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STETTIN.  .  455
According  to  an  estimate  of  the  local  Trades  Council  there  are  about  5,600
workpeople  employed  in  the  tailoring  trade  in  Stettin.  The  great  bulk  of  these
work  for  small  employers,  of  whom  there  are  two  classes.  The  one  includes
Heimarbeiter  (home  workers),  men  who,  after  serving  their  apprenticeship
and  becoming  journeymen  tailors,  have  set  up  their  own  workshop,  where  they
execute  orders  for  the  “  bespoke  ”  trade,  with  or  without  the  assistance  of  a
journeyman,  to  whom  they  pay  a  time-wage  of  15s.  to  18s.  per  week.  These
men  are  also  spoken  of  as  Selbstständige  Arbeiter,  or  workmen  on  their  own
account,  an  expression  which  conveys  a  truer  notion  of  their  economic  position
than  does  the  term  Heimarbeiter,  which  does  not  mean  quite  the  same  thing  as
“  homeworker  ”  in  the  English  sense.
The  second  class  of  small  employers  are  middlemen  pure  and  simple,  who
may  or  may  not  have  learnt  the  tailoring  trade  themselves,  but  employ  women
and  girls  as  well  as  journeymen  in  executing  orders  for  large  firms  of  readymade ­
  clothiers,  of  whom  there  are  several  in  Stettin.  The  men  of  this  class  are
known  as  Massenschneider,  and  some  of  them  employ  from  30  to  50  workpeople  in
a  workshop  besides  giving  out  work  to  be  done  at  home.  Journeymen  tailors  in
workshops  of  this  kind  are  paid  the  same  rate  of  time  wages  as  those  employed
by  the  class  previously  described,  viz.,  15s.  to  18s.  per  week.  Their  hours  of
labour,  according  to  statistics  compiled  by  the  local  Trades  Council,  are  from
14  to  16  per  day.
Housing  and  Rents.
On  anyone  more  or  less  familiar  with  urban  housing  conditions  in  Germany
some  days  spent  in  visiting  the  working-class  dwellings  of  Stettin  are  calculated
to  produce  the  impression  that  few  large  cities  in  Germany  have  been  more
successful  in  housing  the  bulk  of  their  population  on  so  limited  a  proportion
(less  than  one-tenth)  of  the  available  space,  while  yet  maintaining  the  appearance ­
  of  being  entirely—or  almost  entirely—free  from  congested  areas.  It  seems
doubtful  whether  this  could  have  been  so  well  achieved  under  any  other  system
than  that  which  makes  it  possible  to  erect  working-class  tenements  in  any  part
of  a  town—however  fashionable—without  apparent  detriment  to  the  local
amenities,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  concealing  those  tenements  behind  solid
rows  of  better  class  houses.
It  will  have  been  gathered  from  the  reports  on  other  towns  that  this  system
of  utilising  back  lands  for  the  erection  of  what  are  called  Hinterhäuser  or  backhouses, ­
  is  a  more  or  less  familiar  feature  in  urban  housing  conditions  all  over
Germany.  In  Stettin  it  may  be  said  to  be  the  outstanding  feature,  for  in  few,  if
any,  other  towns  does  it  appear  to  have  been  so  freely  applied.  The  result  is
that  more  than  the  usual  sprinkling  of  working-class  families  is  to  be  found
living  in  back-house  tenements  in  almost  any  part  of  the  town.  There  are,
nevertheless,  three  districts  which  are  predominantly  working-class,  in  the  sense
that  in  most  of  their  streets,  not  only  the  back-houses,  but  also  the  front  houses,
are  largely  occupied  by  working-class  families.  These  districts  are  Grabow  and
Bredow,  in  the  North,  where  the  great  shipyards  are  situated,  and  the  lowlying
  pile-built  district  of  Lastadie,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  largely
inhabited  by  dock  and  riverside  labourers,  and  practically  the  only  part  of
Stettin  where  the  appearance  of  the  houses  as  well  as  of  their  occupiers  suggests
poverty  and  neglect.
The  character  of  the  typical  working-class  tenement  in  Stettin  calls  for  no
particular  comment.  As  in  most  German  cities,  it  consists  of  three  rooms—a
general  living  room  with  a  stove,  a  stoveless  bedroom,  and  a  kitchen,  together
with  the  usual  Zubehör  or  appurtenances,  consisting  of  a  cellar  compartment,
the  use  of  the  common  loft  for  drying  laundry,  a  closet  (usually  shared  with  one
or  two  other  families  on  the  same  floor  and  situated  on  the  stair  landing)  and,
in  the  more  modern  houses,  a  separate  vestibule.
Returns  as  to  the  housing  accommodation  of  1,276  typical  working-class
families  in  Stettin,  secured  with  the  co-operation  of  the  local  Trades  Council,
show  that  1,126  of  these  families  occupy  three-roomed  tenements,  while  only  60
■occupy  two  rooms  and  90  four  rooms.  As  a  rule  a  three-roomed  tenement  in  a