The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-09-16
and devoid of all natural flavor.

and devoid of all natural flavor.
 Breakfast consists of six ounces of bread. with a pat of butter and libe- ral pint of tea, except on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when basin of good oat- meal gruel takes the place of the tea, to the disgust of many. who will not touch the 'skiIly,' as they contemptuously call 1t. Supper or tea consists of the same allowance of tea, bread and butter as at breakfast, on three nights of the week, cheese taking the place of butter on three other nights, and Thursday night being reserved for the discussion of a thin beef or mutton broth with six ounces of bread), which the men scorn- fully designate as fly water and is the theme of endless testing. In this menu the bread and butter are invariably good, so are the tea and the gruel; the cheese, generally good, comes too often five times week.: the potatoes are of- ten poor, and the meat, at it's best, is in- nutritious and insipid to a degree not at all due to it's qualities as it comes from the hands of the butcher.
 HAnd now will describe briefly the work had to do on this diet, promising that could eat very little of the meat, and durst not eat much of the cheese. from fear of indigestion. After week Of paint scraping was put into. the i boler house as stoker's mate, or drudge. My first duty in the morning was 10 sweep down the tops of the two boilers. aid then, descending from that torrid region to sweep and mop up the boiler | house floor; and, finally, to sweep the roadway as far as the dust bus, which I had to keep tidy at all times. In the course of the day, while Incidentally l sbining brasses and carrying off and 1 drenching hot ashes and clinkcrs when ever the fireman cleaned out his fires, bad to keep him constantly supplied ! with a large barrow of, coals. to the amount of from one and kalf to two tens a day, which I had to break up t. | the requisite size in the coal hole before | wheeling away. Twice a day had tc clean the engine which rue the vari. ous machinery of the washhouse; and
 was fable at any moment to be called
 away by the engineer to light tht
 smithy forge, to clean out cnoked gull.
 Hes drains or pipes. turn the grind.
 stone. or cut and drill holes in iron.
 wcrk--in short, to help him in any j the rnuitifarious duties of his office. E,
 the close Of the day could have vel lcoIned what was unattainable in ina lIlacc. a quiet corner for undisturbet rest. t4 | "Now. to a man who has been inuret I to manual labor. perhaps such worl lwould not seem hard, if he was ade
 quately fed, or at least could readil,
 assimilate the workhouse fare. But i
 a man has never done such work, or i
 In delicate health. CT suffering iron
 some sharp stroke of misfortune. Iii I cease is indeed pitiabie. No matter hoy
 he suffers in mind or body, or ll,s bone T dche with rheumatic twinges uravoi!s
 bie in such factory of draughts as tn
 many cornered, many, cGrridored work
 house is, hs has no tfh:e to ,ttend 10 hi
 sefsensations, but, while his strengt
 ard spirits are ebbiiis surely away. i
 ca"ried on dumbly thrjugh the wear
 routine of his life like workable beas
 of burden. But d whole volume of dc scription would not explain tb the otlt ssder the peculiar loathias that is enter
 most'of it unreasonable; but it is tflar,
 nevertheless, deep seated and incxrir
 guishabie." lst