The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-07-31
WORKING PEOPLE IN PARIS.

Their Wages Graded According to Skill
Revolutions but No Strikes.
Paris Letter in P~ittsburg Dispatch.
The working men and women of Paris are
not spurred by hunger to revolt. Their
wages are low enough and their life hum BILE
enough, but l can say from careful personal
observation-which has led me to revoke
some earlier convictions-that they are the
happiest, most temperate, most contented
working people | have ever seen. The labor
ing people of the large towns in France get
all grades of enumeration, according to
skill. Great manufactures, such as are
found in England and America. are quite
unknown. A vast deal of the work is done
in the workman's own home, with the crude
instruments used by his forefathers for ages,
and his pay depends almost wholly on his
skill and industry. The govern
ment has a monopoly of several
large industries, specially that of the manu-
facture of tobacco. but even the government
rarely pays its workmen by the day, but
rather for what they accomplish. One clear
consequence of this is that there is no organ
ization of, iaher that can be called such, and
disastrous strikes are unknown. A good
workman is paid more than q poor one; a
rapid and good one is worth more to his en-
plOyers, and gets more than a slow one. So
the investigator can find no scale OF wages.
Skill is the scale for women and men. Wages
vary from 8 francs, or 60 cents, for the poor
est to Is, 90 and 80 francs for the better
grades, and the very best earn even more.
But a Frenchman will keep his family COM
fortably on 81 a day where an American
would starve on $3.50 or 81. Usually, as l
have said, the American family is the larger.
l was more interested in several visits paid
to the poorest quarters of Paris, in Belleville,
Montmartre, the Foubourg st. Antoine,
and other places, than in Versailles or Fon-
tainebleau. The tenements where lived the
poorest working people were wretched enough
to American eyes, but they were clean. BY
Gay the men and often the women. worked at
small shops or in their own homes Women
engage at work which could be lone any,
where, such as sewing or crocheting, sat on
the seats under the trees in the adjacent
parks or boulevards. Their children when
not at school played about them. In the
evening the entire family sit in those blessed
parks and boulevards, breathe the pure air,
drink a little cheap wine and eat a crust.
They get almost as much enjoyment from
the harps and violins of s%trolling players, or
from the piano or band at cafe or wine room,
as the wealthy find at the opera
house or Coincide Franchise. In
drives all about these precincts
l did not hear one quarrel. did not see
one intoxicated person, did not see a parent
strike a child or use a harsh word to it. The
poorer Frenchman or woman is always po-
lite in manner. The man values his citizen
ship, is dignified by it, and exercises the
right OF suffrage with a discriminating
morality that would put to shame many
Americans in all stations of life. He desires
to better his worldly lot, of course, but he is
more philosophical than vindictive, and does
not believe that the way to get property for
himself is to destroy the property of others.
From all | have seen. therefore, | cannot
conclude that the idea OF the even
among the poorest. workmen, is the out
growth of sheer desperation born of their
circumstances. but a principle founded on
opposition to all government, all systems
which conduce to the concentration of CAPT
tai in the hands of a few, comparatively
speaking. Whatever may be its source it is
assuredly a growing sentiment, as will be
discovered when the next great outbreak
occurs. Revolutions, such as the one at
which radical socialism aims, are of slow
growth. But the is not more inn
probable now than the republic was a few
hundre years ago.