Life of the Clerk. A Class of Well-Dressed but Small salaried Men.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 345, 23 February 1889, Page 4

Life of the Clerk. A Class of Well-Dressed but Small salaried Men.

The poorest paid class of genteel labourers in the city (says the ' Chicago News ') are the clerks. There is no exception to this statement when it refers to the rank and file of the employees of stores. The reason oi this is no doubt apparent, when it is considered that the tendency among the youth of the counti-y is to shun a mechani cal calling. The slavery of working in a stoi*e has a charm for young men who have neglected to learn a trade because it is more genteel than hammering iron or sawing boards. It is a compromise between manual labour in the common acceptance of the term and a dignified profession. The youth who has not the opportunity to obtain a college education harbours the false logic that a clerkship is a genteel employment, and ekes out a miserable daily allowance during his whole life standing behind a counter. The proprietors of grocery houses in Chicago complain that they cannot get experienced clerks to do their work ; that young men come to them without any qualifications whatever and attempt to do the tasks assigned them. Taking the opinion of the employers, that their best clerks come from England, where an apprenticeship of six years is demanded, then the fault of low wages would seem to rest entirely with the clerks, who are paid a sum of money for their services equal to that received by other unskilled labourers. There is a measure of justice in the arguments of the employers, who further assert that the grocery business is not profitable owing to the small margin on sales. They prove that it is impossible for the grocer to pay large salaries to his employees when the staple articles of sale are so controlled by trusts and monopolies that no profits can be made. This being true, the vocation of a grocery clerk is anything but inviting, and, instead of growing better, will continue to grow worse. No estimate can be made of the number of young men who are toiling their lives away as grocery clerks for a pittance, but they are among the thousands. Their hours of work are long and tedious. They must be at the store not later than 5.30 o'clock in the morning, and seldom finish their day's work before 8 o'clock at night. There is not aday during the week that they are not on duty more than twelve hours, and the time ia oftener sixteen hours of continual service, with half-an-hour for dinner. If the pay were commensurate with the labour, then the hours would not seem so long j but it is not. The average salary of the grocery clerk in Chicago is less than $12 a week. When a muscular young man presents himself as a candidate for a clerkship, his education ia inquired into. If he has a common-school learning and is otherwise bright and intelligent he is placed behind the sugar counter. He stands there measuring sugar for the magnificent salary of $6 a week. At the end of six months he is qualified to take a position at the order counter, and gets $8 a week. He is liable to remain an order clerk for an indefinite period, ancTthere is only one more promotion. He can become a salesman at an advanced salary, which never exceeds $16 a week. - There seems to be no hope that the grocery clerk can better his condition, as the servitude of a lifetime would not result in the accumulation , of $1,000, even with the most, rigid economy. The grocery clerk's condition may serve to deter other young men from adopting Jus calling and may bring them to a realisation that now, as always, the skilled mechanic is a king.

It is estimated that the number of 'passengers carried by all the railroads in the world averages six million five hundred thousand a day. -