Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1880 — Javanese Meehanies. [ARTICLE]

Javanese Meehanies.

hundred Javanese were laboring voluntarily. The Javanese are of the Malay race, and most of the overmen are native, but few Europeans being employed In the whole works. TheaeMalaya per* rorrn their >1 totted tasks quietly and steadily, without loud talking or unnness any noise. Some of than are so skillful that they receive nearly two guilders, or 75cent% per day. Here the standard weights and measures for the government are made. Some of the workmen had been in the shops as long as fiftyseven yean. This to all the more remarkable, because these natives are usually unable to labor at the age of thirty-five or forty, on account of their dissolute habits. Moot of their machinery is not as nicely finished as that imported from Europe, but it appears quite asdumble. Yet the feet that the Javanese lure the capacity to do some nice work was proved by one in charge of the engraving department, whose fine cut lines would have been creditable to many a European.