SATURDAY NIGHT’S WAGES.

The system frequently pursued in manufacturing towns in paying the wages of mechanics, is not, perhaps, calculated to give to these all the advantages which they should derive from their hard earnings.

It is the custom in many factories to pay the wages of the week at a neighbouring public-house on the Saturday evening, after the labours of the day are over. This duty, in a large establishment, is a work which necessarily occupies some time; and the most sober and well-disposed, those most anxious to take their earnings home to their families, cannot obtain their money in time for procuring the Sunday’s meal before the usual hour of rest. After a hard day’s labour, spent in domestic cares, and in rendering the dwelling in a fit state for the coming day, the weary housewife would gladly seek repose. Under this arrangement, however, she is obliged to encroach on the period which should be devoted to sleep, in order to make her requisite purchases, or to invade the quiet of the Sabbath morning with the petty cares of life, which, for that one day at least, should be laid aside.

This in itself is a great annoyance to the female part of the community; but it is light as air to them, compared with the more serious evil which the system carries in its train, and which they would gladly exchange for any personal inconvenience they might be called upon to endure.

Workmen of the most abstemious habits consider themselves in a manner constrained to take some refreshment in the house where they have just received money; and though they may spend but a trifle, that trifle would have been better bestowed in assisting to minister to the wants of those nearest and dearest to them. But what a temptation is held out to men of a less temperate character. Here the love of noisy fellowship is nourished, unfitting the mind for the quiet enjoyments of home. Here the habit of intoxication is gradually acquired and confirmed. While wives are anxiously waiting at the door of the house for those supplies which will enable them to furnish necessaries for their families, husbands are too often rioting within, forgetful of those ties which should prevent such a waste of time and money in selfish and degrading enjoyment; and when, at length, the expecting female does obtain the residue of the earnings which should have been appropriated to the support of her family for the ensuing week, she finds the sum fearfully diminished and inadequate for the purpose.

Many a watchful mother has had to mourn over the ruined prospects of a beloved son, whose first deviation from right was the loitering at the public-house on the Saturday night; his former simple habits gradually turned into those of selfishness, and all its lamentable consequences. Many an affectionate wife has had to grieve at this wreck of her early happiness, first invaded by the Saturday night’s temptation; while she is either left to struggle neglected and alone through the miseries of life, or called upon to endure more active ill treatment from her inebriated partner.

It may be said, we are rather exaggerating the picture; that a large proportion of those who gain their livelihood by working as mechanics are respectable, intelligent, and virtuous members of society. Most happily this is true; but we think a still farther number might be ranked in the same class, if the payment of wages were better regulated, while the comfort of the artisans, and that of their families, would at the same time be materially increased.

There can be little doubt that, were proprietors once convinced of the bad effects which arise from this plan, they would adopt one more conducive to the comfort of those by whose labour they are benefited. A walk in a manufacturing town at twelve o’clock on the Saturday night, would sufficiently expose the evils of this manner of payment. The shops are then still open, and harassed females are seen flocking to them; the streets are crowded with people; and many women, with looks of distress, are still lingering at the doors of the pay-houses, in the vain hope of alluring home their truant husbands. The whole continues a scene of noise, bustle, and confusion, long past the hour of midnight, and but ill-befitted to usher in the day of rest. How unlike the holy soothing repose of the cotter’s Saturday eve, so beautifully described by Burns.

If payment of the week’s earnings were made on the 295respective premises instead of at a drinking-house, and on the Friday instead of the Saturday evening, all these evils might at once be avoided.

The men would have no temptation given them to spend their earnings away from their families—the women would be enabled to make their purchases on the Saturday, at the time most convenient for the purpose, and they would have one chance less for unhappiness.

Two objections are made to this proposed alteration—the one moral, the other practical.

It is said that, with a well furnished pocket, a man not very industrious may be inclined to indulge himself in idleness during the ensuing day; but this would evince so total an absence of foresight and prudence, that the individual capable of such conduct would, we fear, when paid on the Saturday, in like manner take his holiday on the Monday, or just as long as his money might last.

The other objection arises from the mode in which the wages are usually paid at a large establishment. The required amount of money is in the first instance deposited in the hands of the confidential foreman, who does not pay each individual workman, but divides the whole in classes, and to a responsible man in each of these intrusts the sum due to his particular class: should the individuals of which this is composed be very numerous, he in his turn subdivides, till at length the various claimants receive their due. The transaction is not, therefore, simply that of a proprietor paying his men, but it involves itself into a much more complicated form, and the men must necessarily have a common place of rendezvous to adjust their various accounts. That this difficulty may be obviated, and that it is in fact nearly as easy to pay on the premises as to adjourn to another house, we happen to be furnished with a practical proof. The proprietor of a large concern, not residing on the spot where it is carried on, had recently occasion to proceed to that place in order to examine more particularly how the works were conducted. He immediately perceived the bad effects arising from the system of paying the workmen at a drinking-house, and determined at once to abolish the practice. This intention was strongly combated by the superintendent, who assured him that it was an impossibility to pay all the men at the works, for if the few to whom he delivered the money for their respective divisions were to receive it on the premises, they would of their own accord repair to the usual pay-house with those to whom the money was due, in order to make a settlement among themselves.

The gentleman persevered, however, in his intention; and on the day of payment, he himself, without any assistance, paid into the hands of each workman before he left the premises, the wages due to him. He thus proved the practicability of the alteration, and acquired the right of insisting that henceforth the plan should always be pursued. By a little method, and by the aid of a few assistants, this work would of course be comparatively easy to one understanding its practical details; if in the absence of these advantages it was accomplished without any difficulty, in the manner we have described, by one quite new to the business, in an establishment where numerous work-people are employed, it follows that this objection is of no weight.

Struggle between an Eagle and a Salmon.—“That the eagle is extremely destructive to fish, and particularly so to salmon, many circumstances would prove. Eagles are constantly discovered watching the fords in the spawning season, and are seen to seize and carry off the fish. Some years since a herdsman, on a very sultry day in July, while looking for a missing sheep, observed an eagle posted on a bank that overhung a pool. Presently the bird stooped and seized a salmon, and a violent struggle ensued: when the herdsman reached the spot, he found the eagle pulled under water by the strength of the fish, and the calmness of the day, joined to drenched plumage, rendered him unable to extricate himself. With a stone the peasant broke the eagle’s pinion, and actually secured the spoiler and his victim, for he found the salmon dying in his grasp. When shooting on Lord Sligo’s mountains, near the Killeries, I heard many particulars of the eagle’s habits and history from a grey-haired peasant who had passed a long life in these wilds. The scarcity of hares, which here were once abundant, he attributed to the rapacity of those birds; and he affirmed, that when in pursuit of these animals, the eagles evinced a degree of intelligence that appeared extraordinary. They coursed the hares, he said, with great judgment and certain success; one bird was the active follower, while the other remained in reserve, at the distance of forty or fifty yards. If the hare, by a sudden turn, freed himself from his most pressing enemy, the second bird instantly took up the chase, and thus prevented the victim from having a moment’s respite. He had remarked the eagles also while they were engaged in fishing. They chose a small ford upon the rivulet which connects Glencullen with Glandullah, and, posted on either side, waited patiently for the salmon to pass over. Their watch was never fruitless,—and many a salmon, in its transit from the sea to the lake, was transferred from its native element to the wild aërie in the Alpine cliff that beetles over the romantic waters of Glencullen.”

[These anecdotes are extracted from a work just published, containing spirited details of a sportsman’s life in Ireland, and numerous sketches of natural history. It is entitled, ‘Wild Sports of the West.’]