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TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Reference has been A Yankee Boss made before now to the in England. exploits of one Mr James C. Stewart, an American builder and engineer, whose methods ore the embodiment of "hustle" and "push." For years ne has had a great renutatdon in his native land, but he easily heat all previous feats by one which placed him in the unchallenged position of the smartest "boss" in America.. Twenty-six weeks before the date of the opening of the Pittsburg Exposition, the whole of the buildings, then in _n advanced state, were destroyed by fire. We are told little about these buildings, except that they cost. £150.000, that the main building was 350 ft long, 100 ft wide, and 175 ft high, that the musical hall was capable of seating 5000 persons, and that the whole place was constructed of finest pressed bricks, set off with fluted -.rinthian columns of white stone. When the fixe took place labour was scarce, and material costly. Mr Stewart- firm undertook the task of rebuilding in time for the advertised day of opening. SNeairly a fortnight was spent in preliminaries, but, nevertheless, the building was completed and opened to the public 160 days after tie fire. The fame which this feat brought to Mr Stewart led to hi- engagement _y the British Westinghouse Brake Company, to supervise the construction of uieir huge works near Manchester. The English contractors had men. turned five years as the jperiod rtqtrired foT t_e completion of the buildings. Mr Stewart came over to find 236 men at work, within a week he had 2600 engaged, and at times he employed 3750. He induced the British workman to uiorease the number of bricks he bid each day of rdh. hours from 500 or 600 to 1800 per day, and.t0.2500 on the plainest work. His methods of encouraging the men to do their best varied from the gift of a suit of clothes to the present of "the sack." T_ey seem to have _een uniformly successful, and, aided by the fact that the wages he paid gave him the best workmen, he had the -upefst-ucture fini__ed in seven months. And there were never more than ten Ameri-can.-engaged on the works during the whole time. Mr Stewart did more than add to his own reputation; he proved that when properly 'handled the British workman '« as smart as the best American. So convinced have the company become of the .excellence of American methods, says the new magazine, "The World's Work," that they have sent fifty young __tgl____e» to Pittsburg to study then, on the spot. Mr Stewart's opinion is ,that a good deal of the blame for the present comparative inefficiency of British business methods is due to the employers. It is not all the fault of the workmen. "There is plenty of snap in the Britssih workman," he says, "if you will only let him see t_at there is no snap in you." The physical decadence Tha Russian which British army doo--Conscript. tors have noted, during recent years, among the new recruits is to be found in even more deplorable degree among the peasant conscripts of Russia. It is seen in the steadilyincreasing number of ''rejects." At tne time self-mutilation and secret inoculation with infectious disease- were very prevalent among the peasant-, whose object was, of course, to render themselves u_fi_ for milita_y service. The number of 44 m__hgerers" has been greatly reduced of htfe by the severity of the punishment inflict wi when the deception is detected; nevertheless the number of conscripts rejected from the army for quite natural causes continues to increase. "The proof of decadence," says the t»ri_spond_at of the "Standard," is demonstrated by the fact that with every recurring recruiting season it has becom-neces-ary to increase the number of village peasants called, and yet the rejections not only augment in more than due ratio, but the Conscript (_o___-_iio_ers are now compelled to accept youths who, only a few years,, ago, would have been summarily re-

jeoted." The -ig_s of phyakal decadence— the stunted stature, imperfect developiaent, contraoted chest, and generally premature debility—_ro plainly due to too want of proper nourishment. The peasant-soldier- food before he joins the army .o___rt_ chdefly of very oo_rse and impure black bread, potatoes, mm cabbage, beetroot, eto.—« vegetarian diet, and a very poor one at that. Only on special holidays like Easter and Christmas doehe enjoy the h-cury of meat, and he seldom has the opportunity of eating wheaten bread. How wretched is the condition of the Russian pea-ant may be judged from this paragraph from the report of one of the Government Medical Com__s_ioners of Kieff:—"The absolute lack of hygaenic rules, or even of elementary cleanliness, i~ : alas! only too palpably manifested in the medical examination of the villftg- conscript. One does not expect, of course, to find public baths in rural Russia, and in the summer the peaiant, toiling from sunrise to sundown, has no time, even had he th* natural inclination* for a dip and a wash in the nearest stream." So deplorable a state of affairs suggests that if it h only to cleanse him of his filt_ the compulsory enliet-nent of the Russian monjik may be after all a blessing in disguise. And yet he hates the conscription more intensely than any other peasant conscript in Europe. The state of mind in which MThe Krukoff, the Russian AgriculRussian tural Co__ni_sio_er, will leave Critic. Australia, will apparently be one of the most profound amazement. M. I_ruko_:, as we have heard, is engaged on a prolonged tour of the world, for the purpose of picking up such information as may be useful in developing Russia's agricuttural resources. He came first to Australia, little dreaming what an extraordinary sort of place it was. His astonishment at finding that Australian women do not work in the fie___ as Russian peasant women do was only equalled by his surprise at finding that many of them have a vote. His opinion of man-ood suffrage was low enough; the idea of female franchise almost deprived him of speech. It would b3 ali right, he thought, for women who had houses and land to havo a voice in the Gov-, ernment of the country, "but to give a vote to the young unmarried woman, the girl in the shop, the factory ■!" M. Krukoff could only wave hk hands. Altogether, Australia ia rather a puzzle to the Russian visitor. He does not think much of the Australian labourer—"it is too much care that he takes of himself. He works, how many hours?—eight {hours. Huh! And he eats sweets!" More expressive waving of the hands conveyed M. Krukoffs opinion. A true patriot, he spoke up bravely for the Russian workers, who, he d-clared, lived very differently. "Hard Uvea make h_rd men. They eat hard, food. The Australi-n labourer eats soft things; nice things perhaps, but Ido not think co _our___i-g. In Russia they eat the rye bread, black bread, with afl the good-ess left in it. In Austraiia you eat bread with all the goodness left out. You give tha good to the pigsi. It is bad." Which is true enough so far as our bread is concerned, though of the cd_vparative merits of -lack bread we ere unable to speak. M. Krukoff then chocked his interviewer by asserting that Australians are deJkate-looking. They have been called many things, but "delicacy" i~ not usually considered the bus-man . charact-ristao. 'In ouz country," continued the critic, ."they eat bread, cucumbers, cabbage, beef, soup —&_ good food—and work fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours a day. In rummer the labourer works always from -unrise to -unset. He has his recreation at times, but not like the Austin-ion. Your worker here has too much time to himself. In the city at night abops are closed and the stoeet with people are ML They stand about smoking, drinkkig, talking. Huh! The street is not a good school," which also is true enough. It is only natural after a_ that Austrati* should be full of surprises for a Russian official, for the two countries are in many respects besides geographical conditio--, the very antipodes of each other, and the liberty of Australia would be regarded as dangerous license in Russia.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19030122.2.19

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11488, 22 January 1903, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,376

TOPICS OF THE DAY. Press, Volume LX, Issue 11488, 22 January 1903, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY. Press, Volume LX, Issue 11488, 22 January 1903, Page 4

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