Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-10-10


steel, and the substitution of labor
| saving, steam propelled machinery
for the old slow and expensive meth
DDS of hand manipulation. Imme-
diatelY the Germans commenced t.
open up the coal and iron mines, OF
which they have immense beds, to
erect smelling works of the latest
and best kind, to build engines by
the thousand and set them at work,
and to adopt the best lahor-Savine
methods of manufacture in use, Ell
ther in Great Britain or the United
States Within ten years past the
progress in those directions have
been immense, and each year the ad-
vancement is greater than that which
proceeded it. With this vast increase
Of machinery and rapid develope-
ment of mines came an increased
demand for labor at higher wages
than ever before paid. The English
are now being
STEADILY PUSHED OUT OF THE MAR
hEIS
from which they had dispossessed
the Germans. The London Times,
a few days ago, pointed with bitter
regret to the large falling off in ex-
ports of British manufactures to the
German Empire, amounting in wool
en- goods alone, to Sl5,00O,OOO du-
ring the year ending July l, 1874.
Most of the railroad iron used in
Germany up to 1870 was imported
from England. This importation
has ceased. Germany is now sup
plying her own wants, and filling
large orders in Russia and Austria
Her manufactures exported to those
countries, especially to the former,
are competing sharply with those of
Great Britain.
The Germans are Il nation of sys-
tematic, steady workers. Nearly
everybody labors at some product
i've employment, women, as well as
men. They are not fast workers
nothing like as fast as Americans
but they are steadier and more per-
severing. They labor more hours
per day, and save their earnings in
the most careful manner. An Amer
lean brick-layer will place in a wall
a third greater amount of bricks in a
day, than German bricklayer; but
the latter does his work more con
scientiously. The bricks are better
laid, the house is more enduringly
built; and the contractor is not con-
stantly endeavoring to "slight" his
work, put in bad materials, make a
bill of extras, and cheat the owner
at every step and turn. Cheating,
swindling, and deception, have not
yet been reduced to a fine art, and
are not universally praeticed in
Germany. The old national habit
of integrity and honesty still endure
and exhibit but little decay under
the corrupting influences of modern
temptations.
The boys in Germany, after pas
sing their school-age are not turned
loose by their parents to shift for
themselves and live by their wits or
their crimes. If not retained on the
parental farm until they arrive at
the soldiers age of twenty years,
they are
BOUND OUT AS APPRENTICES
for five or six years to learn trade
Hundreds OF thousands of German
boys are'thus bound out to master
workmen. If they wish to become
merchants OF bankers, they must
serve their apprenticeship as clerks;
if they desire to enter the professions
or the Civil Service, they must go
through athorough college-course of
instruction, and stand their exami-
nation, before they can commence
the study of law, medicine, or the
ology, or obtain a commission in the
army or a clerkship in a Govern
ment bureau or municipal office.
How many American boys learn
trades nowadays? How many put
in a faithful apprenticeship of four
or FIVE years, and come out skillful
mechanics, fit to be intrusted with
tools? And why have American
boys almost ceased to learn trades?
The reason is said to be that they no
longer consider it respectable" or
''genteer' to labor at productive EN-
ployment for living! But the young
German has no such false and per-
nicious feelings, and consequently
the cities of Germany are not over
run with young men in search of
''genteel employment" such as clerk
ships in drygood stores (which, in
this slow country are left to the
women), and who, failing to obtain
it, rapidly degenerate into confidence
men, gamblers, bummers, and dissi-
sipated loafers Of every stripe and
degree.
If American society is to be re-
formed, and the present frightful
wave of dishonesty sweeping over
the land is to be stayed, one of the
essential things to be done, is to
teach the rising generation that
working with the hands in product
i've occupations
is RESPECTABLE;
that mechanical occupations are
"genteel employments''; that clerk
ships in shops and stores are aoo-
mems aoork, as much as knitting,
sewing, and cooking, and it. is un-
generous and unmanly for the male
sex to crowd the female out of such
employments as are peculiarly
adapted to their strength and tastes.
The feeling in Germany is, that
young fellows have no business TO
elbow their sisters out of light work
on the plea that it is "genteel," and |
it is regarded as a very shabby and
unmanly thing to do; and this SEN
timent is still more prevalent in
France, where male statesmen, book
keepers, or clerks, are rarely seen or
heard of. Too many men in the
United States are trying to 1--we by
every device which evades honest
industry; and therefore it is that the
country is teeming with SPECTATORS
sharpers, ofiice-hunters, shio0n-Dulh-