LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE WORKING-MAN IN AMERICA.—II.
[TO TRH EDITOR OF TIM "SPECTATOR.'']
Sin,—An ugly prospect looms before us. The winter season, it is said, commences here about the latter end of November, and does not terminate until March. It is problematical as yet whether we shall not to have to lie idle during the interval between November and March ; if so, all the gilt will come off our ginger- bread. An account of the men working—let us take the stone- cutters' shed—by our side, will show how they expect to get through the winter. First, for nationality. There are American, English, Scotch, Irish, Prussian (or Dutch, as all the immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, or Holland are indifferently called by the natives here), and French working together. The English carry the sway in point of numbers since the addition of our party. One has to be a cosmopolite in such a meeting of nationalities. The American guesses he has a farm worth 6,000 dollars which someone else works and finds seed, giving half of the produce for the right to farm the other's land. The Dutch- man has been in the country more than twenty years ; he also owns a farm, part of which is cultivated in the same way as the American's, and part used for pasture for several cows he owns. In the spring this industrious man seeks work, --stonecuting,— as near as he can get to his home. In the present instance, he is thirty miles from home. To use his own words, " I cut stone, my frau make butder ;" just what his board costs him per week is all he spends, the rest he carries home, able to snap his finger at King Frost when he comes. Working next barrel to me (we work on cement-casks) is an elderly Englishman who has been in this country over thirty years. He tells me that owing to the large family he has reared he has not been able to accumulate much property, but he has managed to pay for two plots of land,—one of which his brother-in-law cultivates, giving him half the pro- duce ; on the other he has an elegant and commodious house. He prides himself (and justly so) that he has given each of his child- ren a good education. This praiseworthy act bears him good fruit. His house is worth 6,000 dollars, and was built by his eldest sou, who went into the army, coming out of it a colonel, with sufficient money to start a thriving cigar-making business. He is rapidly accumulating a fortune, not forgetting his old folks meanwhile, as my friend's comfortable circumstances give ample evidence. By the by, if any faith in the stories I used to hear and read when in England about the late grand army of the Union being mainly composed of aliens —Irish, Germans, &c.—lingered in my cranium when I landed here, it has been most effectually eradicated, for there is hardly a family that I have made acquaint- ance with since being here, but that one or more of its male mem- bers served or died in the army during the late civil war. One meets men who have been soldiers in nearly every walk of life, the lawyer, the teamster, the doctor, the shoemaker, the store- keeper, and the man working by my side cutting stone or screening sand. The Frenchman who shares our daily toil volunteered, although over fifty years of age, his son having preceded him. He is a character, eccentric and volatile, pas- sionately fond of the country of his adoption. He has been here best part of his life, and tells me that he should have been well off, only the Yankees have been too sharp for him. The orchard and farm he once possessed was lost to him by the sharp practice of those who—well, I won't use his strong description, but simply write—are to the manner born. I asked him how he expected to get through the winter, and found that besides being a stone-
cutter in the summer, he is either a glass-maker, a wheelwright, a hunter, or a lumberer in the winter. By a lumberer he means a man who goes into the woods in the winter chopping down and trimming railway-sleepers, or prospects and accumulates hickory staves to make spokesfor waggon-wheels, " teams," as they are named here. He guesses whilst in the woods he could get enough furs by hunting, or hickory by wood-chopping, to bring him in enough dollars in the spring to average 2} dollars per day. Every one of the mechanics seem to have several occupations that they can turn their hands to in the winter months. I don't know yet whether the same system exists in the large cities, but here in Ithaca (a town of about 9,000 inhabitants) the men who work on buildings during the open seasons, go to work in the factories, in the stores, in the meat market, or create occupations for themselves, as, for instance, my landlord's brother proposes to do, viz., buy a team and two horses, his relatives being farmers and stock-raisers (he himself being a carpenter). He thinks he can get his cattle pretty cheap, and then hire himself out to the contractors of a new rail- road line to be built close by here, next winter getting four dollars per day for himself and team, doing the carting and jobbing work that may be required of him. Now, let us see how far the dollars will go in providing the necessaries of life when they are acquired. I think I cannot do better than give my own experi- ence, so far as it has extended. Some of our married friends were desirous to begin housekeeping so soon as they could rent a place . It was not over easy to do this, but at last several got suited. The houses they secured rented from 7 dollars to 13 dollars a. month, the furnishing part costing about 100 dollars before they could feel at all comfortable or at home, the first and most
