Rate of wage per day or week for permanent laborers in copper and sulphur miues, &c.-Cont'd.

Annual salaries of employés in the municipal administration of the city of Venice.

Annual salaries of employés in the municipal administration of the city of Venice-Cont'd.

Rates of wages per day allowed by the municipality of Venice for labor on the public works

of the city.

[These rates include an allowance of 10 per cent. to the contractor, and the discount allowance to the laborer is often more.]

Rates of wages per day allowed by the municipality of Venice, fc.-Continued.

Average retail prices of the principal objects of consumption in the market of Venice. NOTE.-These prices are those of the small retail trade, and in kilograms, and show the cost to the laborer, who provides himself in this way almost without exception.

Average retail price of the principal objects of consumption in the market of Venice-Cont'd.

Market prices of the common kinds of fish and shell-fish consumed by the population of

Knowing that the relative condition of the industrial classes in the United States, as compared with the industrial classes in other countries, is at this time a subject of much interest to the people of the United States, I venture to submit to the Department the following statements, as the result of investigation.

The tables appended will show the salaries and wages given from the highest civil, military, and naval officer to the ordinary uneducated day-laborer.

These tables are collected from official and reliable sources.

The question as to whether it would not be beneficial to control by law the right of employing women and children has been open since 1875, and attempts have been unsuccessfully made to pass a law to control such labor.

Both on the 14th February, 1877, and the 25th July, 1879, circulars

were addressed by the minister of agriculture, industry, and commerce to the prefects of the Kingdom, but the replies to the circulars were not such as to indicate that the employers would be willing that a law controlling female and children's labor should go into force.

The Government then decided to submit the question to the different chambers of commerce in a circular dated November 20, 1883, viz:

1st. Whether the employment of children should not be entirely forbidden until the age of nine years had been reached.

2d. That they then should only work a half day, five or six hours per day until the age of twelve or fourteen years.

3d. Whether, after that age, it would not be beneficial to prohibit their employment on Sundays and at night-time until the age of sixteen.

The opinions expressed by the different chambers of commerce may be described as follows:

1st. To prohibit entirely the employment of children at manual labor until they may have arrived at the age of ten years; to forbid their employment on Sundays or at night-time until they may have arrived at the age of fifteen years.

2d. To organize committees in the provinces to superintend the execution of the law.

It is to be hoped that such action will be taken that the employment of children may be controlled, and then many at present unavoidable abuses done away with.

In regard to employment throughout Italy at present, women work at spinning and weaving (silk, cotton, and wool), in hemp and paper mills, and in this district principally in making straw plaits and braids. They are also largely employed in the fields and vegetable gardens or truck patches.

One finds children working at all trades, but few are under ten years of age.

The average hours of work are: Fifteen hours from the twenty-four in the summer, with two hours for meals allowed from the fifteen; twelve hours from the twenty-four in the winter, with one hour and a half for meals allowed from the twelve.

Except in foundries, where the necessity exists, and night and day hands are employed, night work after 9 o'clock is the exception.

Sundays are universally used by the working classes as days of recreation; and the more important holidays, with what are called name days, or the day of the saint the children take their names from, are strictly observed, particularly in the south of Italy.

In and in the neighborhood of Florence women are paid from 10 to 22 cents per day, children from 10 to 40 cents per week, or for odd jobs 10 to 17 cents per day; the ordinary labor of men is valued at from 30 to 60 cents per day.

In woolen mills the hands employed are males to females as 60 to 40. In cotton mills women predominate in the same ratio. In the straw trade 80 women are employed to every 20 men.

In regard to the general health of the working classes in Tuscany it can be said to be good. However, certain trades produce certain diseases, just as in the United States or elsewhere, and here in the cities and towns a lack of proper nourishment may add to the tendency to disease.

Drunkenness prevails but to a slight extent among the working classes. The prevailing vice is gambling. Gambling is nourished by 92 A-LAB-101