BAKERS' "MAKINGS."

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2525, 15 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

BAKERS' "MAKINGS."

Short weight is not one of the bakers' makings," as the term is understood in the trade. " Makings." says a contemporary, " is a technical term signifying the journeymen's perquisites." These perquisites are of a peculiar character. There is, for instance, " yeast-money." The yeastdealer charges the baker more than he ought for his yeast, and the difference is afterwards handed over to the journeymen. Should a. master-baker wish to try a new sort of yeast, or should the yeast-dealer repudiate the custom of the trade, the journeymen take care that the yeast will not work, and the bakings are spoiled. A similar method obtains with regard to millers. Unless the miller pays" sack-money," he finds that some of his empty sacks, before being returned, have been so damaged as to be unfit for use, while others are never returned to him, and he cannot discover what has become of them. The most important of the " makings," however, consists in downright fraud, for which convictions by tho magistrate not infrequently take place. It is a practice on the part of the journeymen who deliver bread at large households to strike a bargain with those who give the orders to deliver a loaf less on each order than is chareed for in the bill, the journeymen and the domestic sharing the profit made by tho fradulent transaction. When it is remembered that in many instances the " makings " come to as much a wages, it will readily be seen that unscrupulous masters will willingly consent to a scheme by which they pay their employes low wages, leaving the difference to be made up by the ingenuity with which " makings " may be increased at the cost of the customers. The defence to all this is that it is " the generally aekuowledgcd custom of the trade."