The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1905-05-31

at night, with an hour for dinner at
noon time, when the men, as rule re-
main in the works. Their food con-
sisted generally of black bread and wa
ter. The passport of every man en-
ployed was held in the passport office
connected with the works, police
sergeant being in charge, so that it was
impossible for any one to move with
out first obtaining permission. Most of
the laborers come into the cities from
outlying villages to earn money by
working in Tie factories, so as to keep
their families in the country alive, but
many are to be seen in the large en-
gineering establishments in naval uni
forms, the Government permitting it's
sailors to work thus for portion of
the year.
All live in "trakteers" "a sort of sa-
loon and restaurant combined of which
there are many near all the works, OBJ
tanning credit from the proprietor un-
til pay day comes around.
1t was mistake on Remnants part
when, describing the horrors of "the
road to Siberia" he said that the Rus
slams objected to being crowded togeth-
er like "snakes in basket" This is
the way they live at the trakteers, sleep
ing all together upon the floor of back
room, anyway-in their clothes. They
are obliged by law to wash themselves
once month. To this end they have
to hand to the passport office certifi-
cate every month obtained from one of
the CITY bath houses close at hand.
The most unjust system which op-
presses these wage earners is what is
called "straff" fines. A workman can
be and is fined for anything he does con-
trary to regulations. If he is a few
minutes late, if he remains away from
work without permission, if he is no.
ticed lettering, talking or smoking he
in fined. In dozen other ways also he
may break the rules of the works. So
when he receives his miserable pay at
the end of the month he may find a
heavy percentage deducted.
The Russian workmen get gloriously
drunk at times on vodka, but when this
happens to one of them on 'pranznicks"
holidays, especially the name days of
the imperial family or saint days-it is
looked upon as rather to his credit. The
police simply put him in a drosky and
carry him off to the "chass" "-police
station to sober up.
The oaths and vile epithets in the
Russian language are sometimes terri
bic, you can call a man anything you
like, if you want to, but don't strike
him, as there is severe law, with
heavy penalties, which applies to any
foreigner. This law was passed at the
time of the emancipation of the scrfs.
1t took an Englishman two years to get
out of st. Petersburg after thrashing
his servant, through the heavy fine i'm
posed upon him. An incident of this
nature occurred at the works. The
English workmen were popular with
the Russians on account of their liber-
ality in standing" drinks. One Satur-
day night foreman having been called
all sorts of names by native, when
drinking in trakteer, promptly
knocked him down. He was arrested
Immediately and taken by the police to
the chass, where he was stripped of
every vestige Of clothes and showed in
to bare room with stone floor among
lot of "drunks" also naked. He re-
mained this way in prison until by the
efforts of the police sergeant at the
works he was released the next after
noon. He declared afterwards that he
would never strike Russian. George
f. Cole in Chicago News.