The system frequently pursued in manufacturing towns in paying the wages
of mechanics, is not, perhaps, calculated to give to these all the
advantages which they should derive from their hard earnings.
It is the custom in many factories to pay the wages of the week at a
neighbouring public-house on the Saturday evening, after the labours of
the day are over. This duty, in a large establishment, is a work which
necessarily occupies some time; and the most sober and well-disposed,
those most anxious to take their earnings home to their families, cannot
obtain their money in time for procuring the Sunday’s meal before the
usual hour of rest. After a hard day’s labour, spent in domestic cares,
and in rendering the dwelling in a fit state for the coming day, the
weary housewife would gladly seek repose. Under this arrangement,
however, she is obliged to encroach on the period which should be
devoted to sleep, in order to make her requisite purchases, or to invade
the quiet of the Sabbath morning with the petty cares of life, which,
for that one day at least, should be laid aside.
This in itself is a great annoyance to the female part of the community;
but it is light as air to them, compared with the more serious evil
which the system carries in its train, and which they would gladly
exchange for any personal inconvenience they might be called upon to
endure.
Workmen of the most abstemious habits consider themselves in a manner
constrained to take some refreshment in the house where they have just
received money; and though they may spend but a trifle, that trifle
would have been better bestowed in assisting to minister to the wants of
those nearest and dearest to them. But what a temptation is held out to
men of a less temperate character. Here the love of noisy fellowship is
nourished, unfitting the mind for the quiet enjoyments of home. Here the
habit of intoxication is gradually acquired and confirmed. While wives
are anxiously waiting at the door of the house for those supplies which
will enable them to furnish necessaries for their families, husbands are
too often rioting within, forgetful of those ties which should prevent
such a waste of time and money in selfish and degrading enjoyment; and
when, at length, the expecting female does obtain the residue of the
earnings which should have been appropriated to the support of her
family for the ensuing week, she finds the sum fearfully diminished and
inadequate for the purpose.
Many a watchful mother has had to mourn over the ruined prospects of a
beloved son, whose first deviation from right was the loitering at the
public-house on the Saturday night; his former simple habits gradually
turned into those of selfishness, and all its lamentable consequences.
Many an affectionate wife has had to grieve at this wreck of her early
happiness, first invaded by the Saturday night’s temptation; while she
is either left to struggle neglected and alone through the miseries of
life, or called upon to endure more active ill treatment from her
inebriated partner.
It may be said, we are rather exaggerating the picture; that a large
proportion of those who gain their livelihood by working as mechanics
are respectable, intelligent, and virtuous members of society. Most
happily this is true; but we think a still farther number might be
ranked in the same class, if the payment of wages were better regulated,
while the comfort of the artisans, and that of their families, would at
the same time be materially increased.
There can be little doubt that, were proprietors once convinced of the
bad effects which arise from this plan, they would adopt one more
conducive to the comfort of those by whose labour they are benefited. A
walk in a manufacturing town at twelve o’clock on the Saturday night,
would sufficiently expose the evils of this manner of payment. The shops
are then still open, and harassed females are seen flocking to them; the
streets are crowded with people; and many women, with looks of distress,
are still lingering at the doors of the pay-houses, in the vain hope of
alluring home their truant husbands. The whole continues a scene of
noise, bustle, and confusion, long past the hour of midnight, and but
ill-befitted to usher in the day of rest. How unlike the holy soothing
repose of the cotter’s Saturday eve, so beautifully described by Burns.
If payment of the week’s earnings were made on the respective premises
instead of at a drinking-house, and on the Friday instead of the
Saturday evening, all these evils might at once be avoided.
The men would have no temptation given them to spend their earnings away
from their families--the women would be enabled to make their purchases
on the Saturday, at the time most convenient for the purpose, and they
would have one chance less for unhappiness.
Two objections are made to this proposed alteration--the one moral, the
other practical.
