Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/163

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HOURS OF LABOR.
153

hard, unattractive red-tile floors would seem to be desirable: "If you had to examine your bed every night, to see that a scorpion or centiped was not concealed in its coverings, the less of such things you had to turn over the better."

According to information furnished on inquiry, the hours of labor in this typical Mexican cotton-mill were as follows: "help" work from daylight until 9.30 P. M., going out a half-hour for breakfast at 9.30 A. M., and an hour for dinner, at 2 P. M.; Saturday night the machinery runs later. The spinners earn from thirty-seven and a half to fifty cents per day; weavers from six to seven dollars per week. On hearing these statements, one of the visiting party, more interested in humanitarianism than in manufactures or economics, involuntarily remarked, "Well, I wonder if they have got a God down in Mexico!" There were present at this visit and inspection a representative of one of the large cotton-factories at Fall River, and one of the best recognized authorities on mechanics and machinery, from Lowell, Massachusetts; and the judgment of these experts, after taking all the facts into consideration, was, that if this Mexican cotton-factory, with all its advantages in the way of hours of labor and wages, were transferred to New England, it would, in place of realizing any profit, sink a hundred thou-