Thrift by Samuel Smiles
page 56 of 419 (13%)
page 56 of 419 (13%)
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a steady collier in my employment, with his two sons living at home,
whose monthly pay ticket has averaged £30 for the past twelvemonth. "Another steady collier within my information, aided by his son, h as earned during the past five months upwards of £20 a month on the average, and from his manual labour as an ordinary collier--for it is of the working colliers and firemen I am speaking all along--he has built fifteen good houses, and, disregarding all menaces, he continues his habits of steady industry, whereby he hopes to accumulate an independence for his family in all events."] Iron-workers are paid a still higher rate of wages. A plate-roller easily makes three hundred a year.[2] The rollers in rail mills often make much more. In busy times they have made as much as from seven to ten guineas a week, or equal to from three to five hundred a year.[3] But, like the workers in cotton mills, the iron workers are often helped by their sons, who are also paid high wages. Thus, the under-hands are usually boys from fourteen years of age and upwards, who earn about nineteen shillings a week, and the helpers are boys of under fourteen, who earn about nine shillings a week. [Footnote 2: See Messrs. Fox, Head, and Co.'s return, in the Blue Book above referred to. This was the rate of wages at Middlesborough, in Yorkshire. In South Wales, the wages of the principal operatives engaged in the iron manufacture, recently, were--Puddlers. 9_s_. a day; first heaters on the rail mills. 8_s_. 9_d_. a day: second heaters, 11_s_. 7_d_.: roughers, 10_s_. 9_d_.: rollers, 13_s_. 2_d_., or equal to that amount.] [Footnote 3: Even at the present time, when business is so much |
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