Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-06-11

pun yourselves In imagination in vour IL.
oorer,s place, and then pay him What h..
lore tod and your own conscience ~,
ought to pay him.
10 not be too ready to cut down wapes.
AS far as possible pay all. and nav
promptly. There is a great deal Of Rihie
teaching on this subject.
will be a swift witness again a. al, INV
cerers, and against all adulterers. and
against those who Cypress the hireling in his
wages.-Malachi. '"n's
Ihou shalt not keep the wages of the hire.
ing all night unto the morning-Iev,t;cn.
masters, give unto your servants that
which Is just and equal, knowing tn at va
also have a Master in Heaven.-Colossians
SO you see it is not a question between
you and your employee so much as it Is a
question between you and your God. Do
not say to your employees, "Now, if YOU
DON'T like this place get another" when
you know they can not get another. As
Tar as possible once a year visit at their
homes. your clerks and your workmen.
That is the only way you can become &C.
quainted with their wants. You will bv
such process find out that there is a blind
parent or a sick sister being supported.
You will find some of your young men in
rooms without any fire in winter, and in
summer sweltering in ill-ventilated apart
ments. You will find how much depends
on the wages you pay or withhold. On
Saturday morning, when you come into
your counting room and draw the check
which will bring the money for the wages
on the salaries, you will have a thrill of
satisfaction in knowing it is not only the
money you give to the young man, but the
relief to the dire necessities which stand
back of him.
Moreover, it is your duty as employer,
as far as possible, to mold the welfare of
the employee. You ought to advise him
about Investments, about life insur-
ance, about savings banks. You ought
to give him the benefit of your K
perience. There are hundreds and thou
sands of employers in this country
and England, I am glad to say, who are
settling in the very best possible way
the destiny of their employees. Such men
as Marshall, of Leeds; Fister, of Brad
ford; Akroyd, of Halifax, and men so
near at home it might offend their mod
esty if 1 mentioned their names. These
men have built reading rooms, libraries,
concert halls, afforded croquet lawns,
cricket grounds, g%ymnasiums, choral So
cieties for their employees, and they have
not merely paid the wages on Saturday
night, but through the contentment and
the thrift and the good morals of their
employees, they are paying wages from
generation to generation forever.
Again, I counsel all employers to look
we'll after the physical health of their
subordinates. You are expected to I'M
derstand better han they all these ques-
tions of ventilation and sunshine, and all
the laws Of hygiene.
There are stores and banking houses
and factories and newspaper establish
ments where the atmosphere is death.
Your employees may not always appreci-
ate your work, as that style of kind.
ness was not appreciated in the instance
mentioned by Charles Reade, where in a
great factory a fan was provided
for the blowing away of the dust of metal
and stone, the dust arising from the ma
chinery, and some Of the workmen refused
to put this great fan in motion. They
seemed to prefer to inhale the filings, the
poisonous filings, into their lungs. But
in the vast majority of cases your en-
ployes will appreciate every kindness in
that direction.
Then I would have you carry out this
sanitary idea, and put into as few hours
as possible the work of the day. Some
time ago-whether it has been changed I
know not-there were one thousa sand gro
Ger clerks in Brooklyn who went to bust
ness at five o'clock in the morning and
oo~k;n,,oj ,,-t;l nv 1So1o o1- ~ -;ol% No.
that is inhuman.
1t seems to me all the merchants in all
departments ought, by simultaneous move.
ment, to come out in behalf of the early
closing theory. These young men ought
to nave IN opportunity of going to the
Mercantile library, to the reading rooms,
to the concert hall, to the gymnasium, to
the church. They have nerves., they have
brains, they have intellectual aspirations,
they lave immortal spirits. If they can
do a good round days work in the ten or
eleven hours, you have no right to keep
them harnessed for seventeen. I do not
think that any intelligent employer can
afford to be reckless of the physical and
mental health of his subordinates.
But above all, l charge you, 0 employ
ers, that you look after the moral and spir-
itual welfare of your employees. First,
know where they spend their evenings.
That decides every thing. You do not
want aroun your money drawer a young
man who went last night to see Jack Shep-
pard. A man that comes into the store in
the morning CHASTITY with midnight revel-
ry is not the man for your store. The
young man who spends his evenings in the
society of refined women, or in musical or
artistic circles, or in literary improve
ment, is the young man for your store.
Without any disgusting tnquisitiveness,
without any impertinence, you ought to
have your young men understand hat you
are Interested SO much in their welfare
that you want to know where they spend
their leisure hours, and they will frankly
and gladly tell you.
One of my earliest membranes is OF
old Arthur Tappan. There were many
differences of opinion about his politics,
but no one who ever knew Arthur Tappan,
and knew him we'll, doubted his being an
earnest Christian. In his store in New
York he had a room where every morning
he called his employees together, and he
prayed with them, read the Scriptures to