Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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336 MANNHEIM. A small trade peculiar to Mannheim is the hawking of shavings and saw dust from the saw mills, and this, too, is specially a woman’s trade. At certain hours of the day the entrances to the large timber yards near the river will be found thronged by women and children, who have come with vehicles of all sorts and sizes—sack carts, handcarts, dog-drawn carts, perambulators, barrows, and improvised box carts—to buy the shavings and sawdust. These can be had at the rate of 10 pfennige (1 ‘2d.) for a large sack, nearly 5 feet high, and while they are used as fuel at home, they are also sold at 30 pfennige (3‘6d.) per sack, though the excess of 20 pfennige is but slight remuneration for the heavy labour involved. Another home industry in which women are engaged is the making of light wooden or cardboard boxes, the material for which is supplied. The price for a 100 boxes is about 2s. Qd., and a married woman working in odd times during the day and keeping at her task until a late hour at night can make 300 or 400 a week, thus earning 7s. 6d. or 10s. One such worker visited devoted two hours to her boxes between 5.30 and 8 a.m. ; then five hours between 1 and 7 ; then, the evening meal being over and the children put to bed, she generally worked two or three hours longer, her normal work day, in the absence of hindrances, being nine or ten hours. Much benevolent effort is put forth by large companies and private employers beyond the requirements of the Industrial Insurance and Factory Laws. The colonies of workmen’s dwellings which have been built in the neigh bourhood of Mannheim are referred to under the heading " Housing and Rents.” Other noticeable institutions are the canteens and kitchens, the lodging houses for single men, the baths, and the various benefit and relief funds for widows and orphans, sick children, aged workmen, &c. Several of the works outside the town, in the Waldhof district, have established canteens at which nutritious food is supplied under cost price. Soup and bread can be had for 1^¿L, and dinner complete for 3d., white wine for less than 3d. the gill, and red wine for about Id. more. Nevertheless, the workpeople do not invariably take kindly to the factory canteen and kitchen, and several canteens have had to be closed, while others have been handed over to private caterers. Lodging houses or bothies for unmarried men and men who have left their families behind are maintained by works carried on to a large extent by imported labour. In several factories outside the town a great number of Prussian Poles as well as Russians and other foreigners are employed, and free housing is generally part of the contract of service under which these men come west. In one lodging house alone there is provision for over 400 labourers, and it is generally full. While the bed is free, to the extent that no direct payment is made for it, food is supplied below cost, less than 2d. being charged for breakfast or supper and but little more for dinner. During a single year 82,450 break fasts, 34,345 dinners, 140,100 afternoon coffees, and 51,260 suppers were served, and the entire institution cost the firm £1,250. Handsome contributions are made yearly by many firms to their special benefit funds, most of which have their origin in bequests or benefactions by living donors prompted by notable events in their industrial careers, such as jubilees, important business extensions, and the like. One of the largest of these funds has an invested capital of £8,000. As a rule the employer determines the character and the measure of the grants made, but in one case a committee of the workpeople entirely controls the disposition of the funds available. In connexion with one of the foremost engineering works a system of assisted life assurance has been introduced with good results. Under a contract with a reliable society every workman is enabled to take out a small endowment policy on special terms, and the firm pays one-third of the premium after five years of service, half the premium after ten years, and two-thirds after fifteen years. Another firm (that of H. Lanz) has an unemployment fund. Of late years vigorous efforts have been made by some of the larger employers to encourage temperance amongst their workpeople. In their canteens prominence is given to " temperance drinks,” and in 1904 one firm, employing 1,600 men, sold no fewer than 160,900 .bottles of mineral water at from \d. to \d. a bottle. Other firms are in the habit of supplying coffee free to the workrooms during the afternoon pause.

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