Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-25

ues iSSt uS5itSu might Sollt ny way VI
social evolution.
The thirty grocery clerks around the cor
ner could tell them better. Let US look at
them. because l know them and their state.
They hustle in the store from 100 am to
$50 pm. daily, slicing sausage and corned-
beef on the American machine; weighing
California dried fruits and New York state
apples; juggling packages of American
health foods and patent cereals, bottles of
American pickles and catsups and tins of
American meats, salmon and HOLSTERS, not
to speak of the regular French grocery
line.
French Living In" System
The thirty clerks are all young unmarried
fellows. Therefore they are willing to live
i e., sleep, wash, and dress-in two big
nearby flats, furnished for the purpose by
the grocery enterprise, neatly and cheaply,
from parlor to kitchen, with cot-beds
chairs and waShStands.
The lodging proposition forms part of
their pay. Also they get their three meals
per day. Their cash salary is thus reduced
to an average of fourteen dollars per month:
and as it is with the grocery clerks so it is
coming to be with the clerks in the large
establishments of every kind of Paris com
merce-the growing tendency is to lodge
and feed them as part pay and keep them
spending most of their lives on the premises
of their employers.
Thus kept under the thumb of their
employers the clerks of Paris and all
Ffencn cities are lNe types Oh natural VIC
tins of working Sunday. The grocery
clerks, know, get half Sunday twice
month, turn and turn about in shifts, and
the grocery keeps open all day Sunday.
So 1t is with half the stores of Paris, the
little being forced to initiate the big and
the tendency is continually growing. Even
some of the big department stores, like the
Samaritane the Pelle Jardiniere and the
bazaar of the Hotel de Vile Ga real depart
ment store), do Sunday trade.
When you come to artisans, bricklayers,
masons, plasterers, carpenters and all kinds
of builders employees the working Sunday is
commoner than the Sunday of rest. So
also all BARRIERS, all bath house employees
and all pharmacies So also all restaurant
and cafe employes-who, by the way, to-
gether with hotel and theater, music hall
and circus employees, stand alone in not
only not demanding, but energetically re-
fusing Sunday of rest from work.
Apart from these amusement specialists
whom the law does not propose to touch
every syndicate of employees examined
either by senate or chambers commission
is on record as demanding a Sunday of
rest.
1t must be obligatory, they insist; other
wise no employee would dare demand 1t
from an unwilling employer; and even the
willing employer would fear to risk Sunday
closing should some of his competitors per-
sist in keeping open.
Question Of Sunday Rest.
During three years petitions in this sense
have been flowing into the French senate
from the giant Syndicate of Employees of
Commerce and Industry, the Syndical
Chamber of Paris Cooks, the Union of Fra
ternal Syndicates of the Building Trades,
the National Federation of House Painters,
the Federation of Employees of France, the
National Federation of Workers in Food
Products the Culinary Federation of
France And this is not speaking of num-
berless local syndicates of the great cities.
Even many syndicates of employers have
declared themselves not to be hostile. Such
have been the Federation of Manufacturers
and Merchants of France, the Union Of
Employers Syndicate in the Textile Indus
tries, the Association of the Commerce and
Industry of Tissues. and the Syndicate Of
Bazars and Galleries of Paris. Others con-
sent-if the law will make exceptions"
Such are the Syndicate Of Silversmiths, the
Syndical Chamber Of Paris Jewellers and,
In general, all the master builders asso-
ciations-were 1t not that their exceptions
would practically nullify the law when
work is pressing.
The residue Of employers syndicates are
sauarely hostile to a forced Sunday of rest
from work. For example, the Syndicate
of Paris Bakers the General Association of
Confectioners and the Syndicate of Paris
Butchers declare that no such law can be
applicable to them. And the Syndicate of
Internal Navigation declares that for tts