The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1892-03-05
LABOR PREVIOUS TO 1872.
How the Laborer Of the Last Cen.
tury Lived.

manifesto few days ago, with it's
exceedingly suggestive comparison
of the condition of labor to-day
with what it was at the beginning of
the present century, has excited no
little remark among the industrial
circles of Great Britain. Not even
the burning words of Mr.. Gladstone,
however, can do justice to the un-
happiness of the condition of,the la
boring classes before the beginning
of the present century. In the year
1892 the labor legislation Of 400
years before was practically in full
force. Theagriculturals laborer was
serf, not in name, but in reality.
He was bought and sold with the
land, not in form but in fact /; he
might not leave the property of his
master without permission, even for
a short journey. If it became nec-
essary for him to go into another
neighborhood, but for single day,
he was forced to apply to his land
lord for written pass, stating who
he was, where he belonged, and on
what business he was journeying,
otherwise any officer of the law
might arrest him as a vagrant. By
one form or other, with one or an
other excuse, everything he could
make was taken away, so that by
the hardest labor he could hope to
do no more than barely live. His
food was coarse and scanty, his
clothing insufficient, his shelter a
miserable hovel. He was not at
liberty even to attempt to better his
condition, for any man who en-
ployed him without the consent of
his master was liable to a heavy
fine, and if he himself engaged his
services to another long term Of
Imprisonment at hard labor was
the penalty. He was not at liberty
to obtain his own price for his own
labor, for his wages were fixed by
law. AS early as the reign Of Ed
ward III, legislative attention had
been given to this branch of the
labor question, and the most minute
details of the wages problem had
been settled. In 134O the Black
Death swept over England, carrying
off about one-half of the population.
Of course, the remaining laborers
could not do the work which had
been done by twice their number,
and the price of labor rose. The
landlords complained, and a parlia-
ment of landowners passed the
Wages law with a singular pream-
BILE: "Whereas, it is given the King
to understand that servants, to their
ease and singular covetise, do with
draw themselves from serving great
men and others, unless they have
liveries and wages to the double
or triple what they had before, to
the damage OF the great men, it is
ordered that the following, and no
more, shall be paid" Then follows
standard of wages fixed according
to the prices which prevailed before
the plague. A bailiff was. to have
13 shillings 6 pence year and his
clothing "once by year at most" q
master hind" a carter or shepherd
was to receive 10 shillings year, an
oxherd 6 and 8 pence, a swineherd
6 shillings and a woman laborer
the same. This was by the year;
the servant who asked more was
liable to be fined or imprisoned and
set in the stocks as an example to
other evil-doers. The master who
paid more was to be fined or i'm
prisoned. Of course, under such
system the laborer had no hope for
the future, but by cruel system
perpetuating the worst form of me-
dieval tyranny his children were
likewise forbidden to attempt to
rise in the world, for by law of
the Edwards the child who up to the
age of twelve had labored only in
agricultural employments was for
hidden to enter any other calling,
and was thus condemned for life to
the Soils. F. Bulletin.
Indians and Agencies.
News comes of passing troubles
at the Fort Hall Indian reservation,
in Idahn It will have to be Indeed