Scientific American/Series 1/Volume 1/Issue 1/Lowell as it was and as it is

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Scientific American, Series 1, Volume 1, Issue 1
Lowell as it was and as it is; by Rev. Henry A. Miles
138179Scientific American, Series 1, Volume 1, Issue 1 — Lowell as it was and as it is; by Rev. Henry A. Miles

Lowell as it Was, and as it Is; By Rev. Henry A. Miles, is a neat 18mo of 234 pages just issued by Powers & Bagley, Lowell. It is full of facts of general interest. We learn from it that the Merrimac Company (whose dividends are so often quoted) employs 1250 women, whose average earnings considerably exceed $2 each per week above the cost of their board. The laboring men average 85 cents per day above their board; fifty-six overseers receive $2 each per day with occasional premiums. [These are the reduced wages we hear of.] None are employed under fifteen years of age. No woman is retained a day after she is known to be guilty of licentious conduct, but not one in a hundred is ever discharged for any such cause. The average running time is 12 hours 10 minutes per day, which is too long and should be shortened; but the average working time of each hand is but ten hours and a half. In the Boot Mills, a careful account of working time has been kept, and it appears that 106 girls averaged 267 days each in a year and 10 hours 8 minutes per day, each being paid according to her work, and ☞ all are paid in cash every month,—not one farthing in store orders, or barter of any kind. The average earnings of the women in all the factories, including novices, is $1,93 per week besides their board. Many girls who have been school teachers gladly take places in the mills, as the pay is higher here, and the work lighter, though the hours are longer. No one has lost a sixpence of her earnings in the Lowell factories since the first was started. The girls have about $100,000 in the Savings Bank.

—Such is the condition of the Laboring Class in the principal Manufacturing town in America. Granted that it is not all it should be—that it might and should be improved—it is still true that no where else does a Laboring class of equal numbers earn so much, year by year; no where else are they so constantly employed, comfortably situated and adequately rewarded. Let those who would overthrow this state of things go to work and build up something better, or show how it may be done. Until they have some crude notions of this sort, ought they not to cease their incessant warfare on American Manufactures?—Tribune.