The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1888-10-17
THE BRICKLAYER'S TRADE.
THE OLDEST CALLING IN THE HIS.
TORY OF CIVILIZATION.
Facts Which Prove the Antiquity of
This Haudicraft-Slave Brick
layers of Ancient Babylon.

This HandicraCt-Slave Brick
layers of Ancient Babylon.
While brick laying is not the oldest
trade in the world, it is certainly the
next to the oldest. There must have
been brick-makers before there were
brick-layers but with this one exception
the calling is perhaps the oldest in the
history of civilization.
The tower of Babel was built with
brick like that used in America today.
The third verse of the eleventh chapter
of Genesis SAYS:
''And each one said to his neighbor,
Come let us make brick and bake them
with fire, and they had brick instead Of
stones and slime instead of mortar"
Even the record of Genesis, however,
harkly gives an idea of the great anti
guilty Of this vocation. 1t appears that
the builders Of Babylon usei brick al.
together rather than stones. There are
still to be found in various places very
curious accounts of the Babylonian brick
laying and the manner in which the
workmen were paid. The walls of Baby
Ion town were raised chiefly by slaves
who received no wages, but who were
fed, housed, and clothed at rate of pay
equal to about half the value of bushel
of wheat, which would mean some
thing over forty cents day,
or about what the modern brick
layer gets for one hours work. The
slaves of Babylon were worked from sun
rise to sunset, and their overseers were
provided with lashes to keep the un-
fortunates up to their task. 1t seems,
however, that brick layers soon came to
be recognized rather as artists than
artisans, and into their hands was COM
mitted the history of the country. The
bricks of the Persian Empire, cemented
like those of Genesis with slime, contain
upon their surfaces inscriptions which
modern ingenuity has unravced, and
which tell the story of the Perian kings.
In the records the brick-layers have
not forgotten themselves, and accord
ingly there has been left for modern
times a clear idea of how these men
worked. They understood the scaffold
and the trowel, as the pictures on the
buried walls still show. They knew how
to keep line of bricks plumb and
horizontal. They had q square-not
like the one used in the nineteenth
century, but still one which nineteeth-
century brick.layer could use. Indeed,
the cuts given in the books of the archr.
ologists show that Chicago brick
layer could have put up the walls of
Thebes, or that Persian workman
would have been able to make a good
showing in Chicago house, using the
utensils and materials of the trade then
and now.
In Egypt the Bible again has much to
say about brick-laying and brick
making. The bricks without straw
that the children of Israel had to make
60 to show one of the first labor dis.
putes in history. The Egyptian brick
was not baked with fire. 1t was left
in the sunlight until 1t was thoroughly
hardened, and was then set up in the
wall with mud, and not with mortar.
As q consequence the brick build ngs of
Egypt have perished and only the stone
monuments of the people have survived,
but history shows that the palaces of the
Pharaohs were largely Of brick. These,
too, were decorated as highly as the
artists knew how to accomplish the work,
and basso-relievos or sun dried clay car
ried upon their surfaces the stories of
Egyptian progress
The Egyptians taught brick laying.
ID.
to the Greeks, and Athens, Sparta. and
the towns of the peninsula carried the
work to high degree of excellence.
The Greeks used three kinds Of brick,
or rather three sizes, the dedoron, tetra.
don, and pentadon, which were combined
in the same building. From Greece
brick-laying Travelled to Rome, and there
are brick houses now standing in the
Eternal City which are more than 100
years old. In the time of the empire
brick-layers were paid wages which, tax.
ing into consideration the difference in
value between American money and Ro.
man, amounted to about 81 day. Tho
hours OF work were from dawn TO dark
and the men were allowed about an hour
and half off during the day and rea
sonable amount of wine. Ofcourse these
wages were not often paid to the men
themselves, but to their owners, for the
workingmen in Rome were still practi.
cally enslaved at that period.
From the Mediterranean countries
brick'laying spread westward. John of
Spoleto built brick house in Cologneas
early as the year 800, and he had to make
his own kiln to burn his bricks. In Paris
there are still brick walls standing which
were erected as early as A. D. 100, and
this early work compares favorably with
that done since. The old brick makers
used good deal of lime in their bricks
and the result has been material which
seems to be practically imperishable.
VI course brick-laying was wrought TO
a higher degree of excellence in the
Netherlands than in any other country,
Ihe Dutch used brick for everythinT
street paving and house furniture and
bake ovens among other things, and the
brick pawments in so many Amcri an
cities are relics of Holland, a, are tbo
tiles about the fireplaces.
Wages in the brick LAYING trade ac
cording to the best authorities. have
been constantly increasing since the his
tory OF the art began.
FROM the equivalent Of forty cents a
day which brick.laying cost in Babylon
10 81 day in Rome at the BEGINNING oI
the Christian era, the wages rose TO The
equivalent of 81 a day in London in
1912. In this country the trade has
managed to hold its own and keen on
the material advance, as the nav fo,
eight hours work is now SO. 2O.-Ciirg0o
Nep5. ''
Systematic Punctuation.