Wages In 1800

Master'u History. The condition of the wage class of that day may be well examined; t is full of instruction for social agitators. In the great cities unskilled workmen were hired by the day, bought their own food, and fotmd their own lodgings. But in the country, on the farms, or wherover a hand was em. ployed on some public work, they were ted and lodged by the employer and given a few dollars a month. On the Pennsylvania ranals the diggers ate the coarsest (Het, were housed in the rudest sheds and paid $6 a month from May to November, and $5 a month from Noveinoer to May. Hod carriers and niortar mixers, diegers and choppers, who, from 1793 to 1800, labored on the public buildings and cut the streets and avenues of Washington City, received $70 a year or if they wished, $00 for all the work theycould pet íormf rom March 1 toDocember 20. The hours of work were invariably from sunrise to sunset. Wagea at Albany and New York were 3 shilliugs, or, as inoney then went, 40 cents a day; at Lancaster, $8 to $10 a month; elsewhere in Pennsylvania, workmen were content with SO in summer and $5 in winter. At Ualtimore men were glad to be hired at 18 pence a day. None by the month, asked more than $0. At Fredericksburg the price of labor was from $f to $7. In Virginia, white men employed by the year were given L1(3 currtncy; slavís, when hired, were tlothed and their masters paid L1 a month. A pound of Virginia money was in federal nioiuy $3 33. The average rate of wajes tlie land over was. therefore, $65 a year, with food and, perhaps, lodiiiag. Out of this smail sum the workman must, with his wife's help, maintain his family.