New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1884-07-16
Race and Work.

the curious quality Of industry 70 any
people. No animal except the beaver
has it. and no man in the totally unciv-
ilized and therefore presumably natu-
raj condition. The popular English
view that it is somehow inherent in
race. that black men are very law,
brown men lazy, yellow men rather lazy,
and white men lazyish, while the En-
glishman alone loves work for itself, is
palpably untrue. Englishmen, to be-
gin with are not the most industrious
OF the white race. The Belgian peas
antry. most of the French peasantry,
and some of the Prussian peasantry,
beat them all hollow in the power Of
persistent. monotonons, long continued
application to disagreeable work. They
labor, take them all around, three
hours in the day longer than the average
Englishmen, who. indeed, are rather
fierce workers, possessed of special
energy, than industrious men.
The English can get quantities Of
work. and good work, done; but they
will only work six days in seven, they
try hard to get another day in each
week, and do get half of one, and they
are savagely irritable about long hours
which continentals bear quite placidly.
When they can they fight for q day last.
ing from 10 to 4; and when they cannot
they will strike rather than bear two
unusual hours week. We greatly
doubt if English laborers would toll for
any wages for fifteen hours day, as
the Auvergnats do, and are quite sure
they would kill somebody if forced to
work fourteen hours in sitting dens, as
the silk throwers of northern Italy are.
Indeed, they shirk some trades because
the work is too hard, and they have
not only not got q monopoly in their
own bakeries and sugar refineries but
no fair share in either of them. The
Englishman's idea of rising in life. in
deed. is to be free of heavy work, and
he shares the feeling of the Lowland
Scotch, who, as q great American en-
pl0yer of labor testified before COM
mittee of the House OF Commons, are,
as laborers in the United States, Of no
use at all. They all become masters in
two years.
As to the yellow races, which ought
to be just lazier than Europeans, they
beat them altogether. We suppose
there are indolent Chinese, but the inn
mense majority of that vast people
have an unequalled power for work;
care nothing about hours, and, as long
as they are paid, will go on with dog
ged. steady persistence in toll for six
teen hours day, such as no European
can rival. No English ship carpenter
will work like Chinese, no laundries
will wash as many clothes. and q Chi
nese compositor would very soon be ex-
PEELED for ovcrtoil by an English
''chapel" of tho trade. The Chinese
peasants and boatmen work all day
and every day; and, in fact, but for un-
firing industry, the closely-packed
masses of China could not be sustained
as they are by artificial irrigation. OF
the brown races the Arabs generally
| prefer abstemiousness carried to star
alton point to continuous labor; but the
most numerous brown people. the In
dams. labor INCREASINGLY seventy-seven
hours q week. They are often called
lazy by unobservant Europeans, be-
cause they enjoy the cool of the even
ing; but they 20 to work before 4 in the
morning and work on till 8, and only
gov OASO HuAAnss VIZ ouAAE6uts VIC ScCOuu
meal being taken after dark.
They take, too, no weekly. holiday.
The result, in fact, proves their indus
try. They keep up system of agri-
culture, singularly toilsome, because it
involves irrigation, raise often three
crops, and always two in the year, and
have covered India with grand cities
which they built for themselves. As
they feel their climate, though less than
Europeans do, their labor is severe, and
we should say deliberately, after the
observation OF years, that their indus
trial fault was, when laboring for
themselves, disposition to do too
much on insufficient food. They wear
themselves out too early. They know
this themselves, and have tendency
to refuse overtime and reject pay for It
which is often annoying. OF course,
the savage, brown race will not work
continually, but neither will the savage
white ones, the mean whites Of the
Southern States; but they both will
make incredible exertions BY fits and
starts. as, for example, in hunting and
rowing very long distances.
The black races are the most varied
IN thia raanact to indnatrv INIT even
amono them the ra.d;nass - toll h.rd
IL f.r 7rom w.nt;nr Tho sl.v ~. M, :
ora o. .iw.va thnnrh7 tba;r nosroa. io,v
Int then their waca. were stolen and
No ~ an works we1i v;thn,4 ~ ~ '1 for
nav which i insacnra f rSe nn nra
negroes of the sondan who anter krits
ish staamars =. stoIara e - thar
crnal lahor a. Enriishman w;ii not not
Ana the inns al lat week tall ne that
tha negroes ara. the hest l.hnrars 81. IN
the Penam. Canal Thav evan cot
Jealous az the aYcavating m.chines
offered to beat Che obnoxions inani.
mataa. and when nermittad baat chem.
1u;n,r - a. co.,+h ~ c..ta. .t uao
rao,1a.iv n.;d 40 .n asS.eI ls MLe.
~, H. IA R >. 49, w. az 1I w..
/ v1en sA0y uA0 20 oAovOS, anu ~ SAo ~ oSs