VIII. SEAMEN'S WAGES.

Wages paid per month to seamen (officers and men), distinguishing between ocean, coast, and ricer navigation, and between sail and steam, in Waterford.

Wages paid per week of sixty hours in dry-goods stores, wholesale or retail, to males and females, in Waterford, with board and lodging.

Wages paid per year to household servants (towns and cities) in Waterford.

Wages paid per year to agricultural laborers and household (country) servants in Waterford County, &c., with board and lodging.

XII. Corporation empLOYÉS.

Wages paid per week of sixty hours to the corporation employés in the city of Waterford.

Statement showing the wages paid per week of sixty hours to printers (compositors, pressmen' proof-readers, &c.) in Waterford.

Statement showing the retail prices of various articles, including the necessaries of life,

at Cork.

STATEMENT COMPILED BY THE CONSUL-GENERAL AT LONDON.

*If Dublin and Belfast were included, the average wages would correspond with Cork rather than Londonderry.

FRANCE.

BORDEAUX,

(Two reports.)

FIRST REPORT BY CONSUL ROOSEVELT.

CONDITION OF WORKINGMEN.

In the city of Bordeaux, one of the largest centers of commerce and industry in France, all able-bodied men having no family charges can earn sufficient money for the necessaries of life, and steady, skillful workmen generally amass a modest competency for their old days. The workingman, when single, usually lives from hand to mouth, and when in possession of his weekly pay indulges in dissipation as long as there is a sou left in his pocket, and seldom resumes work on Mondays. They are independent and work slowly, unless paid by the job or working for their own interest. Believing that they have a claim upon society at large for support when they become old or disabled, they are improvident and have no desire to save, and, although averse to begging, they dissipate their earnings without a thought of the future.

After marriage they lead a more regular life; the wife equally works, and when there are no children, through frugality and care, the result is comfort at home and a few francs in bank. When there is a family, the mother takes her little ones to the nearest asylum in the morning and returns for them after work, paying 1 cent per head, food not included (this, brought by the child, is generally a piece of bread and sometimes the remains of the previous day's supper). Frequently house-maids and other girls of that class contract marriage simply to be freed from regular work, bringing to their homes habits of laziness which make them a burden instead of an aid to the husband, who, having to work unassisted, cannot succeed in earning sufficient for the wants of his growing family.

CAFÉS AND RESTAURANTS.

The ordinary diet of the married man taking his meals at home consists of soup made from vegetables or bones, or the cheapest cuts from the butcher's stall, bread, cheap vegetables, and sometimes fruit when abundant, and coarse wine, which is used at every meal. The single man, who is in the majority, takes his meals in restaurants or cafés, where for from 15 to 20 cents, he gets a stew made of cheap and not always fresh meats, old vegetables, bread, and a bottle of wine, or at least a horrible beverage, made from a mixture of alcohol, water, and logwood or any other coloring matter, called wine. These restaurants, being the resort of all unemployed men, are a danger alike to public health and morals, being the home of outcasts of society, honest workmen are thrown in contact with them.

Petitions have frequently been presented to have a number of these restaurants closed, but without result. The increasing expenses weighing on the municipality make it a necessity to grant as many licenses as can be paid for. The temporary credit granted by the restaurant keepers, and also their influence over their customers in those centers

of propagandism, are sufficiently powerful levers during election times to secure for them the protection of men in political life.

If, after leaving the restaurant, the workingman still has a few francs, he spends them at public balls and low places of amusement without the least thought of the next day. When at last a victim to disease, he lies miserable on his pallet without a sou, he looks for assistance from the people living in the same house with him, knowing well the spirit of fraternity prevalent in his class, each extending to the other that charity which he knows he will require himself sooner or later.

FLASHY DRESSING.

A peculiarity of the French character, found even in the lower classes, is the desire for dress. Every workingman has the commendable vanity for a tidy and complete suit of clothes, generally deemed incomplete without the addition of a pair of high heeled boots, a watchchain and locket of gilt metal, for their Sunday attire; and thus dressed with hat conspicuously on one side of the head, would not be recognized as the same person, who the day before was covered with lime, plaster, or charcoal.

WORKING HABITS.

The working classes, with few exceptions, receive a very moderate education; and some, besides general attainments, are thoroughly acquainted with the elements of some particular art or manufacture. The steady, well-behaved man, devoting his spare time to study, soon becomes a skillful artisan. They excel in stone and wood carving, house and porcelain painting, ornamental cabinet making, and in all works of decoration in which the personal taste of the workman is his principal guide. This in a measure accounts for their slowness in work. The man engaged in the completion of a piece of work for which he has no pattern, or the pattern of which has to be altered to fit a general plan, or any particular circumstance for which it is intended, requires time for reflection, and frequent pauses to regard the progress of his work to appreciate the perspective and judge of the effect. But this apparent slowness, due to the most praiseworthy desire of being exact and honest in work, should not be confounded with the practice of the lower mechanics, who deliberately waste their time through ill-feeling toward their employer-their enemy as they invariably consider him.

HOW THE WORKING PEOPLE LIVE.

Workingmen living in the same city with their relatives remain in the family home, however cramped or poor, until they get married or are led astray by evil counselors. The general living expenses, not including food, are as follows:

A single room, furnished or unfurnished, rents from $1.30 to $2.30 per month. Two rooms for about $3. Two rooms with a small kitchen and cellar from $5 to $6 per month. A family, however numerous, seldom if ever rents more than two rooms, kitchen, and cellar; very few single men have any furniture of their own; most of the lodgings contain an iron bedstead, a table and two chairs. Married people only, or single women, have more comfortable and completely furnished rooms, according to their condition. The expenditure for clothing would be very rea sonable if the workingman would content himself with the dress of his class, which costs about $3 a suit; but many, especially the young men,