416 
REMSCHEID. 
of an efficient sewerage service. The main streets are not all as yet well paved, 
whilst the side streets are in general badly kept. These shortcomings are due 
partly to the difficulty of obtaining money, the municipal addition to the State 
income tax being already 230 per cent. The municipal authorities have, however, 
recently spent large sums upon a large, elaborate and very ornate town hall. 
The town owns its water and gas supply, whilst the tramways and the electric 
light and power supply are owned by a private company in which the town has 
two-fifths of the shares. Since the new water supply came into operation, 
typhoid, which used to be a frequent and deadly visitor, has entirely disappeared. 
At present tuberculosis would appear to be Remscheid’s worst scourge. The 
town has a pleasant public park with a large public hall, and there is a Bismarck 
memorial tower. 
Remscheid is well served by the railways, and is also surrounded by a 
network of light railways, which connect it with Elberfeld and Barmen. 
Occupations, Wages, and Hours of Labour. 
The principal productions of Remscheid are the rougher kinds of tools— 
files and rasps, drills, gimlets, pincers, saws, picks, axes, hatchets, scythes, 
anvils, &c. The most important branch is the manufacture of files and rasps, 
and there are said fio be some two hundred firms engaged in this alone. There 
are also several firms occupied in the production of skates (another Remscheid 
speciality) and employing therein about 700 workpeople. There are some iron 
and steel works, the Bergische Stahl-Industrie, with about 1,500 employees, 
being by far the largest. Another firm, the Alexanderwerk A. von der Ñahmer, 
with about the same number of workpeople, manufactures butchers’ implements 
and meat machines, household machines and utensils of all kinds, copying- 
presses, &c. Throughout 1906 there was much activity in almost all branches 
of Remscheid industry, and unemployment practically did not exist. In 1901, 
when there was a certain amount of unemployment, the municipal authority 
started relief works (including road making), but it was found that only inferior 
men resorted to them. 
The following Table shows the increase in the number of persons employed 
in this industry, and the change of organisation between 1891 and 1900 :— 
Year. 
Persons 
Occupied. 
1891 
1894 
1900 
Independent. 
10,856 
12,105 
16,620 
2,889 
3,203 
3,231 
Dependent. 
7,967 
9,202 
13,386 
Domestic industry survives, but not to any large extent. It used to be the 
chief way in which file-cutting was carried on, when the work was done solely 
by hand, but it is rapidly giving way before the factory system and machine- 
cutting. It has been estimated that in 1890 there were about 1,200 file-cutters 
working in their own homes ; by 1902 the number had fallen to 700, and by 
1906 to 500. The making of drills and gimlets is still largely a domestic 
industry, but the number of persons engaged in it is quite small. The file- 
cutters and drill-makers usually possess or hire a small house with workshop on 
the ground floor. 
The grinders, who are fairly numerous, are not, as in Solingen, chiefly 
independent workmen, but have become almost entirely factory employees. 
There is, however, one peculiarity in their organisation ; in some cases the 
manufacturer employs them directly, but in others he engages simply a 
“ master grinder ” and makes terms only with him, and the “ master grinder ” 
then takes on so many grinders as he thinks necessary, and makes his own 
terms with tliem. A peculiarity of the Remscheid grinding industry is the 
“ Halblohner,” or “half-employee,” a grinder who is a sort of industrial 
metayer, being a workman, yet to some extent independent. Employers provide