The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1888-09-20
Mr. Mckay continues

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Mr.. Mckay continues
Having learned their income, deter
mined to find out, meagre as it was, how
they spent it, It was not a difficult task.
Every penny went to keep life in their
bodies, and it barely served its purpose.
visited boiler maker, who earned in
a week of 90 hours what is equal in our
money to IS. He lived in brick house
that has two rooms on the first floor and
two above. For this he pays three shill-
ings rs cents per week rent, and his
four rooms housed bis elk children and
wife besides himself. The ''parlor" is
where they cook, eat and live through
the day. 1t has stone floor, with no
carpet. They have three chairs to place
around the table at meal time, and a
wooden bench serves for the children.
What deception to hungry stomach
must be such meals as this mechanic
gets from his table. For broadcast he
has a penny's worth Of cheese, bread,
with butter, if be can afford it ; if not
lard, and some tea in pot, Meat OF
any kind for breakfast is an unknown
luxury to him, and If he were to go to
his days toll with even the smell of q
Juicy steak he would think himself a
prince. 1t is only at his midday meal,
if at all. that he gets meat. and then it is
a penny's worth q cents), with a slice of
bread. At his home at night he has set
before him herring, perhaps an egg,
butter, bread and tea. Thia man con-
siders himself as well off as any mechau-
ic in Manchester, and he told me that II
cost him 30 shillings $3.50 per week to
keep his family. That would leave him
exactly two shillings go cents) outside
of his bare living expenses, supposing he
worked the full go hours every week
What hope does life hold out for him ?
At Wigan, manufacturing place OF
$4,000 population in the county of Lam
caster, he found himself in the midst Of
such restitution, squalor and wretched-
ness as he had not before witnessed. He
says: 49,.
1.-The miserable homes of the mechan
les are mostly built in rows extending
an entire block. They are Of brick, two
stories high, and face on stone paved
courts or streets. One block that | Wis
tied contained 80 tenements, each hav-
ing four rooms. A yard extends the en-
tire length of the block in the rear Of
these houses. So valuable is the prop
erty, however, or so greedy ID the land
lord that this yard is only three feet and
nine inches wide. You enter the ground
floor Immediately from the street and
find yourself in the living room. 1t Is
the largest room in the tenement. 1t is
II feet square, and measures Z feet 8
inches from floor to ceiling, 1t has only
one window, which is four feet long and
two feet six inches high. The sun has a
hard time, suppose, in finding this ap-
erture, but to obstruct still further ita
cheerful, health-giving rays-so rare at
best in this foggy climate of England
the window is subdIvided into 80 panes
OF glass. With its uncarpeted stone
floor, its wooden table that never sees a
cloth, the room presents picture to the
eye about as cheerful as a dungeon in
the Tombs Prison in New York City.
How the entire family manages to live
and eat there is more than | can tell. All
the cooking is also done in this room, for
the apartment back of il is scarcely half
its size, and is used only as storeroom
and washroom, From the back of this
"parlor" stairway leads up TO the two
sleeping apartments, which are in size
the same as those below. Each is light
ed by one of those "thirty-two pane
windows" The rent for q tenement
like this is 80. 3D.. per week. A family
of ten occupied one that inspected, and
they had lived there for 20 years. The
husband was q well-to-do mechanic, as
that term goes in Great Britain, earning
what he thought was fairly good wages. y
Here is what Mr.. Mckay saw among
the coal miners at Wigan
II crawled about the bottom of the
mine on my hands and knees, and
brought out with me piece of coal that
l got in a vein which was 10 feet wide
and was only two feet seven inches high.
Here, as in several other veins, found
the miners working while lying all the
time on their stomachs, and in q temper
AZURE OF 96 degrees. The atmosphere is
simply sitting.
"As the coal IS dug out by the miners
in the various tunnels it is wheeled away
in hand barrows by men. Women OF
all ages, married and single, are en-
ployed in this work on top of the mines.
1t is a sorry sight indeed, especially to
an American, to see these poor creatures
compelled to unsex themselves in THEN
struggle for bread in this land of free
trade. You search in vain for one CLINT
of femininity in their appearance, for
they are begrimed from head to foot and
look as coarse as the coal itself.
but the men and the women work 81
hours week. The miners work by the
piece and average, so Superintendent
Morris told me, IS to IS shillings a week
"a TO $3.50 a week. The laborers get
three sbillings as cents) day, the wOm-
en- from one shilling to one shilling and
nine pence Us to 80 centsl per day.
These GOLFERS live in miserable shanties
and their staple food is bread and butter
or lard and tea. Sometimes they can
earn only half wages, and then &c
bread and butter portion of their food il
scanty. Il have been lucky sometimes
to get il twice week, one of them said
to me.
1.-THE midday meal of the British Goa
miner consists of buttermilk or tea and
piece of bread, which he carries to his
work every morning. 1t is possible that
on Sunday he feels able to buy a small
piece OF meat, but not one day in the
month does he get 1t except on the Sab
bath. The foreman of the gang proudly
asserted to me that he had penny't
worth of meat four times a week, with
perhaps some cheese or salt fish,"
Worse still Is the condition OF things
in the "Black Country" which Mr.. Nc
Kay describes thus
Women blacksmiths
Husband and wife stripped to the
waist at the same forge, with their off.
spring CRYING to the tune of their sledge
hammers. Ten shillings week for
such work as this for the men and five
shillings for the women"
Surely" say, "peOple cannot exist
upon the wages you have mentioned"
They not only can, sir. but they dc
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