Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1883 — Wages in Paris. [ARTICLE]

Wages in Paris.

In the jewelry and silversmith trade, an important one in Paris, apprentices, as soon as they begin to work on their own account, receive 4s. a day, experienced foremen earning from 12s. to 245. per day. Type-setters get from 6s. to 12s. per day, and pressmen something short of this generally. Wood-engiav-ers vary from 6s. to 12s. a day, but those who take rank as artists earn from 12s. to 245. With regard to the building trade, there is an average wage paid by practically all contractors. The city of Paris is the great employer of skilled labor of this kind, and it now pays to stonecutters 10s. for twelve hours’ work in summer, and Bs. for eight hours’ work in winter. Other masons receive 6s. in summer and ss. in winter, and tinsmiths, marble-masons, and painters and glaziers about the same, with, of course, higher rates for those engaged in the artistic branches, such as fresco and other decorations. In those trades which have to do with interior decoration, the wood-oarvers earn from 10s. to 12s. per day, upholsterers and others at the same rate, while German and Italian workmen get from 2s. 6d. to 4s. per day. Mechanics earn from 4s. upward, according to their special employment and ability. The average day laborer, in all kinds of employment, receives from 2s. to 4s. a day, and foreigners, who arrive in Paris bv shoals, manage to save something to take home. M. Haussonville estimates the number of regular workmen in Paris at 250,000, of those who live by occasional jobs at 75,000, and of beggars and vagabonds at 15,000.