Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1886-11-06
THE APPRENTICE
A Class of Workers That Hav.
Ceased to Exist. ~''nost

A Glass Of Workers That Hay. A..
Ceased to Exist. "'no't
One OF the most FASCINATING
In existence is, to my fancv Of art
Hogarth's series of plates a. least,
contrasted careers OF the idle and ;ag The
GUS apprentices. When l was , auostri.
an old relative Of mine owned a., '.'.e boy
Hogarth, a pigskin covered tomo original
and heavier than myself, and D,sssr
ponder over the apprentice pictur 'eat to
out ever finding them stale. They = .''a'
and new to me, 80 perennial in their br1 ''A
nature, so keen and just their Satire human
bright their wit. and 50
l was looking over them III. ~,
when it struck me that they were aay
becoming reminders of a lost cond;..;aploly
things, and that by the next generatioo'n OF
80 the class to which their heroes I pa Or
will have quite ceased to exist, boJ Ja9ns
day best through a great manufant mat
establishment where steam and ;,oouur'ns
place flesh and blood as far as thew ~ - re-
replaced by things that cannot Inay6e
There were machines for making ono .ulAk.
OF a shoe, and another machine for part
the parts together, and machines forp ee.9ls
ing them. About all the men had !, ush'
was to feed the machines with lo ~ DO
thread. steel wire and wood. all ~ Ister,
they gulped down, chewed up and ana, t"eh
ready for use. And 80 contagious ~ oat
ample that the men themselves weA.
quite as automatically as the mecbau;;Aa
they served, and were as stolid and ornsAns
sionless. The only notable difierenap.'
seemed to me, was that the mach;neSe 1t
bright and clean and well fed and t Isis
| slaves we're not. 'n"f
BUT WORSE FOR THE MEN.
The owner Of the establishment b;,..,.
a workman who signs his checks with
hand calloused beyond the art of the mas d
icure to soften, and who has a stoon f, a
| years OF devotion to the lapstone and l ta
strap, had a great deal to say abou+ t hs
trade. He was proud Of its progress h VI
sorry, too. The mechanical improvcmouts =.
in it were better for the public, he said I,',
worse for the men. A real shoemaker w "s
now az hard to find as a purse OF cold !
few fingered here and there. workin, a.
their own little shops, but did It nndD.
every disadvantage, for they had to CIV"
pete with an enemy that neither ate mn,
paid rent. The craft OF Crispin-the cr0s
which tuneful Hans Sachs made ono -,
h~onor-had become mere DAVIS laho,
Men 10 longer make shoes, but heIped tboi.
machines to make parts of shoes, Tha
shoemakers' apprentice, that merry. imnu
dent rogue whom the wits and iarceurs of
the past made famous. has ceased to pyist
He is now simply a dirty little errand bor
who learns about the shops nothing eycentt
to be a man in vanity and pi.e before bbs
has ceased to be a child.
And what is true OF shoemakinp is t,ro
OF nine out Of ten other trades. The ns,
lection Of machinery kas rendered The
study OF a trade unnecessary. The wis.
men Who invent these labor-savine conrri
vances do all the thinking the workman
once had to do, and while their ingenuity Is
a beneftto the many, it is a definite inivrv
to the few. The trade which Hogartbis
! apprentices were put to was not, it il trua
a mechanical one. They were indenturd
to a mercer. But the system which i
nearly dead in the workshops is quite ey.
| tinct in the shops devoted to the retail
trade. The army that battles for bread
is too numerous to render it difficult for
an employer to pick such service as be
| wishes, and he longer assume the rcsponsi.
bility OF hiring it with bed and board fora
term of years.-Alfred Trumble in New
York News.