im- portant article needed here being a cooking stove, costing about 23 dollars. Only the houses of very wealthy people are built with fire-places, the commoner houses being fitted up with chimneys, the occupants having to find stoves for cooking on- warming purposes. To us English folks the houses seem dread- fully dreary and cold, now the October winds begin to blow.. When we enter the house we miss something ; it is the bright, cheerful fire we have been so accustomed to have greet us with its cheery look when at home. The stove is very handy for cooking purposes ; the only thing needed is to know how to apply its advantages in cooking food, a part of housewifely knowledge (so far as I have seen) the American workman's wife is rather defi- cient in, there being an appetite-destroying sameness about each meal. In England, the husband returning home will not be able to tell what awaits him, he only thinking it would be something nice ; here he can not only tell what he will have to-day, but what he will have to-morrow, the day after, and so on to the end of time, unless some accident intervenes to give him a change. The bounties and dainties of nature are here in all plenty as readily obtainable for the poor man's table as for the rich man's, yet withal we do not get such palatable meals as our English wives prepared for us in the dear old home. Myself and immediate comrade not. seeing our way quite clear to begin housekeeping, not knowing whether we should stay long enough to justify us in parting with so much money as the preliminaries to housekeeping would necessitate, found a house where our wives and selves could be- " boarded," boarding being very common and very often the most comfortable way of living in an American town. We were to. have a room each and dine with the family, the charge being four dollars each, or eight per week for a man and wife. We are pretty fortunate as to price, the common tariff being four-and-a- half dollars per week for each boarder ; many boarding-houses down in the town charge even more than that. Since the students have returned to their studies, the demand for lodgings being brisk, of course, the charges go up. Not many years since good board could be had in Ithaca at two-and-a-half dollars per week ; not so now r however, four-and-a-half being the legitimate charge pretty well all over the settled portions of the States. In the large cities like New York, where rent is higher, a single man can get boarded at about six dollars. One day's experience will give my readers an insight into our daily bill of fare and a knowledge of the system.. Rising at half-past five a.m., we dress, &c. The workman's clothes are of the commonest and coarsest kind. Very often the boot& reach nearly to the knees,—blue blouses and pants, an old straw hat, seldom any necktie, and the costume of very many who work with us is complete. They are more like French travailleurs than English artizans. At six o'clock we have breakfast, having to start at half-past to be at our work by seven. This early break- fasting went against the grain of each and all of us ; we are now getting more accustomed to the practice, yet one does not feel he can sit down to a good breakfast before doing some work, as is the custom in England; a poor meal is the result. The breakfast 'MB consist of coffee or tea, home-baked bread, biscuits, or crackers, potatoes and fried meat, beef or mutton,—always fried in slices, never served up cooked in one joint, a joint of meat on the table being one sight we have not seen since leaving England. Each one sits down and eats what he can, no quantity of food being begrudged ; but the time seems to be a source of great anxiety ; the sooner you have finished, the more Yankee-like you become, quick eating and drinking being an attribute of these singular people. Breakfast over, our dinners are put into what is called a dinner- pail—ours costing 75 cents each, a tin pail with a wire handle, into which another fits, leaving a space between its bottom and the outer one, wherein a pint of tea can be placed. Slices of meat, bread and butter, cake or crackers, apple pie, custard, or pumpkin pie is placed within ; the lid covers these good things ; on the centre of the lid is another little pot for salad, apple sauce, tomato, or any- thing else they like to put in, a tin cup to drink the tea with covers this last receptacle, and away we trudge, commencing to work at seven, not resting till twelve, making six hours between meals, one hour's rest, then working from one o'clock