The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-12-29


hoes for good until s o'clock In the evening,
end their wages are 10 cents day. In no
civilized country are people paid 20 little as
here. | saw strong men working by the hun
hreds on the banks OF the Volga whose wages
were % cents day, and who began their labors
at sunrise and worked on into twilight. They
sTere laboring on the roads, and the sweat
rolled down their faces as they dug and shov-
eled for two cents an hour. Their board cost
them from five to 10 cents day, and they
had left less than 90 cents to clothe them
selves and their families. These wages are
paid by the Government wherever they en-
ploy the peasants to do work for them, and
they are considered high.
On the farms of the interior the people get
much less In the Black Plain / saw scores
Of men working for II cents day; at lula 1
talked with a farm manager who was paying
so cents Men in all cases receive more than
women, though the women here work IN the
fields Just as hard as the men. Their wages
are however, Just about two-thirds those Of
the men. and in Tamboff they labor for as low
ts six cents day, OF for seven cents and half
when they feed themselves.
Think of allowing a cent and a half day
FOR food, and you get some idea of the cheap
ness of peasant existence | have before me
schedule of the wages paid in the different
provinces of Russia. and find that women
who work In the fields never get more than
five cents additional wages when they feed
themselves. and the usual allowance made for
food is about two cents and half. On some
parts of the Black Plain the women get Is
cents day, or 10 cents day if found. On
others they receive IL cents day, and 10
when food is supplied Men here get is cents
o day when they board themselves, and Is
cents when their employers supply the food
AS TO sleeping accommodations, both sexes go
back TO their villages every night, and in the
cases where they work very far away they
sometimes sleep in the fields
Skilled labor is better paid, and in some of
the provinces the wages rise as high as so
cents, and the peasant who has horse can
ylways get job at what these Russians call
sair wages. The average, however, is very
low in comparison with such wages in
America, and they vary according TO the
Scarcity Of horses. j saw places where man
with horse got only 80 cents day, and
found Others where they got as high as 20
cents
The horses that were killed By the famine
have caused great scarcity of working ami
mails and In some places the weekly wages
of horse amount to more than the animals
were sold for during the famine. Along the
Foiga hundreds of horses were bought up by
spectators at from 81 to S. piece. The
peasants had nothing with which to feed them
and they were glad to sell at any price. The
German spectators came in. and some Russian
landlords who had a little money laid by
bought enough food to keep their horses over
TIL Summer, and they have realized from
several hundred to a thousand per cent off of
their bargains.
A very ordinary work horse viii now bring
here from $50 to $50, and such of the horses
Is were kept by the peasants themselves came
ont in the Spring in an almost starving con-
6ition They could not pillow more than half
3 furrow at time without lying down and
Resting, and they are still suffering from the
effects of last Winters starvation.
Moscow is a great manufacturing town.
IT has between 600 and 2 600 factories of
different kinds, and it makes everything from
WAX candles to steam engines 1t has large
cotton factories and linen factories and there
is something like 200, 600 men employed in
its different manufacturing establishments.
The most of the workmen are lodged in the
factories, and there are thousands of boys and
girls among them. These get only about IS
cents day, and man must be good work
man 20 get 90 cents day. Those employed
IN the cotton mills receive sometimes as high
as IS cents for skilled labor, while women
work from Is TO 40 cents, and their day is
from sunrise to sunset
! visited big locomotive works near
NlnI-Aovgorod, on the Volga, which makes
Is good engines and better csrwheels than
3ou sill find IN America. ] saw there hun
dreds0 Of workmen doing all kinds Of ironwork,
and their wages were, with one OF two ex-
ceptions, less than 81 per day. Russia makes
G great deal of porcelain, and some of the
china TUNED out there and at ST. Petersburg
will compare fayorably with that of Europe;
yet you VIII seldom find workman in one
Of these establishments who gets more than
% per week, and the average price for skilled
labor is below this.
A af .z-1rlz e