Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-31

10 appreciate the enormity of the work
accomplished bs these building associations
it must be remembered that the present
assets, say $84, ,000, 900, are the accumula-
tions from the savings of the past 12 wears
only That is, all the shares that were
started IL years ago have been Withdrawn or
matured, or in palmer terms, the life of
society, or a series, is less than IL years. The
present capital, estimated at SS4, 600, 600.
will all be returned to the subscribers IL
years from now. Although the capital IL
years hence may be greater than at present,
it will represent new members admitted be-
tween now and then, the old gradually
dropping out. During the past "a years it
is very probable that the building societies
of the United States have turned over to
members in cash, for Withdrawals, matured
shares and cancelled mortgages, at least
$500, ,000, 900.
AVERAGE EARNINGS OF MINERS.
The chief of the Bureau of Statistics has
taken great pains to secure the average
earnings of coal miners in 1888. A blank
was prepared, asking the operator of each
colliery for the monthly earnings of the ten
most skillful and industrious miners for the
year 1888, employed in his colliery, and also
the number of days they worked, and the
same facts were sought in respect to the
least skillful. Each operator was also
asked 10 state the number of days that his
colliery was in operation during the year.
The earnings Of those who were sick, or
who for other reasons worked irregu-
larly, were not collected, as they
obviously have no bearing on the
question. The question is, what can
miner earn If well, and desirous OF work.
ing whenever he can get employment? If
he is sick, or declines to work when en-
ployment is offered to him, his earnings can
form no standard for measuring the earn
ings of those who are we'll and desirous of
working whenever they have the oppor-
tunity. Nevertheless, in many cases, when
trying to ascertain the annual and daily
earnings of workingmen, the method has
been pursued on other occasions to ascer-
tain the whole number employed, regularly
amount paid to them, and then to divide the
one product by the other. The result is re-
garded as the average annual earn |
ing per man. And then to ascertain |
their average daily earnings the aggregate |
amount paid is divided by the aggregate |
number of days worked. This easy |
method is as faulty in giving a true answer |
to the question as such an easy method of |
doing really difficult thing is likely to be- |
1t easily seen that if the regular and |
irregular workmen, the most skillful and the |
least skillful, are all classed together, the
average daily and annual earnings will be |
much too low to represent fairly the earn
ings of the most skillful and industrious
workmen, and too high to represent fairly |
the earnings of the least skillful and irregu-
lar workman. By using such a method.
therefore, wrong conception is given of
the earnings of all classes.
The following tables include very care
fully prepared returns from II bituminous
collieries and 40 anthracite ones The rea-
sen for not giving the returns from larger
number OF anthracite collieries is the oper-
ators are fewer in number, and it was not
thought need ul for those operating a large
number of collieries to give returns of all
of them, as the same remuneration was paid
in all cases for similar work. The returns
from both sections are quite enough, it is
to serve fairly the purpose of the
ANTHRACITE MINERS AHEAD.
The aggregate earnings of the 710 btu
minous coal miners, In II collieries, who
are classed Is the most skillful, represent
ing those who earned the largest amounts
in such collieries were $394, OFT 81, or
b465 q per man. The aggregate earnings
d the 460 anthracite miners in 45 collieries.
who are classed as the most skillful, repre-
'enting those who earned the largest
amounts in such collieries, were $3.50, ,327 so,
,r $74 06 per man. The average daiIy
,arnings of the former class were 81 So. and
he average days each miner worked was
1910. The average daily earnings of the
coal miners were e 98 per man,