68 
BARMEN. 
houses approached ny successive flights of steps. Except for short distances 
in a few of the chief thoroughfares, the roadways are paved with cobbles 
and the streets are therefore noisy. As in Elberfeld, most of the older 
houses are faced with slate either in its natural colour or painted black. 
The windows of such houses are provided with green shutters and the 
sashes and frames are painted white, while in many cases the doors are 
elaborately carved. This picturesque type of house is gradually disappearing, 
however, and its place is being taken by the less picturesque but more 
convenient houses of the stucco-fronted type now common to most German 
towns. Locomotion is cheap and convenient and is provided by the municipal 
electric tramways as well as by the famous hanging railway (also electric) which 
runs along a track suspended about 60 feet over the Wupper and supported by 
iron girders fixed in either side of the river bank. By either of these means it 
is possible to get from one end of the town to the other in a quarter of an hour 
for about a penny. 
Signs of extreme poverty are not in evidence among the working classes, 
This may perhaps in some measure be attributed to the system of poor-relief 
(the Elberfeld system) which makes each “ almoner ” responsible for the care of 
two or three families only. But even those among the working classes who are 
reported to be the most discontented, viz., the members of the Social-Democratic 
Trade Unions, concede that the proportion of extreme poverty is small and 
attribute this to the character of the local industry—mainly textile—which 
gives employment in their homes to many who are unfitted through age or 
infirmity to work in the factories. While the death rate is one of the lowest 
recorded in any German town there are not wanting signs of weakness among 
the very young, due, in all probability, to lack of attention from mothers who 
are engaged in the factories all day. 
Occupations, Wages, and Hours of Labour. 
The principal manufactures of Barmen consist of articles coming under the 
general head of haberdashery, and among such articles those fur which the 
town has acquired a world-wide reputation under the name of “ Barmen goods,” 
viz., braids, galloons, trimmings, elastic and other webbings, mohair and other 
laces (boot, shoe and corset), tapes, dress-linings (Italian cloth) and bindings, 
hat-bands and ribbons of cotton, silk, or half-silk, dress goods and umbrella 
stuffs of silk and cotton, glazed yarn (“iron yarn ”), Turkey-red yarn, upholstery 
goods and carpetings. All of these are classed in local statistics under the 
general heading of “ textiles,” and employ some 20,000 workpeople, or a little 
inore than half of the occupied population of the town. With respect to yarn 
it may be noted that in Barmen only the glazing and dyeing processes are 
cairied on, and that there are no spinning mills. Other local industries of 
importance aie the manufacture of pianos, textile machines (for braiding’ and 
weaving), buttons, buckles, hooks and eyes, envelopes and other paper goods. 
In the most important of the trades, ¿.c., textiles and engineering, the 
piece-wage system preponderates, and in the former the bulk of the operatives 
are women and young girls, whose earnings do not come within the scope of 
the piesent inquiry. In the case of all piece-wage workers the endeavour has 
been made to ascertain the amount usually earned in a full week (without 
overtime), but owing to the widely differing degrees of skill and earning power 
among such operatives the ranges of earnings shown are somewhat wide it 
happens „also m some cases that the earnings of workpeople who rank as 
‘ skilled or semi-skilled amount to less than the time-wages of men in the 
same establishment who rank as “ unskilled.” Thus in a dyeing-mill i'cotton- 
piece goods) where the bulk of the male dyers and finishers earn only 19s. 6rf. 
per week, the carmen are paid 23s. Again, in a foundry and machine-shop, 
40 turners and fitters are returned as earning 2(is., and the carman is paid 25s. 
The idea ot fixing the conditions of employment by formal agreement 
between organisations oí employers and workmen respectively has made but little 
progress in barmen, and except for carpenters, stucco-workers, painters, printers 
and brewery workers, no such agreements were in force at October 11)00. It 
does not appear, however, that even in the trades where the conditions of labour 
are fixed by agreements, those conditions are everywhere observed.