The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-21
Total gross earnings of
the family per week. els 4led

the family per Week 1s 4lad 1913
"But out of this pittance must come Sd for
carriage of iron from the foggers' and re-
turning the nails Is for the smithy fire and
Sd for the wear of tools Net earning, SAT-
per week-the united earnings of three in
dustrious, sober persons, | stood in the
foggers shops of these mailing districts ana
saw the pale, emaciated women drag their
weary limbs up the narrow black hills to the
'gatfers and eagerly watch the weighing OF
the heavy sacks of nails. The foggers do
not claim that woman who has no family
to attend to, and who goes to the forge every
morning and works all day as man, can
make more than IS week-less than two
dollars. But the truth is they do not make
anything like that amount. So
''The most cruel part of this business is
that young women should be allowed to
work at what is called the 'olivers,' heavy
iron machine worked by means of two wood
en- treadles. At Halesowen 1 saw numbers of
girls making large eight-inch bolts on these
machines and indeed they seem to work
with masculine firmneSs and with far more
vigor than the men. Mr.. Ball, one of the
largest nail-makers of the district, told me
that hundreds of women were employed in
the little 'smithys' at the back of the houses
in making these great bolts, and l visited
seven or eight establishments, that might
properly be classed as factories, thus employ
ing women. Their earnings do not exceed
81. 25 a week.
I'm some cases l found mothers and three,
and even four daughters at the forge In
most of such instances the father, | was told
spent his time in the pablo house, and the
united earnings of the entire family would
be less than So Many of the nalers actually
starve, and cases of the deepest sorrow are
not uncommon.
1T is all very we'll to gloss these things
over and keep them out of the newspa-
pers as they do in England, but the
poor in England are day by day and year by
year getting poorer. Not long ago Journal
ist of ability undertook to show the des-
perate condition of the working classes here.
l do not mean idle, worthless, good-for-
nothing people, but Just such Industrious
people as those described in this letter. He
sent the result of his inquiries to a Liberal
journal and the manager refused to publish
the facts. He wrote:
st is better not to call attention to such mat
tiers. 1t could do no good"
"In this way they hope to tempt the United
States to throw down its protective barriers,
and at the awful risk of bringing our own
labor TO this condition, give back to Eng
land the sixty millions of customers she has
lost in so many important branches of in
dustry.
1T is time the truth about industrial Eng
land is told. The London Standard has
dared to speak out on the condition of labor
makes the following statement l can say
that it actually accords with some of the
horrible facts which have come within my
observation during my stay in this dismal
region
"Womea within few days of their contlne-
ment have been known to work III the agony of
exhaustion, in order to earn few pence at the
hearth not the hearth of home, but the
10 return to work in day or two after child
birth, emaciated in constitution, weak and
weary for the want OF simple nOuIIshInent.
Their children ragged and il-fed, have had to
lead miserable and wretched lives, with no
hope before them but life of Indebtedness
ana vice."
Comment is unnecessary. These statements
may not be set aside by the overwhelming
assertion that Mr. Porter is protectonist,
aud "a robber," tariff thief" and the
other choice epithets which flow so glibly
from the lips of hare-braiued theorists Let
the workingmen of the United States reflect
over the picture drawn from scenes in free
trade England. The laboring classes work
hard here and suffer many inconvenience,
but nowhere on this side OF the Atlantic is
there anything that is half so deplorable as
that which has been endured for a century
in the manufacturing districts of England.
1t is, indeed, BLACK country"