south range from 29.1 to 38.6 cents per day and in the north from 38.6 to 58 cents. Country mills pay much less than city mills.
The average daily wages paid in a country mill near Milan have gradually increased from 30.9 cents for men and 11.6 cents for women spinners in 1871 to 47.3 cents for men and 36.1 cents for women in 1907, while for weaving the wages have increased from 15.4 cents to 39.6 cents in the same period. The hours of labor have also been decreased from twelve to ten and a half per day. The number of days worked per year is about 290.
Some mills still run eleven hours per day.
Two of the several Italian strikes of 1907 will be described for the sake of their interesting data concerning grievances and wages.
Scanzo (Bergamo).—On March 9 there was initiated a strike at the weaving plant of Carlo Caprotti by 3 men and 198 women weavers making 31 cents a day, 46 girls running cop winders at 16 cents a day, 50 spoolers at 21 cents a day, 12 warpers at 29 cents a day, and 16 drawing-in hands at 35 cents a day. The weavers demanded that the fortnightly minimum requirements be reduced by one piece of cloth, the cop winders, spoolers and warpers asked an increase in wages. Fourteen men remained employed until the fourteenth at 39 cents a day, and 20 boys at 19 cents a day. The strikers, notwithstanding they were not organized, were assisted by the Catholic Society of Labor of Bergamo. They obtained a reduction of the minimum required and also a concession that loom stoppage not by their fault be not counted. The increase of wages will be settled by an arbitrator. The work began again on March 16.
Leghorn.—The firm Cantoni-Coats for the manufacture of sewing thread gives work to 250 men at 58 cents and to 950 women at 23 cents per eleven-hour day. The firm wishing to introduce in the several branches "lustraggio and tavelle" (glazing and roughing), a system of labor that meant a reduction of wages, the whole body of operatives on July 8 initiated a strike, asking a general increase of wages. The labor union of Lucca directed the strike, the president of the local chamber of commerce intervened, and the firm granted an increase of 5.8 cents per day during apprenticeship and of 2.9 cents for those on the roughening work, and besides made a formal promise for a general increase of the rate remuneration. On July 29 work was resumed. During the strike $4,053 was expended in assistance to the strikers.
Italy, in 1902, passed a law to take effect in 1907, prohibiting the night work of women and children in mills. As women and children constitute two thirds to three fourths of the operatives, the law practically meant that the mills had to be doubled. Most of the mills were prepared for the change by 1907.
Italian operatives necessarily live cheaply. In Piedmont and Lombardy the regular menu is: breakfast—bread and milk mush; dinner—spaghetti (potatoes and milk mixed into a porridge), polenta (cornmeal mush), and wine; supper—cold spaghetti porridge, cold polenta, cheese and some wine. Dinner in the middle of the day is the heartiest meal, and enough spaghetti porridge and polenta are then made up to last for both dinner and supper, being eaten cold for the latter meal. Chestnuts are also a staple article of food, and radishes, with olive oil and other vegetables, when procurable. Wine is within the reach of all.
