Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-14
WAGES AT HOMESTEAD
Compared With Those Paid in the
Iron Mills at Sheffield.
THE FIGURES ALMOST DOUBLE.
An Interview With the Manufacturers
Which Proved Fruitless.
TALKS WITH THE LEADERS OF LABOR
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH. +,

which yorkmen were being treated by
American employers at Homestead and
elsewhere that determined to find out if
could what wages were being paid to work
men in similar lines over here. Accordingly
I went to Sheffield, and counted myself
fortunate in being whirled thither over the
road and by the train which makes the fast
est time on record, so far at least as the
railways in England are concerned, viz,
from Kings Cross to Grantham, 1867
miles without stopping, at the rate of 81
miles an hour.
My judgment was that for information of
the particular kind desired, Sheffield would
be the natural headquarters. The number OF
people in that town, who, as a manufac-
turer said once at banquet, make iron and
steel for living, is something enormous,
and as all the world knows, they pursue
| these branches OF industry with distin-
guis he'd success
An Abundance of Smoke There.
Our first impression was of an endless
stretch of smoke stacks and of an atmos-
phere so thick with the kind of stuff emitted
therefrom that with good blade from one
| of the cutlery shops about you might almos t
have cut 1t into dense chunks. If London
is appropriately called Chimney Pot Park,
| Sheffield surely carries the palm as
the great Chimney Stack Park of this realm;
and would not wonder if, in favorable
| conditions, it could hold its own with Lon
don as a great fog producing center. 1t did
not surprise me that the people were COM
planning of long succession of cloudy days.
| Sheffield is the sort of place, atmosphere
| cally considered, which 1 should imagine
Old Sol would long ago have given up as
being hopelessly Joined to its idols.
This was my first impression and my next
was of the hills one has to climb in getting
about over the town. What had been
told was that Sheffield itself was in sort of
basin, and that should find steep rise in
every direction which led out Of it, but
what seemed to find was that the basin,
useful as it might have been for washing
purposes in SO sooty an atmosphere, was
distressingly invisible, and that the whole
place was an eXasperating undulation
through and through.
The English Manufacturers We're Reticent
The manufacturers were quite English,
which means that they were hard to get at
and very reticent In country where the
clergy are boxed up for the most part, as
though while dispensing the Word of Life
1t were necessary to protect them securely
against the people in the pews, and where
every fellow having tidy house and
grounds walls himself in against the pos
sibility Of his possessions being even looked
at by vulgar outsiders. this reserve on the
part of large employers of labor was nat
urally to be expected. By tact and perse-
verance. however, 1 did manage to converse
with representatives of two firms, and was
not badly received by them.
T.. = III zl.lJ Il
ment of c. Cammell & Co.,, turn out steel
purposes, and 1t is said that altogether they
have something like 10000 men in their
service. How nice it would be, I thought,
if these concerns would favor me with
quiet look at their pay rolls, and I even
ventured to suggest in their very presence
that this, or the equivalent of it, was what
1 was after But my polite insinuations
were only as sounding brass, and had an
inward conviction while making them that
in ears SO unused to such American liberties
they must have sounded very brassy indeed.
To show how utterly hopeless was the quest
I had undertaken, the Secretary of the
Cammeu Company assured me that they
had refused to give information about wages
even when asked for it by statisticians of
the British Government, and the gentleman
representing the other firm waved the main
issue by explaining that "of course wages
were higher in America than in England
because the restrictions against foreign COM
petition were SO much greater"
A Talk With Consul Folsom,
Thus ended my labors with the manufac-
turers, and, having treated these gentlemen
with proper respect, felt that was then
at liberty to seek enlightenment elsewhere.
The American consulate is always accessi-
BILE, and the representative of the Stars and
Stripes at Sheffield, Mr.. Benjamin Folsom,
an own cousin of the distinguished mamma
of Baby Ruth, and an old newspaper man
withal, I found to be deeply interested in
labor questions and quite ready to help me.
In visible attestation of his patriotism, MI.
Folsom displays the model Of an American
eagle over the front door of his office, and
his conversation I found to be fully
as patriotic as the sign he had
hung out Between the condition of
the working classes in the United States
and that of the same classes in England, the
difference, he said, was great in the extreme
In America, the drift was always upward,
whereas here it maintained dead level
The rule in England was once a workman
always a workman, while with us large
numbers climbed up. They first got house
of their own, and you would hear of them
soon after as mayors of cities He had been
visited recently by an American who began
life as blacksmith. In England the same
man would have been blacksmith to-day,
but instead of this he now has $50 men in
his employ, and is an inventor whose ma
chimes are known all over the world.
From reports to which my attention was
directed by Mr. Folsom I made the follow
ing abstracts of the general run of wages in
Sheffield:
The Average Pay in Sheffield.
For workers in iron the hours vary from
30 to 81 per week, and the average weekly
earnings were given thus: Puddlers, 81 IS;
underhands, S. "a; shinglers, $12 SO; as
underhand, 81 20; charcoal Jumpers, $14 80;
rollers, $40 "a; assistants, 81 20; metal re-
fners, $40 04; plate rollers, Sis 80; furnace
men, $14 SO; fremen. S8 81; scale melters,
s. 81; forgemen, $14 SO; levermen, Sc or; |
bogiemen, Sc OF; hammer drivers, ST %;
pattern makers, 81 80; molders $8 81;
fettIers, Sc A; laborers, IS 10; iron traiIers,
s. SO; tyre rollers, s13 81; machinists,
From the same reports learned that
men engaged in making pocket and table
cutlery were earning on an average from
s6 OF week to SO 7a For railway en-
lows: Engine drivers, 81 30 for day of 70
hours; fremen, 81 o. The rate of the
others is by the week-passenger guards,
B6 80; goods guards, S6 80; watchmen, s. "a;
pointsmen, $6 80; passenger porters, So SO;
goods porters, "a So; engine filters, $6 80;
,ar examiners, s. 80. Countermen in dry
,oods stores are reported a. averaging
little less than 5000 year; policemen av-
,rage 81 20, and street laborers 81 S6 q