The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1858-08-26
The Laboring Glasses I'm England.

The LabOring Classes IN En8lnhus
A letter from an American traveller i'm
England to the st. Louis Democrat, con-
tains the following remarks:
The sojourner sees at every step, and on
all sides, unmistakable proofs of the oppres-
sion of the lower classes by the higher. /
am persuaded from what | have seen in
England, that this grows quite as much out
of the despotism of wealth, as of nobility.
Overgrown capital creates greater inequali-
ties, and exercises greater oppression upon
the lower classes, than titles and cornets.-
Mayhap this oppression has had its origin,
and derives its strength from distinctions
already created in society by rank and fam
lily. However this may be, | could not but
look with establishment as well as pity, upon
the millions of common laborers who earn,
in whatever calling they may be engaged,
only n bare subsistance-with astonishment
that all should seem SO contented, and with
pity that they were compelled to submit TO
laws and usages, which deprived them of
more than half the just fruits of their labor.
Labor nowhere in Great Britain receives its
Just reward. have conversed freely with
common laborers in the field, on the road,
around the manufactures, and in the cities.
In every case find q remarkable degree of
contentment with a lot which Providence
has assigned them, but for intelligence they
are not to be compared with the same class
of people of the United States. Their
knowledge extends to but few local objects
or to those things pertaining to the work
i'm which they are engaged. The Manches-
ter mills and print works differ but very
little in the various processes of manufac-
ture from those of Lowell, Mass, but | was
at once struck with the very great difference
in other things.
While the girls about the mills in Massa-
chusetts look clean, well dressed, aud intelli-
gent, those around Manchester appeared
sickly, and often very untidy in their dress,
while the interior Of the factories, where
they spent ten hours every day at work,
were very dingy and often badly venti-
lated. At Birmingham as we'll rs Man.
chester, the work in most of the establish
.ments visited, even upon some iron fabrics,
f. is done principally by women and girls
The immense workshops Of elliot, manu-.
| facturcr of steel pens, and Jennings papier-
mache works, in each of which are employ
ed some $50 girls, l observed a great deal
4
the operatives. | was told they received
better pay here than at Manchester-the
maximum of wages being here 10 shillings
| Isl SOY per week, though the average is not
probably more than half that sum-
In my visits to the country towns, beyond
the influence of the manufacturing districts
noticed the same aspect of contented pow
erty. Small indeed is the pittance which
rewards a hard days work, TO man who
has only his hands to earn his livelihood
but small as it is, it is melancholy fact that
large portion of it is spent in ale OF beer.
have seen but little stark drunkenness
among the laboring classes; but observe
that the poorest laborer, taking his hart
crust for his dinner, by the road side, mus
invariably have his mug of beer or ale to
wash it down, which latter is doubtless thu
most expensive part Of his dinner.