It is said that, with a well furnished pocket, a man not very
industrious may be inclined to indulge himself in idleness during the
ensuing day; but this would evince so total an absence of foresight and
prudence, that the individual capable of such conduct would, we fear,
when paid on the Saturday, in like manner take his holiday on the
Monday, or just as long as his money might last.
The other objection arises from the mode in which the wages are usually
paid at a large establishment. The required amount of money is in the
first instance deposited in the hands of the confidential foreman, who
does not pay each individual workman, but divides the whole in classes,
and to a responsible man in each of these intrusts the sum due to his
particular class: should the individuals of which this is composed be
very numerous, he in his turn subdivides, till at length the various
claimants receive their due. The transaction is not, therefore, simply
that of a proprietor paying his men, but it involves itself into a much
more complicated form, and the men must necessarily have a common place
of rendezvous to adjust their various accounts. That this difficulty may
be obviated, and that it is in fact nearly as easy to pay on the
premises as to adjourn to another house, we happen to be furnished with
a practical proof. The proprietor of a large concern, not residing on
the spot where it is carried on, had recently occasion to proceed to
that place in order to examine more particularly how the works were
conducted. He immediately perceived the bad effects arising from the
system of paying the workmen at a drinking-house, and determined at once
to abolish the practice. This intention was strongly combated by the
superintendent, who assured him that it was an impossibility to pay all
the men at the works, for if the few to whom he delivered the money for
their respective divisions were to receive it on the premises, they
would of their own accord repair to the usual pay-house with those to
whom the money was due, in order to make a settlement among themselves.
The gentleman persevered, however, in his intention; and on the day of
payment, he himself, without any assistance, paid into the hands of each
workman before he left the premises, the wages due to him. He thus
proved the practicability of the alteration, and acquired the right of
insisting that henceforth the plan should always be pursued. By a little
method, and by the aid of a few assistants, this work would of course be
comparatively easy to one understanding its practical details; if in the
absence of these advantages it was accomplished without any difficulty,
in the manner we have described, by one quite new to the business, in an
establishment where numerous work-people are employed, it follows that
this objection is of no weight.
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_Struggle between an Eagle and a Salmon._--“That the eagle is extremely
destructive to fish, and particularly so to salmon, many circumstances
would prove. Eagles are constantly discovered watching the fords in the
spawning season, and are seen to seize and carry off the fish. Some
years since a herdsman, on a very sultry day in July, while looking for
a missing sheep, observed an eagle posted on a bank that overhung a
pool. Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent
struggle ensued: when the herdsman reached the spot, he found the eagle
pulled under water by the strength of the fish, and the calmness of the
day, joined to drenched plumage, rendered him unable to extricate
himself. With a stone the peasant broke the eagle’s pinion, and actually
secured the spoiler and his victim, for he found the salmon dying in his
grasp. When shooting on Lord Sligo’s mountains, near the Killeries, I
heard many particulars of the eagle’s habits and history from a
grey-haired peasant who had passed a long life in these wilds. The
scarcity of hares, which here were once abundant, he attributed to the
rapacity of those birds; and he affirmed, that when in pursuit of these
animals, the eagles evinced a degree of intelligence that appeared
extraordinary. They coursed the hares, he said, with great judgment and
certain success; one bird was the active follower, while the other
remained in reserve, at the distance of forty or fifty yards. If the
hare, by a sudden turn, freed himself from his most pressing enemy, the
second bird instantly took up the chase, and thus prevented the victim
from having a moment’s respite. He had remarked the eagles also while
they were engaged in fishing. They chose a small ford upon the rivulet
which connects Glencullen with Glandullah, and, posted on either side,
waited patiently for the salmon to pass over. Their watch was never
fruitless,--and many a salmon, in its transit from the sea to the lake,
was transferred from its native element to the wild aërie in the Alpine
cliff that beetles over the romantic waters of Glencullen.”
[These anecdotes are extracted from a work just published, containing
spirited details of a sportsman’s life in Ireland, and numerous sketches
of natural history. It is entitled, ‘_Wild Sports of the West._’]
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