till six. The natives seem to like it, starting at least five minutes before seven, working five minutes after twelve, recommencing before one, leaving off at night with reluctance. This may seem untrue to English artizans, used to start with the stroke of the clock, and stopping at the minute, like the navvy who elevated his pick in the air when the clock struck twelve, and went to his dinner before he could think of lowering it. One rest in a day of ten hours' labour makes the day seem much too lung, as, without doubt, it is. Ten hours' here seems to be as exhaustive as twelve hours' work in the old country ; that is, I would just as soon work twelve hours a day in England as ten here ; eight hours is the right rule for America, if the men will slave so ; not that they do their work very fast, but, like their walking, there is much action, if little go. The man who can make the most noise, or " hurries round " the fastest, is thought just as much of as the real worker, who goes quietly about every- thing he does. When we get home to tea or supper, we find fried meat, as usual, everything the same as at breakfast, only, mayhap, we get a peach or two ; peaches and grapes grow quite plentifully hereabouts. It is seven o'clock ere supper is over, and quite dark without, we either read a little, or go to the post-office if we expect any letters, where, when the evening mails come in, there is a grand rush, like that at the theatre doors on Boxing-night ; each person has to go after his letters, there being no carrier to take them round ; you have to give your name or number of box, when, if there are any letters for you, you will get them. Every night several hundred folks want to be the first to get letters, hence there is a fine tumult. These are our only diversions ; then we go home to bed, to awake next morning wondering when we shall die of ennui. The drinking customs of England do not seem to find much favour her. There may be greater facilities in the large cities for people getting drunk than there is in Ithaca. The vice is not entirely unknown here, as witness the following choice clip- ping from the columns of the Ithacan, illustrative of two things, —the exceptional person a drunken man is here, and the curious
style in which the press expounds to its readers the most frivolous things :—
" On Monday night, John W. Bloom, of Lansing, managed to absorb enough fusil oil, benzine, and other cooling beverages, to give him the appearance of a drinkest of the least water. (That's where tipplers and other jewels differ ; the brightest of the former are of the least water, the latter of the first water.) Being thus inebrious, and while this Bloom was 'on the rye,' or rather while too mach rye was in this Bloom, he blossomed in speech—became flowery, and, in short, this pistillate flower became a botanical anomaly, thusly ; he showed so much stamen that officer Cooper thought to test his stamina by an arrest vi et armis. This proceeding so incensed our odorous flower that he became largely voluble, declaring that no pent-up Utica, no vase built by this Cooper should contract his powers ; that the bung-hole into which so much choice wine had been poured and from which so much sweet song had flowed should not be vilely coopered. Hence assistance was required. Officer Seaman, as usual, was on hand to sail this craft to port (not the vinous goods) and our flower came to full fruition on Tuesday morning, when Justice Lucas, for the people, plucked 14 dollars cash from the night-blooming plant, who went away as serious as any of Phalon's best."
Professor Goldwin Smith cautioned us against drinking any mix- ture of full and benzine that the bar-keepers sell for whisky. Ale is to be had, but cf a poor quality, lager-bier is plentiful, but who ever heard of anyone else liking lager-bier excepting Germans ? Altogether, it is far the best to do without any intoxicating beverages. Thus there is small inducement for friends to meet at a bar to pass an hour or two away in convivial sensuality. A very good thing, say all of us ; it is not a hard task to be sober here. Sober men, and only those, can hope to live here ; drinking destroys the health very quickly in this climate. If one wants to prosper one must keep sober ; if he does not do so, Americans look
upon him with distrust and disgust. The money paid us here as wages,—and we are badly paid relatively to most places in the Union—will enable us to save, with sobriety and good health, about 30s. English money per week. I cannot say, as yet, whether the winter months will alter this decided improvement upon our posi- tion in the old country, but from what I have seen and learnt since my arrival here, I think we shall pull through all right. I can't accept Mr. R. Coningsby's recent statement that an English mechanic is as well off in England as here ; our united statement tends the other way. Many little comforts we miss, but we are compensated by higher wages and new enjoyments.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Louis J. limos.
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