Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/578

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572
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of the operatives, chiefly women and girls, average about 27.5 cents per day. There are few milch cows in Greece. Goats and sheep furnish nearly all of the milk for home consumption and the making of cheese. A few cows are found in Athens, but the price of feed is so high that butter sells at 68.5 cents per pound, cream at $3.27 per gallon and curdled milk at 85.3 cents per gallon.

Austria-Hungary

Economic interest in Hungary centers in the development of manufacturing, especially the manufacturing of textile fabrics.

The act of 1907, which it is hoped will mark the beginning of a new era in Hungarian industry, enables the government to grant subsidies and exemption from taxation to those industries which are considered by the minister of commerce to be worthy of encouragement and desirable from a national economic point of view. Subsidies may be in the form of a lump sum or an annual allowance. The act favors the building of workmen's dwellings and enables the municipal and parish authorities to encourage certain industries by grants of money, etc. It further provides that the state, municipal and parish authorities, the institutions maintained or subventioned by the same, and all enterprises engaged in the service of public traffic shall have their initial requisites supplied and their works carried out by home industry.

About $41,000,000 is thus expended annually. The Hungarian mills are in a new milling district and they must import skilled labor, usually from Austria. They also suffer from the large emigration. About 1,000,000 persons emigrated from Hungary during the eight years ending December 31, 1907. The few Hungarians who return from America are arrogant and discontented. Hungary has 460 apprentice's schools, with 66,030 pupils; twenty-two special industrial schools, with 1,177 pupils, and six industrial schools of higher grade. In a factory town where house rent was from $54 to $58 per year, wages in the factory were as follows: picker hands: men, 40.6 cents per day, women, 30.45 cents; cards, 52.78 cents; card grinder, 80.12 cents; draw frames, 30.45 cents; slubbers, 40.6 cents; mules, one spinner, $1,015, two piecers, 71.05 cents, two boys, 50.75 cents; ring spinning, girls, 24.36 cents to 28.42 cents; reelers, 30.45 cents to 40.6 cents. In a Bohemian knitting, linen, and woolen mill weekly wages ranged from $1.01 to $4.26 for female workers and from $1.01 to $7.10 for males. The working day is ten hours.

The factories have by no means displaced home industry. In some parts of Bohemia more than one fourth of the entire population is engaged in home manufacture. In the Eiesengebirge paper bags and horn or stone buttons are made. Near Reichenau and Gablonz snuffboxes were formerly made. As the use of snuff decreased, the making of cheap oil paintings on wood, tin and linen began. When the market is good the whole family works night and day and makes a living. In the Adlerhills weekly wages of $1 to $1.20 are paid, but lost time brings the average to not more than 80 cents per week. Sometimes husband