The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-01-24
DISTRESS OF ENGLISH NAIL MAX
Frs

When some disclosures were made,
during the Presidential campaign, of
the di tressed condition of The South
Slaffordshire and E,s. Worcestershire
nail makers. the free trade organs scoffed
at them as campaign fictions. But the
London Times of recent date devotes
leading editorial article to this subject,
taking as the basis of what it saws Il Q
report of Mr.. Burnett, the Labor Cor
respondent of the Board of Trade. The
Times says that the facts reported "rais g
an imperative demand that something
be done, and promptly" and that they
"throw burden on the conscience of
the English people," Hunger, grinding
toll, hopelessness and an utter privalion
of the Ileasantness and beauty of human
exttence, says the Times ARE the en-
during and constant characteristics of
an unchanging population in groups of
villages in the neighborhood of Dudley. "
The Times declares that the amount of
poverty and squalor found in these vii
lagos THE Woodworking districts of
Belgium could not exceed" The Times
goes on :
I'm the privacy of home, children I'M
der IA labor all day long without fear of
or hope from legislative prohibitions.
Married women with large young fam
lilies WELD heavy hammers for twelve or
fourteen honrs day. Their infants are
left to themselves, or are Graded on the
bellows or rafser of the ceiling. For
pittance of four or five shillings a
week, mothers abandon their duties and
instincts of affection, and do the work
Of slaves on Cuban plantation. Their
husbands, though they cannot work
harder and often work much less, are
otherwise as wretched. Except drink,
they have no variety in their lives.
Neither men, women nor children seem
to be aware that there is world out
side into which they might fly. They
take up their bellows, hammers and OIL
ivers as if they belonged by hereditary
servitude to their tools and not their
tools to them. Wages have been dimin-
ishing continually, and they do not at
tempt to fight against the fall. They
only multiply the faster and toll the
more without ceasing They are born
to be nailers, to blow huge bellows, and
operate ten to thirty pound weight oil
vers from morning to night, to be skin
ny, wan, flat chested, to breathe fetd
air, 10 account butchers meat once a
week luxury, and to be deafened with
a perpetual babel of rasping sounds.
That is their fate, and they accept IT.
Excess of production and competition
and helplessness under the oppression
of the 'foggers'' or sweaters" are the
chief causes assigned for the melancholy
condition of these nail workers, who
number about $4,000. But the small
chain makers of Cradley and the neigh
boring villages are as badly off as the
nail makers. The Times says of them
For twelve hours work day a
chain maker may expect to gain 10 to II
shillings week. A woman receives
from half a crown to eight shillings.
On this household can afford to live
in a ruined hovel, amid filth. on water
Cruel. A man of Is, who has been a
chain maker for "a years, and earns five
and threepence a week, out of which he
finds fire, shop and tools, exclaimed to
Mr.. Burnett i often feel inclined to
put myself away The sentiment of the
reader of the report is that it would be
well if the State could step in and put
away the whole of the industries stained
by these horrors
Among the cases spoken of in detail
by Mr.. Burnett and commented on in
the Times are those of a man of 70, who
tolls from 6 in the morning to half past
eight at night for four shilings a week
without murmur ; woman with a
paraly ed husband and three children,
who keeps roof over their heads by
earning ten pence day, and a young
fellow working like demon" for Is
shillings a week. Doubtless the misery
thus described is extreme and IN sense
exceptional, hut it is obvious that il
there were other employments which
offered these poor wretches a better
chance they would enter them-or at
least enough of them would do so to
afford some relief t. the rest. 1t is a
painful picture which ia presented in
these reports, and one, happily, which
it would not be easy to match in any
other civilized country.