"BIG WAGES" IN AMERICA.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1733, 23 February 1874, Page 3

"BIG WAGES" IN AMERICA.

The American correspondent of the Irish Times says: — The "peculiarities" of American money, and what it can purchase, make people believe that there is nothing to do but come to the United States and get rich, when they hear of what wages can be earned here. I want now to give facts— hard facts — as to the wages here, and what, the same are really worth. Laborers — and the great bulk of Irish laborers become merely unskilled laborers here— can get from 1 dol 75c to 2dol a day, I was speaking to a gang of Irishmen, who were putting down a stone "ballast" on a great leading railway, about their wages. They had a certain amount of skill in their work. They told me that their wages were 1 dol 50 cents a day — never more. Now, if this be read as 36s a week for laborers on a railway, of course it looks big wages. But it is 36s a week in "greenbacks," and what will the amount purchase for the laborer and his family ? Everything, all round, is dealt with in the same expanded currency, and everywhere you turn you have to pay just in the same style for every article you purchase. A working man could get a good pair of strong boots or shoes in Ireland, out of which he could take from six to nine months' wear, with some repairs, for from, 7s 6d to 10s. Here he will pay Bix dollars (245) fora pair that will hardly keep his feet dry at the very first, and will not wear over three months at the very best. He must buy three pairs here for one pair at home. Just take my own experience by way of illustration. In Dublin I have worn several pairs of boots, one after the other, at 34s a pair. I brought one pair of them out to the United States now. I wore those here for over twelve months, with a pair of soles on them as the only repairs. 1 bought a pair in Nassau street, New York, for Bdol, which only lasted three months. It would take four pairs of them to wear me as long as one pair I could get in Dublin ; and at Bdol a pair, 325, instead of 143 a pair, four pair would be 128s, or L 6 Bs, for boots for a year here, instead of 14s in Dublin. I leave cost of repairs out in both cases. I have a cotamore made in Dublin, which cost me L 3 ss, about 16dol. I was offered 65d0l for it here, after wearing it three winters. A hat that I could buy in Dublin for 12b 6d will cost me here 7dol to Bdol, 28s to 325. I have worn good Buits'of tweed in Dublin, costing from L 3 53 to L 3 15s. Anything nearly as good here will cost from 30dol to 40dol— L6 to

LB. House rent, owing, of course, to the »»ery high wages for all labor on buildings, F^hd to the heavy taxation of the cities, is enormously high. Working men earning Idol 50c to 2dol a day cannot get two rooms, and only pockets, for less than lOdol a month, in advance, in the poorest and lowest slum of our American cities. Any decent place would be 15dol to 20dol a month. Any man like a foreman cutter in a tailoring establishment, a draper's assistant, a grocer's assistant, and men of their class, could not get any place to rent that they would let it be known they lived In for less than 40dol to 50dol a month. And this, too, at such a distance from their business as to involve street car-fares, tramway fares to and fro every day, which makes an additional rent. It will thus be seen that all the talk about "high wages" received here is absurd. If those who write home about the wages would only just tell the expense of living here, then a better idea could be formed of the disadvantages of American life. The cost of clothing women and children is even greater than that of clothing men. A man in many cases may wear what he pleaaeß in America. But the women ! They must dress. Every woman dresses out of all proportion to the means at her disposal, except in one case in a thousand. It is a fearful drag on struggling men here to keep their wives and daughters " dressed in the fashion." Dressmakers charge Bdol for making a plain dress for a servant girl— 42s for making it alone. It takes 20 yardß now to cover a middlesized woman ; but at Idol a yard, for anything fit to be seen in, it comes to 20dol, and Bdol for making it, and 2dol for trimming, aplain dress will thus cost 30dol. What is the use of Biddy writing home to Ireland that she has 12dol a month, or 15dol a month, and her board, when it takes SOdol to put one dress on her that she would dare to to be seen at mass jn on Sunday morning. And everything else costs her equally high. There is really nothing to be made by these nominally , high wages.