108
BREMEN.
has, however, erected a number of attractive self-contained cottages, commodious
and equipped in superior style, which are let by preference to large families at
about £10 per annum, a figure which is much below cost. The owning of a
house can, under certain circumstances, be a specially profitable investment.
Owing to the possibility of borrowing most of the purchase money on easy
terms, a workman is sometimes able to pay the entire interest on a double house
with the rent received from one of the two dwellings, in which case he lives in
the other dwelling almost free of cost.
Owing to the favourable housing conditions of the town there is no widespread
tendency on the part of working people to live far away from work.
An investigation made in 1902 into the housing of 6,062 Bremen workmen
belonging to various trades and industries showed that all but 223 or 3 7 per
cent, lived within the municipal area, while of the 223 84 lived in rural
communes belonging to the State territory, and 134 outside in the adjacent
States of Prussia and Oldenburg. Workmen who live in the suburbs as a rule
walk to and fro. Those, however, who need to use the tramway enjoy no
preferential treatment, so that a double journey each day costs Is. 2\d. per week
nr £3 2s. 5d. per annum, which is equal to a third of the rent of a three-room
dwelling within the town. A cheap steam ferry service can, however, be used by
workmen engaged in the factories west of the town and living across the river ;
the boats can be used four times a day for 10 pfennige (1^g?.), making an
expenditure of l\d. weekly or £1 11s. 2d. per annum. Workmen living
nutside the State territory are dependent upon the railway.
Retail Prices.
Groceries and other Commodities.
Bremen has as yet no public market halls, but for farm and garden
produce, for fish, and other articles of food open markets are held at stated
times in convenient places under municipal control, while vegetables are largely
sold from door to door by growers from the country. The working classes,
however, obtain the bulk of their food supplies from the retail shops. There
are no large multiple firms of the kind common in England, but the
Co-operative Society, with twenty-two shops and over 10,000 members,
cultivates a working-class trade, having a turnover in 1906 of £132,000.
Two kinds of bread are chiefly eaten, grey bread, made of sifted rye,
and black bread, made also of rye, coarsely ground, with bran ; about twothirds
of the bread consumed by the working classes is of the former kind.
Bread is not sold by weight, but at fixed prices, the usual loaves costing 4\d.
or 9\d. ; yet while the weight broadly fluctuates with the price of flour, the
increase or decrease is seldom immediate. A four-pound loaf of grey bread
would have cost, in October, 1905, ö^d., and the same loaf of coarse black
bread 4\d. White (wheat) bread may be had in the form of small cakes, the
price being about 2d. per lb. Of a sale of bread at the Co-operative Society’s
stores amounting to £14,392 in 1906, white rolls, rusks, and fancy cakes
represented the small sum of £1,863, while of grey bread 94,494 loaves were
sold at 9Jc?., and 176,715 at 4|g?., and of black bread 52,210 loaves were
sold at 9\d., and 58,456 at 4jrl, together with 155,713 small white cakes.
The price of wheat flour was Is. Ifd. for 7 lb., and that of rye flour 9\d.
to 10d. for the same quantity. 1 he usual coffee consumed by the working
classes cost 11g/. per lb., but many cheap " surrogates ” are used. Thus, with
sales of coffee amounting to 167,490 lb. in 1900, the Co-operative Society sold
about 53,510 lb. of “ surrogates.” The most popular of the substitutes, which
are generally mixed with pure coffee, are malt coffee, which cost in October, 1905,
4\d. per lb., “ coffee essence ” at Q^d. per lb., chicory at 5J<i, roasted rye at 2\d.,
roasted wheat at 2f(/., " coffee flour ” (consisting of chicory and corn) at 3|c/.,
and fig coffee at 6¿¿. Sugared coffee was also bought at lit/, per lb. Two kinds
of sugar are chiefly bought, viz., cube sugar, used for coffee, costing 2|d., and
white granulated, costing 2\d. Fresh butter cost Is. Id. per lb., but there was a
large consumption of margarine at from 6^d. to ; thus while the
