Die Entwicklung der Weißgerberei

Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 883887894

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-6560

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Ebert, Georg

Title:: Die Entwicklung der Weißgerberei

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: A. Deichert'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung

Year of publication:: 1913

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XL, 408 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2017

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: 2.Teil. Die Produktionsprinzipien

Collection:: Economics Books

MANNHEIM. 337 It is a sign of the times that the large breweries of Mannheim have recently abolished the cifstom of “ free beer,” with the full concurrence of their workpeople, and have substituted a money payment equal to the old beer allowance on wholesale terms. The time-honoured “ free drink ” (Freitrank) was in most cases equal to nearly 4h quarts a day, and the workmen exercised their rights to the full. Now 5&. It/, per week is added to the wages in lieu of this allowance, and in other cases a sum proportionate to the beer allowance surrendered. The men are, however, still able to buy beer for their own consumption, at the rate of commutation, four times a day. The Factory Inspectors point out that the first result of the change was a reduction of the workpeople’s beer consumption to between a third and a quarter of the former amount, and coincident with this greater moderation in drinking were noted increased application and industry, less abstention from work, and less sickness. “ Free beer” to an unlimited amount is nevertheless the rule at some of the local breweries, and the custom of living on the premises has not yet died out. Housing and Rents. The great majority of the working-class households of Mannheim live in dwellings of two and three rooms, these rooms consisting either of a living and bedroom and a kitchen or two living and bedrooms and a kitchen. Of 26,333 rented dwellings not used for trade enumerated at the census of December, 1905, 816 or 3T per cent, contained a habitable room without a kitchen, 5,413 or 20’5 per cent, contained a room with a kitchen, 409 or T6 per cent, contained two rooms without a kitchen, 10,642 or 40'4 per cent, contained two rooms with a kitchen, and 4,856 or 18 4 per cent, contained three rooms with kitchen. Thus 22T per cent, of these dwellings contained two rooms of all kinds, and 65*6 per cent, contained one, two, or three rooms. The foregoing classification covers all rented dwellings, no portions of which are used for industrial purposes, but if the classification be confined to purely working-class districts the predominant type of house is seen still more clearly. Taking, for example, the districts of Schwetzingervorstadt and Neckarvorstadt in the old town, and the three incorporated suburbs which form New Mannheim (Käferthal, Waldhof, and Neckarau), it is found that the dwellings of two and three rooms—the kitchen being counted as a room—compose 75T per cent, of the whole, and if the dwellings of a single room be added, a total of 78*4 per cent, of " small ” dwellings is arrived at for these districts. The number of dwellings per building tends to increase in nearly every part of the town. For Mannheim as a whole it was 5'8 in 1905, against 5*5 in 1900, but in Schwetzingervorstadt it was 7*7 in 1905, against 7 2 in 1900 ; in Lindenhof 7'0 and 6'6 respectively, and in Waldhof 6'0 and 2 3. In almost all parts of the town are buildings containing over 25 households ; the maximum number being found in the new suburb of \\ aldhof. A considerable number of the tenements of two rooms and a kitchen are inhabited by households of the lower middle class ; working people oftener go below than above this accommodation, and when three living and bedrooms are rented it may as a rule be assumed that lodgers are taken. This paucity of rooms is, however, counterbalanced to some extent by the fact that the kitchen is almost invariably a fairly spacious apartment. All the rooms in a Mannheim tenement are heatable—nominally at least—and to that extent are convertible as to use. The kitchen itself not seldom serves as a bedroom as well ; the practice is discouraged, even forbidden, and carefully watched, yet the most careful scrutiny cannot prevent it, and where a household is pinched for space, to set up a bed in one corner of the kitchen is the first suggestion of necessity. Basement dwellings, however, are unknown in Mannheim, and the nearest approach are the half-basements attached to better-class houses for the porters’ families and to the public schools for the attendants. As the foregoing figures suggest, several districts of the enlarged municipal area are predominantly inhabited by the working classes, and it is noticeable that overcrowding has already made its appearance in these newer districts. Taking the average of the whole town, the number of inhabitants per room was, in 1905, 1-59, while 9*88 per cent, of the population lived in dwellings 2 u 29088

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