Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-04-28
Wages in london.

We have already given publicity TO
The fact that a gentleman who, q few
DAYS since, advertised in our columns
for q clerk and bookkeepcr, at a salary
of E3 per week, and who requested
that replies to his advertisement should
be addressed to the Postal Department
of this journal, received in response
$3.50 applications for the situation in
question.
To judge from the eagcrness of the
legion of candidates who rushed at this
clerkship, G3 a week must have seemed
q very Eden, pecuniarily speaking, to
hundreds of genteelly brought up but.
poverty-stricken young men. Let us
look a little at what E3 a week mean.
They mean the wages of a working en-
gineer, of q cabinetmaker, of a compos-
itor, of a saddler, of q %farrier, and Of.
many more branches Of manual or me-
chanical industry. Many artisans in
these trades may be able to earn more
than three pounds a week; carvers,
modellers, ivory turner's, watchmakers,
opticians, coachmakers, decorators can
realize much more money in the course
of a year than the average clerk; and
lllCS ilC stDlC w 1llttllIuitIus nv LII III
of thousands of cases do maintain, their
wives and families in comfort and re-
spectability. A b%ookbinder canearn a
good deal more than a bookkeeper; and
a female ''pianoforte silker" is. in the
majority of instances, much better off
than the unhappy damsel who offers
to give pianoforte lessons at the rate of
a shilling an hour. Parents of the
middle classes, however, are imbued.
with the absurd notion that there is
something derogatory to their social
standing in having a son who is a
journeyman carpenter, or an engine
driver, or a stonemason. The lad who
wears out his shoe-leather in trudging
from counting-house to counting-house
in quest of a vacant desk may be gifted
with innate mechanical genius, and
only wants technical training. He has
all the capacity for learning, but he has
v been taught q handicraft. 1t
would be athousand times betterfor him
if he We're forging horseshoes and plow-
coulters; if he were sewing pigskin or
veneering wood; if he were painting
coach-panels Or trimming hammer
cloths, OF chasing teapots, Oh dialing
watches, or grinding lenses, than that
he should be dangling about London
with nothing to do, or, when he is so
fortunate as to obtain a%junior clerkship,
that he should vegetate on a miserably
exiguous salary which barely furnishes
him with the means of procuring a
sut1iciency Of nourishing food, to say
nothing of excepting up the appear
ance of a gentleman" A iourneyman
carpenter OF Il journeyman black
smith may be, i'll the truest
acceptation of the term, quite as
much of a gentleman as the unfortu-
nate stripping whose right hand has no
cunning beyond that of casting up
columns of figures, and who. as senior
clerks know to their sorrow, is often
ineNpert wen at making the aggre-
gates of L. S. d. 1t is time that all this
nonsense about ''gentlcmanly avoca-
tions'' were cast to the winds. The
fact is patent and notorious that the
supply of clerks-or, rather, of those
who think themselves competent to fill
clerSly posts-is immensely in excess
of the demand; and that the demand
must grow every year ven smaller, as
more Justice continues to be done tt
women, and as employers avail them
selves to a greater extent of the docility
and intelligence of female clerks
London Telegraph.