The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-05-28
TOILING T0YMAKERS.
LIFE AMONG INGENIOUS ARTISANS
OF THE THURlNGiAN FOREST.

How They Work and Live-A Branch Of
German Industry of Special Interest to
Americans - Effects of Uncleanliness,
Bad Food and Foul Air.
A half days journey from Heidelburg
brings the traveller into a region as full of
quaint interest and strange sights as any
in Germany, the land of toys, the Some
berg district of the Thuringian forest
This world apart in the universe of in
dustry Is known very WELL indeed, to a
certain class of Americans, the toy i'm
porters, better than to the importers of
any other nation. .-...-.. -s,.f
AS long ago as 1876 we Americans
bought in this small forest nest toys to the
value of nearly $4,000, and in 1880 our
purchases had increased to nearly 81, 1,OOO,-
O0G, and yet how few of us, when we buy
crying doll for a Christmas present, q
woody dog nodding donkey, farm
yard" or any of the thousand toys made of
wood, papier mache, or wax think of the
strange little world among the Thuringian
hills whence our familiar objects come.
The merchants are said to have no love
for their business whatever, t3 manu-
facturers are conservative beyond belief
and the workingmen have no money with
which to experiment. There is no indus
trial museum in the district and the man
ufacturers oppose the foundation of one
because each is afraid that the others may
appropriate his models. The solitary
manufacturer who has patented toy Or
two and proposed some wholesale i'm
provements of technique is so cordially
hated that he employs a private watch
man for his establishment and does not
venture out alone at night. Yet within
the narrow limits of it's method of produc-
ton Sonneberg has the most marvellous
array of varied toys. Thus there are
sample rooms with Il, 900 to $4,000 sample
toys, and many Sonneberg drummer
carries in his sample books 5000 to 1000
pictures and photographs of the produc-
tions of his firm or firms. ....
THE FACTORY HANDS AND MASTERS"
The workers are of two sorts, the factory
hands and the masters, !" who work 1T
home with the help of an employe or two
and of their own families The position
of the master varies little from that of the
other workmen. The master occupies q
cottage and has potato patch on the
steep, stony hillside But the cottage and
potato patch are usually heavily
mortgaged and in order to pay interest
and taxes the family usually rent the best
rooms and live in the most wretched
closet-like dens The quarter of Some
berg where the workers live is the oldest
of the city After the Russites had de-
stroyed the city the inhabitants are said
to have taken refuge in Grunthal, q long
gorge under the protection of the castle.
Shut in by steep hillsides the Grunthal
affords scarcely room enough for two mar
row rows of houses, so that many of them
are built directly into the hillside. The
dwelling usually consists of sleeping
and living room, both low-ceiled, and
heated winter and summer, in order to
dry the wares which stand about the
stove upon shelves and boards. The living
room, at once kitchen, workshop and
nt1rsery, is usually light.
But the sleeping room is rarely ventila-
BILE and still more rarely ventilated 1t
contains exactly room enough for two or
three beds SO close together that no one
can pass between them. At night the oc-
cupant of the furthest must climb over
the intervening ones. Here two, three or
four persons occupy each bed. The pov-
erty and crowding are horrible, the want
of dwellings increasing as the factory sys-
tenn draws more and more hands to the
town. And these pens are expensive, too;
the most wretched of them, with but one
habitable room, costs from 60 to 80 marks,
and for the usual sleeping and living room
together, the workman pays 80 to 150
marks. The cleanliness of such dwellings
may readily be imagined. The weeks
sweeping and scrubbing is confined to Sat
urday afternoon, when the wares are
packed ready to be taken to the mer-
chants. The sleeping room rarely shares
the benefit of the scrubbing. ss -F-
sCANTY FOOD AND IMPURE AIR.
The food of these unfortunates consists
of potatoes eaten in the morning with
cup of chicory, and as lunch with bread
For dinner, potatoes with a herring or
some fat from the butcher. The poorest
of all go without herring and take the salt
liquor in which it was packed! Meat is
seldom eaten. In Grunthal, where popu-
lation is thickest, there are few butchers,
and these few find no custom. Down be-
low in the town of Sonneberg itself the
butchers live near together and kill much
and often. At o'clock coffee is taken
or the water in which the butcher
has boiled sausage, which these unfortu-
mates call sausage soup. This they get
for nothing, or almost nothing, and they
cut slices of potato into 1t.
After the Leipsic autumn fair when the
urgent orders come and American te1e-
grams for Christmas goods literally chase
each other along the cables, every human
being who can be set at work is pressed
into the service of the toy industry. Whole
families work all through the night, and
the heat and dust and foul air must have
been felt to be appreciated, which reign
supreme here when the fire is kept burn
ing day and night to dry the wares, where
q dozen human beings crouch in low
ceiled pen, and at night cheap petroleum
lamp adds its fumes to the whole.
The consequences of such way of liv-
ing are inevitable In spite of the pure
forest air that pours down from the
heights through every lane and byway,
these unhappy people are pale and feeble;
they stoop and cough, have fiat narrow
chests and are small of stature Such is
the race of toymakers in the Thuringian
forest. - Heidelberg Cor. Philadelphia
Times.