New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-08-27
INDUSTRIAL GERMANY.
BY ROBERT P. PORTER, MEMBER OF THE LATE
TARIFF COMMISSION.
LABOR AND SOCIETY IN THE CHEMNlIL
COTTON FACTORIES.
VIII.

LABOR AND SOCIETY IN THE ChEMNllA
COTTON FACTORIES.
,o,, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF TIE TRIBuNE.l
Curux1rz saxony, June 30.-ChernnitZ. they
..v sneakinr roundly. has 20, 900 woIk-people and
20 600 shopkeeners and manufacturers. Saturday
"a good day TO see the people out, for that Is mar
let day Before s o'clock in the morning was
elbowins my way through the busy throng IN the
market.place. 1t was scene worth describing.
The Chemntz market-plaoe partakes OF the general
irregularity of the town itself. The stalls and
booths, no two of which are alike in size OF shape
or make spread over the market-place proper, srag
eed along the streets centring in the market clus
tered round the old town buildings. ana nestled in
the yanlted arches of the ancient church Itself.
Where II began or ended no man could tell. Inc
wares exposed for sale comprised almost every
thing Boots and shoes, ready-made clothing
under-clotbing for both sexes, TN ware
fancy window curtains. colored pocKet manu-
kerchiefs, baskets, cheap ribbons anu faces
fiuttered in the morning breeze. Dried 1ruit'
green fuit. vegetables Of all kinds were heaped up
on the stalls in baskets and even on the ground.
Tempting meat hung in all directions and the slails
seemed fairly decorated with strings and testoons
mud wreaths of sausages. Tame pigeons strutted
round the market-place like chickens. Flowersand
ferns and evergreens abounded everywhere.
Crowds of buyers were coming and going; men with
yellow caps and blue blOuses; women with wloe
xtriped gowns of every imaginable color and red,
yellow OF blue handkerchiefs over their heads ana
INDUSTRIOUS baskets strapped 10 their baeAs-thsse
were the laborers of the day. There were young
women with their hair well braided, aud sometimes
parted on one SIDE which with rather short dresses
bright-colored stockings and neat shoes gave them
quite iaunty appearance. The crowd were buying
every conceivable thing; some trying on COATS
others fitting boots others picking out cheap tnery,
others buying PROFESSIONALLY buying flowers
Such people for flowers in large quantities never
before met with. The old, the young. the plain
the pretty the wetodo. the poor all left the mar
ket laden with howers-mostly wreaths 10 see
them one would think the town of Chemnltz had
zone wreath mad. The mania appeared In every
fern. Old brown-skinned matrOns moved slowly
home laden with baskets of provisions on their backs
and wreaths of flowers encircling their arTos young
girls briskly left the market carrying their pur-
cbases and around their necks and arms garands OF
flowers; little children trudged home lugeing huge
baskets, but also laden with wreaths of flowers.
actually saw several poor women without shoes ana
stockings buying wreaths OF howers.
Quaint as the surrounding buildings were. ancient
and yellow as the old church was, picturesque as
the peopIe we're and poetica their love of flowers
NAV seem the market scene would not be complete
without glance at the extraordinary array OF carts
There was literally every species OF hAndcart and
dog-cart There wore open and covered hand-carts,
band-carts that partook rather OF racks.
and Others that looked like closed carriages. The
number of wheels to each vehicle varied almost as
much as the sze and character of the oonveyances
To see those carts would think that the remains
of all the broken-do w. ussd-up cabs and carts and
haud-carts in Germany had been piled together IN
one heap in Chemntz, and that every man had
49,. 6 fi,ar aaf.r al 70 hY11li
a cart. which he had done after manner so purely
original that its counterpart could never be con-
structed. 10 some of these strange carts were
hitched riy-looking dogs others were drawn
by buxom brown-faced young women in dark-blue
dresses ; a few were drawn by men aud boys.
Chemni;z may not appropriately be called q
detached town. Its houses are detached
its factories are detached. it's blocks are
detached, aud its very streets seem detached, for
instead OF the boarded lot pacarded with bills in
the compact English towns, or the vacant town lot
of our own country. the unbuilt quarters of Chem
nitz in due time will smile with a harvest of wheat
and rye. The youthful German can have no fun on
the town lots and although they neither fenced
nor boarded so accustomed Is he to being governed
that these miniature fields Of grain are as safe as
though surrounded by blaekthorn hedges or barb
wire fences.
A
that the town has arisen 1t were in the middle of
rolling farming district. It's curious fact that
though it has school of architecture.
its own buildings are noted for ugliness.
The large factory buildings give the town
q modern appearance but the old church and some
quaint buildings in the market-place have rather
an ancient tiDge and remind one of the towns an
tiquty and of the fact that it became celebrated at
an early period for its linen manufacturing and
bleaching grounds. There are some good puolic
buildings, notably the railway station. 1t has a
park not particularly noted for the greenness OF the
grass nor the size of the trees. In the old quarters
the houses are of varied sizes snd styles with about
as many feet of blackish red tile roofs as of yelow
stone and plaster walls. Every house runs TO roof
in Chemnitz Sometimes the roof goes up about as
far as an ordinary Mansard, then suddenly
begins again and wanders up story or
two higher. Some of these roofs have
three and even four floors, each indicated by a row
of little windows that from the street look like the
glass coverings of cucumber plants Some of the
houses are SIX and seven stories high. and the
people who live in them must spend no inconsider-
able part of their life walking up and down stars
for an elevator as a means to reach these garrets
would be as strange an innovation as balloon.
The lace curtain of the institutions of Chem
nitz Every window in every house is hung with
lace curtains. They abound alike on the parlor
floor and the cucumber box on the roof: they are
to be found in the modern white stone slateroofed
houses of the rich and the yeowish, notified houses
with the meandering tile roofs-the garrets-whicf
form the homes of the poor
Chemnltz is called by some Little Manchester,
because it is the centre of the cotton industry OF
Saxony. In appearance and size the two towns are
widely different. Manchester has 100000 inhab-
itants and Chemntz about 100000 Manchester
il compactly built town; Chemntz straggles and
spreads In all directions like the hills that surround
it. In like way the factory organization of the