The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-09-07
Mr.. C0MPERS WRITES ON LABOR BUDAPEST
Rents Higher There Than in New York City. and Clothinn is
Cheaper in America, While Wages Are LamentabIy Low-Or-
gained Labor Movement Not Well Advanced in Hungary.

might take up quite a series OF let
ters. From the government and the
labor organizations have come statis-
teal and other facts sufficient at once
to crafty the SociOlogist who gains
revelations from tabulated figures and
to brighten away the leader whom
arithmetic tires. But from tours of
personal observation in the big place,
now with a population of nearly a
million, there AVE come to me much
interesting information not easily
adapted to the formation of economic
reports.
For instance, there is the Budapest
hOd carrier. The picture she presents,
going about her draught-horse work
b~arefoOted, elm bln ladders or mount
ing inclined planes to the upper stories
OF a big new building, can hardly be
represented truthfully in a photo
graph, to say nothing Of her enumera-
ton in a column of figures that CLASH
fies industrial workers. The soleS of
those broad feet of hers are as callous
as the hogskin used for trunk covers,
her ~toe-nails are blackened and torn
from stubbing them against bricks
and beams. She plants her legs, barred
halfway TO the knee, somewhat in
the manner of a mule, with cautious
but certain tread, as she moves along
On a single plank aloft. She is buncny
about the waist; her head-cover is a
'herchief, not over~clean, but usually
of a gay color. Her features betoken
nothing in particular, except an unde-
Neloped brain; her movements are not
energetic, as one might deem natural,
if he is reasonable, on remembering
her seX-actually, she is a woman
and her probable standard of nOurish-
ment. She is paid about as much for
a weeks work as a New York hod
carrier earns in a day. She is here in
Budapest to the number of 1000, his
total easily possible Of an increase on
demand She has no trade union. Ac-
cording to her strength, steadiness,
and experience she gets 80, IS to 40
cents a day. She is by no means in
every case a shriveled old Wonan; not
infrequently youthful, stalWart, she
looks as if she might appear comely
il engaged in a feminine occupation.
She handles the mortar hoe and the
sand shovel uDsteadily. Her "hod'
is a handbarrOW, which is carried by
two of her species. h pair Of them
bear it like a bier, at a funeral, filled
with dripping mortar or heavy brick,
up to the man who does the work, the
bricklayer. Then hey may return
With a load of debris, to dump it in the
street. I took a full score OF snap
shots of this flower of Budapest civil
lizatiOn-a feature somehow missed
by the postcard man.
There is another woman in Buda-
pest, not unknown in any large city,
given to what, in the irony Of thought
lessly employed words, is called a
sport. Here she is even more in evil
dence than her v%irtuous sister, the bod
carrier. She walks the streets day
and night, in some quarters fairly IN
herds. At the cafes, which in Buda-
pest are numerous, gilded, brilliant
with light, and rendered attractive by
Hungarian gypsy bands, this woman
seems to be regarded as much of d
requisite among the appointments as
the white cover for the table, and the
dress suit Of the waiter. The ODsef-
Yer of the and customs OF
the Budapest people might
that, many thousands Of her women,
one day or other in their lives, had
deliberately taken a choice betWeen
carrying the hod in honest rags n
carrying the stigma of an Outcast in
fllmsy finery.
This dreadful fate of it's poor wo-
men is an ndex to Hungary's grade
among The standing or
the nation, if the misery shown the
traveler as typical is really SO, is
enough to make it's patriots mourn
and move it's friends to pity. 1t is
a certainty that tourist observations,
the testimony Of prominent men inter-
viewed, and the statistical tables all
agree in showing the Hungarian peo-
pie to be hardly in the earlier stages
of the great new awakening of social
REFORM.
When the narrator of his impress
sions in europe touches upon the topic
If the low wages of the masses in any
country he has visited, the person to
whom he is speaking, especially II an
Englishman or American interrupts to
remind him that money wages are no
index to real earnings; the cost OF
living can not be left out Of the calcu-
lation. SO, let us glance at prices IN
Budapest.
There's the matter of rent, usually
rated by economists as much higher in
America than in Europe. For hours L
was conducted through several work
ing class quarters of the city. Such