[168-5] Thus, the darning of stockings in the sandy parts of North Germany, in the Highlands of Scotland, in the Faroe Islands, and formerly, even in the ante-rooms of the Russian nobility. (Schlözer, Anfangsgründe der Staatswirthsch, I, 126.) Flax spinning and linen weaving in Westphalia and Ireland, and wool weaving in the East Indies. Manufacturing industries must be in a very highly developed condition, and machinery carried to a high degree of perfection to compete in price with these accessory industries. Cheapness of many products manufactured in convents and monasteries.
[168-6] Among these interruptions, may also be reckoned the prospect the laborer has of being early incapacitated for work, and thus of seeing himself cut off from every other source of support. This is one of the principal reasons why opera singers are generally better paid than actors.
[168-7] In Leipzig, in 1863, mason and carpenter journeymen earned during the summer, from twenty silver groschens to one thaler, ordinary garden workmen, 20 silver groschens, while shoemaker journeymen did not make much more than 3½ thalers a week, and manual laborers, only from 10 to 15 silver groschens a day. The masons of Paris have the reputation of being the best patrons of the savings banks, and, on that account, are more exposed to being attacked by thieves than any other class. (Frégier, Des Classes dangereuses, II, 3, 1.) High wages paid for threshing in East Prussia, because, the workman during the winter can be employed in very few different kinds of labor, and therefore must earn his entire support by threshing. In Paris, of 101,000 persons engaged in industry in 1860, 6,400 had to calculate on no interruption of their work, the remaining number, however, lost with a certain degree of regularity, from 2 to 4 months a year. (Revue des deux Mondes, 15 Fév., 1865.) If the interruption can be so accurately estimated in advance that the workman may engage in some business for himself during the interval, as for instance when the workmen in the Bavarian breweries work during the summer as masons, its influence on wages decreases. (Storch, Handbuch, I, 192.) As to how, in Switzerland, since 1850, the guaranty of full employment to masons in winter is considered as an addition to the wages of summer, see Böhmert, Arbeiterverhältnisse, I, 141.
[168-8] Commissionaires, hack-drivers, Extraposthalter in Germany, porters, nurses, guides, servants in watering places and countries visited by tourists. A London porter gets at least a shilling an hour. If employed by the day, he of course gets smaller wages. Image venders, who travel from house to house, sell their wares much lower at their own houses. The person who calls them in from the street is obliged to pay them not only for this one journey, but for several others which yielded them no profit.
[168-9] If we call the minimum daily need or the absolute requirement of the workman = m, the rate of daily wages in the former case must amount to at least m + m/6; in the latter, on the other hand, to m + m/4. A Bavarian holiday estimated at a minus of much more than 1,000,000 florins. (Hermann, II, Anfl., 192.)
[168-10] Von Sonnenfels, Polit. Abhandlungen, 1777, 332 ff.
[168-11] In a part of Lower Bavaria, in which there were 204 holidays in a year, among them the anniversaries of the consecration of 40 churches in the country about, and a feast day following each such anniversary, as well as target-shooting festivals, the celebration begins at 4 o'clock P. M. of the preceding day. (Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 193.)
THE DISAGREEABLENESS OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF LABOR.—ITS EFFECT ON WAGES.
C. Lastly, the personal disagreeableness of the work, which must be compensated for by higher wages. The uncleanness of a coal-worker's task, that of the chimney-sweep, and the repulsive labor of the butcher, demand high compensation, while other branches of business, themselves productive of pleasure, and therefore engaged in by many for pleasure's sake only, yield relatively little to those who engage in them as a regular industry.[169-1]