Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1888 — TRADE AND LABOR. [ARTICLE]

TRADE AND LABOR.

Philadelphia Record. Nova Scotia coal has been successfully used in coke-making. - Near Lakeland, Fla., thirty trees Rear 100,000 oranges per year. The production of the 3,000,000 acres of cotton in Texas is 1,500,000 bales. Grand Rapids, Mich., has forty-two furniture factories. They employ 12,000 persons. England turned out 1,701,312 tons of bar-iron last year, 84,611 tons in excess of the production of 1886. The members of the Southern Society of Plaid Manufacturers operate 9,000 looms and employ 11,250 persons. About 100,000,000 lead-pencils are manufactured in the United States annually, one-fourth of which are exported.

A brass wire made in Glasgow for the Glasgow exhibition is sixty-five miles long, and a copper wire measures 111 miles. The government of Chili has ordered six locomotives of home manufacture. They will cost $21,000 in gold and will be like our engines. The Frederick Billings arrived at Seattle, W. T., with a cargo of coal a few days ago. It is said to be the largest afloat, being able to carry 4,500 tons of coal. It is predicted that cypress wood from the South will be largely used in Northern buildings in a few years in consequence of the exhaustion of the fields in the North and West.

The pig-iron export from Birmingham, Ala., is steadily They are sending it to Pittsburg and from there to Eastern cities, and selling it cheaper than the Pittsburg product. The Japanese are extensively developing their coal lands. The output, which in 1881 was 700,000 tons, has been increased every year. The apparatus is from Europe, especially Germany. The French Canadian Society of Stonecutters, of Montreal, is enforcing the rule in practice in some of our cities of making stone-cutters from Great Britain pay SSO for initiation to the union. State Statistician Lamb, of Minnesota, complains of the number of girls looking for work which are not fit for a respectable family, and of the numerous families in which no decent girl would stay. In many places of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina, farm hands are paid from 35 to 50 cents a day. The P. E. Bishop, of Florida recently said that he knew people who were getting 50 cents a week. Servants get $2 and $3 a month in western North Carolina and parts of South Carolina. Railroad laborers get from 90 cents to $1.25 a day. In the trades wages run nearly up to the Northern standard. Mr. Koch, in an address_before the Society of Engineer’s of Western Pennsylvania, stated that he believed the reason why American plate was, so much better than English was because it was rolled in ,both directions at the same heat, and as a consequence the tensile strength of a cross section of our steel was almost the same as a longitudinal one, while the English plates showed a great difference that way, the cross sections not being able to stand anything near so much as the longitudinal when put to the test. The Journal of United Labor says: “The Order of-Knights of Labor is extending into all countries of the earth. There is already one flourishing district assembly at work in England, and the general executive board last week granted a charter for another district assembly in the same country. Inquiries are being made from Ireland, Scotland, Wales—from all the chief trade centers France, Germany and Belgium already have local assemblies, while Australia, South America and New Zealarfd are among the probabilities during the present summer season.”

Mr. E. I. Seward says: “The total coal production in the world is put at 420,000,000 tons, of which Great Britain produces 160,000,000, the United States 120,000,000, and Germany 75,000,000 tons. The production of the United States is divided between thirtv-tvo States and Territories, the largest of course being Pennsylvania, which last year gave us 34,000,000 of anthracite and 30,000,000 of bituminous. In money value the output in the United States is safely $500,000,000 in the markets Where used. This is greater than the value of the gold, silver, cotton and petroleum produced in our country.”