Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-02-15
The Machinistss Story.
HOW he EARNS AND SPENDS HIS MONEY
IN NEW YORK
WORK AND WAGES.

machinist | suppose nine-tenths of
what make comes from jobbing about
printing presses, though it's hard to
show me anything about machine that
can't understand, and when it's broken
that don't know how to put to rights
again But printing-press work is my
speciality. Well, there amt anything..as
far as iron and steel and brass goes,
about printing shop, that | can't put
my hand to, except writing the articles
and setting the types. have a boss,
though am kind Of Independent ofhim.
| am more fortunately placed than most
men, from the fact that being pretty
well known around Ann Street and
Printing House Square generally, have
work almost all the time. Should jobs
get slack | need not be idle, as the boss
always has some work for me, not in the
machine press line, but piece-work, at
which can make a living. Work about
a printing press is something like plum
ber's work, when there is burst in the
pipes. 1t comes on sudden, and then
YOU have to stick at it until it's done.
Mostly all the leading papers have ma
Chinists belonging to the establishment,
who keep things as well up as would be
done on a marine engine, though some
times it happens that the break is so bad
they have to send out and put on other
hands. Say anything gets wrong in the
shatting, or the movement, or the feed,
or the fountains, | may he called on at
3 o'clock in the morning, and expected
to work on from then, with just mo-
ment 10 get bite of something, right on
to 10 or II o'clock at night, when the
press must start again. | can't say but
| am well paid for it. have a mate,
who works under me, helps to lift
things, who has pretty good ideas of
things in general, and who, | suppose,
works in half the jobs | undertake. |
might get party who was better me-
cianic than he is, but he is remarkably
steady and is always on time when | call
for him. have been pretty methodical
about putting down my receipts from
wages for the last ten years, so that
could very certainly ticket you off any
week in the year. from 1861 to now. |
make on an average 1874 a week. Some
weeks | have made as much as $40,
when | have furnished material, and
some as low as $15 but take it week in
and week out, 1914 is about the figure.
FAMILY AND WAY OF LIFE.
Il have a wife and two children, both
girls, and going to school, though they
help their mother a great deal about the
house, as we don't hire any help, and do
the washing at home. My rent-Wc
live in n tenement-house, rather re-
spectacle One-is worth SIP so a month.
| live in three rooms on the second floor,
all fronting on the street; one is my sit
ting, and one my wife's room and mine,
and we eat our meals in what we call
the children's room, though, as they are
getting very big,-one is -, the other
14,-I guess before long we will have to
give that up and turn the sitting-rOOm
into q dining-rOOm, too. | am pretty
well furnished, may be better than most
people in my grade of life, having saved
up some money when | married, which
| put into furniture, and being a good
Judge of such things, it's lasted quite
we'll UP to now: but then have got,
too, q first-rate wife, who knows how to
keep things. | might save, may be, 50
a month by going fight higher; but as
the dodgers higher up are always chang
ing, and inclined to be noisy, and some
times I sleep in the daytime when |
work at night, the wife won't think of
it, The landlords agent is a pretty good
one, and as | have been three years in
the house, and his rent is always paid in
advance, we get along very well.
He lets me sometimes do some of the
plumbing about the house, and calls on
me from time to time to come to his
own house to do some repairs so that
sometimes have made my rent this way.
1t amt the rent, $3.50 year, that
troubles met is the price of food.
Now, we are four mouths, and | am
pleasedto say, blessed with fair appe-
tites, and am not used to being stinted.
The kind of food | want formy family,
must be good and plenty of it. | don't
banker CATER canvas-back ducks and
fruit cake, but | want good meat and
bread. Now, $50 per per day-cOunt-
ing&ather an extra kind of spread on a
Sunday, so the wife says-is the very
best we can 10. She divides it up some
how in this way: As cents for break
fast, 20 cents for dinner, and 80 for sup
per. Could do it for less eating Scrab-
BILE? ! know what it is; it is an old
Pennsylvania dish, and wife's folks come
from Bucks county Don't think we
should like it every day in the week.
'Tain't, though, rs cheap, the wife says,
as pork and beans. and for 30 cents you
could feed four people on that easy, but
you see one Of my girls is delicate, so
the doctor says. and must not eat greasy
Ioou' N"", l'oo d Wy ,'Ni.iI LII.
$40 a month. Now you have for rent,
S12, 90. food. @45-a total of S57. So
saw. for round numbcrs. $50 month.
Twcntv-siy times - which is nv wa
res cointing occasional DAYS for Sickness
which makes something ike 4104 y
month. which OUGHT TO leave about S30
a month over. But | have only been
counting rent and food. Now comes in