874, when the Republicans were in full power:

Mechanical Labor.

Table showing the average Daily Wages, without Board, paid in the several States and Territories to persons: employed in the undermentioned Trades in the respective years 1860 and 1874.

STATES.