Lace Making

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 171, 25 September 1886, Page 8

Lace Making

Lace-making as an. industry by hand ,ia becoming year by year of a less lucratire character, .as the imitation patterns areproduced at such extremely low; prices by the aid of machinery. * There is sbtrie prettylace work ; made by hand iii the mountain districts of Saxony, but the unfortunate lace- ' makers are dnoe more ''in' distress.' the weekly wages of a dexterous workwoman airpresent do not exceed 1J florins, and in many instances barely amount to one and 'one-fifth florins, a price which with the high cost of potatoes, the bread of themountain villagers, is sure to" produce a ■famine unless d turn for the better' takes place. These wages amount to about 75> ■ cents a week, but the fashionable belle in donning the prettyj fabric over her silks and satins little'tbinks of the continuous' and ill-requited labour of the unfortunate lacemaker. ' In Germany," as in France, the wealth of the nation is sapped by the expensive military' establishments. This is 'phe case not only by direct 'taxation, but : alsfo-by the billeting system through which privite citizens have' to provide rations and lodging for soldiers where there is not therequiaite barrack accommodations. ' Thup, ' as the proprietor of Babelsberg ' Castle, the' Emperor,' like other owners of estates in, Neuendorf, 1 is liable to have sixteen soldiers ' quartered upon Win,' which number has at ' times 'risen to eighty, and it is an acknowledged fact that they" rather like to.be. quartered at Babelsbergj inasmuch as they not only receive the regulation treatment*. ~ Tiufc also as high-^a-fcwo-marka «ft-day besides—a aad commentary : 75 cents a week for ihe'pcibrt lace girl Tl atid r a dollar a day/ drtrik inorieyf or the aoldieri '•' .'

f' Jn Dehmark tbemembore of the Lands- 'K™ and the Folkothing are paid 'tte> ' ' •arne (salary, 15» a day., The »T©rage xnufcr- , ber oi working d»yi in » eeiaion in 145 ; th» total amount for the nm« is £113 15».