Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1896-10-08

900 NJ
est silver shelters in the two countries.
Each gives, employment to about 400
men. No one will traverse the great
plant at Monterey and doubt that the
Mexican workman in the industry rem
ders equal labor, man for man, with the
American employed in the Omaha smelt-
er. At Omaha there is little labor given
grades of the smelter range as high as
rs day; 1t will not place the average
too high to make it So per day. Thatsis
American money-gold. Here the COM
mon labor unlOads the cars and heaps the
ore by the thousands of tons in the yards.
This same labor loads the ore into the
little iron tramcars and wheels it under
the sheds. where the more skilled work
men DO the mixing of the ores in great
lifts and pushes as hard as the $1.5O
gold labor at Omaha and does it for 621A
cents day Mexican silver, or BIZ
cents gold. This labor works ten hours a
day for that price. Then there
is the twelve hours labor, SO divided
to keep the smelter running night and
day. Here something besides muscle en-
wheeled upon the scales, and one kind
of ore follows another in, as beam after
beam tips, until the barrow is full of
Just the right proportions of lead and
iron and lime and various ores to take
out all of the silver in the smelling
The Mexicans who do this are paid 70
cents a day, worth 371@ cents American
money. Then come the feeders and the
furnace men, who know just when to
and just when to tap at the bottom to
draw off the bullion. This is labor that
receives 81 day in Mexican silver. or
so cents day in gold. The Stag pullers
get Is cents day in silver. The fore
men of the yards, who moves about over
seeing and directing, are paid from So
to SIS day. They are few in number.
Still fewer are the furnace foremen Of
that ripe experience which is responsible
for the results. These get $500 a month,
the equivalent of 500 in gold.
The pay at the Omaha shelter aver
ages s. a day, or $500 for the 400 Ia
borers, the equivalent Of $1,000 in Mexi-
can money. The pay at the Monterey
smelter averages 81 day in Mexican
money, or $500 for the 400 employees.
Here is a difference of $1,000 Mexican
money or 5000 gold in the daily pay
rolls. The Mexican silver smelters are
said to be making $40 in Mexican money
where the American shelters are profit
ing 81 in American money. Whether
free silver in the United States would
raise the Mexican money to the Ameri-
can money or lower the American to the
Mexican it would require the American
smelters to pay only twice as much for
labor where now they pay four times as
much as the Mexican smelters do. The
wages paid at the shelters here com
lowest rate, 621@c, is nearly double that
paid TOR ordinary common labor. IL
brings to the works brown men with
muscles like steel. who trot along with
5UO pounds of ore in barrow. These
Mexicans shed ell clothing but sandals,
strawhat and cotton drawers as they
push and pull the ore down the incline
OF the long roasting ovens. They have
only one bad habit. They will come to
work before breakfast. You can ach
Mexican labor to smelt ores to perfection
but you can not teach the Mexican WON
an to get up and prepare breakfast. SIM
pie as it is. before the whistle blows for
the change OF shifts from, night to day.
men have begun work. the little brown
women come stringing in with the beans
ana the corn cakes and the bit of meat,
Laborers' Wages.
At Cerralvo. in the state of Nueya
Leon, is located the Benavides smelters.
From this smelter there has heen
shipped since the LIST of January. by OK
carts, 1,8O0. 900 pounds of bullion. This
CerralyO district was great mining CEN
ter BOO years ago. It. had a government
mint, and turned out quantities of coin
during two centuries under Spanish do
minion. When the revolutionary period
set in mining ceased. Titles lapsed
With the establishment of stable gov
ernment and the coming of railroads
mining in Mexico took on new activity.
The Cerralvo district was one of the last
to feel the spirit of revival. The rail
roads passed by and left this ancient
town in the interior. Three years ago
American enterprise found this long
neglected district. A smelter was built.
The highly successful operation of this
plant for the past three. years. ninety
miles from a. railroad, affords one of the
best possible illustrations of the cheaper
ing of silver production in Mexico. The
manager of the smelter is Mr.. H. G. Har-
rison, who has had good deal of ex-
perience in mining and smelling. He
furnishes the actual cost of operation
from his books and makes comparison
with the cost of like smelter in the
States. These are his figures:
Shelter operation in Mexico
Per day in
To-