Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-04-02
Working Men. Saving. and Homes.


We must regard the special Investigation
by the labor bureau into tho condition of 397
families Of skilled and unskilled laborers, all
over the state, rs one Of the most instructive
papers ever produced on the real condition
OF our working classes. The families have
been taken with some care to their being
representative the statistics of each one
were collected carefully by an evening visit
of the agent to the laborer's home, often by
appointment, and after an opportunity had
been given for the collection Of the requisite
data by the head of the family. The returns
are given, family by family, and then tabu.
lated to present the answer to almost every
question that can be asked.
We shall now comment on only one rs.
poet of the condition OF the working classes.
and that is in the matter of rents. 1t is
startling fact that of the whole 397 families,
whose average earnings were S792 each, on
ly four owned their places ofdwelling. Four
boarded, and the other $3.50 paid an annual
rent amounting to 10 per cent Of their wages,
or Sl93. The unskilled laborer pays IA per
cent, the skilled 10, the overseers ~. 1t is
not croditable to Massachusetts that tho de-
posits in our savings banks are rolling up so
prodigiously, and that our laborers are not
living in homes of their own. 1t is in reali-
ty the great middle class Of small capitalists,
professional men and traders who are help
ed TO own homes by our savings banks. They
do not lend to the wOrking.man, because the
working-man cannot get the start which en-
courages him to ask for u loan. The aver
age of saving OF all these nearly 400 families
was only 3 per cent, or $2l per family. No
body unnssisted by financial skill will at
tempt to buy home OH so meager saving
as that. Assistance must therefore be extend
cd to the working classes to enable them to
buy and pay for homes,-not pecuniary as
sistance but assistance of skill and manage
ment. analogous to the savings bank itself.
This must be done through building associa-
tons.
We have urged this subject so often that
we need scarcely specify the precise means
OF going to work. A measure is now before
the legislature prescribing the procedure to
be adopted; in the plan of Mr.. Quincy
which has been tried with communities oil
his own establishment. A writer in the
Old aud Nelo FOR April outlines with grea
care the Philadelphia system, which has
given that city probably the largest commu-
nifty Of working-men living in their own
houses in the world. This Philadelphia sys-
TEN is at first sight rather complex, but il
found so simple in working that there are
now over 600 building associations in tina
city, sometimes 25 in single ward, ant
they represent over hundred million dol
lars capital. These associations have thei
capital divided into shares of 5000 each, III,
installments of which only amount to 80 pei
month. The funds thus paid in are loaned
to the highest bidders among the stockhold-
ers monthly, and the premiums on the loans
which are added to their face, constitute
large part of the profit of the business, 81
that, in eight or ten years, tho stockholde
who has paid IN only $3.50 has the rest O
his share paid up by the profits. On the 9th
er hand the borrowing stakeholder prosper
to still greater extent. If he had pai'
$50 year rent for ten years. he would hav
simply been out Of pocket $500, whereas b,
paying the same sum and $40 more annual
ly into the building association for that lengt
, of time, he becomes the owner of his home
and henceforth pays no rent at all. Nov
this extra $40, which he might not hav
been able to raise all mt once, is very easi
paid in in monthly installments. Thus eve
the miserable average pittance ofS2 a month
saved by the families investigated by the la
Dor bureau. is amply sufficient, if right
managed, to procure them all homes ofthei
own within dozen years.-SpyTnQfeld r,
publican.