or 16s. but boys and
newly-arrived foreigners take 10s., 8s., 7s., or less; while the
masters, after paying all expenses, would, according to their own
estimates, make not less than 30s., and must, in many cases, net much
higher sums. Owing, however, to the irregularity of their employment,
the average weekly earnings of both masters and men throughout the year
fall very greatly below the amount which they can earn when in full
work."[23] For the lowest kinds of work an ordinary male hand appears to
be able to earn not more than 15s. per week. A slow worker, it is said,
would earn an average of some 10s. to 12s. per week. The hours of labour
for sweating work appear to be from fifteen to eighteen per diem, and
"greeners" not infrequently work eighteen to twenty hours a day. Women,
who are largely used in making "felt and carpet uppers," cannot, if they
work their hardest, make more than 1s. 3d. a day. In the lowest class of
work wages fall even lower. Mr. Schloss gives the wages of five men
working in a small workshop, whose average is less than 11s. a week.
These wages do not of course represent skilled work at all. Machinery
has taken over all the skilled work, and left a dull laborious monotony
of operations which a very few weeks' practice enable a completely
unskilled worker to undertake. Probably the bulk of the cheapest work is
executed by foreigners, although from figures taken in 1887, of four
typical London parishes, it appeared that only 16 per cent, of the whole
trade were foreigners.
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