STUTTGART.
463
that the master builders only bind themselves to employ their masons and
bricklayers from April to October, and this restriction applies even to
apprentices, in whose indentures a clause in the above sense is frequently
introduced. Possibly this practice has a more or less intimate connexion
with another local custom. A large proportion of the masons of
Stuttgart do not live in the town at all but many miles distant
in the country. Their settled homes are to be found in the villages
scattered about the “Filder” (fields), as the agricultural districts
around Stuttgart are called, and they merely lodge in town during the week
and go home over Sunday. On the “ Filder ” they have their patches of arable,
garden, and potato land, which their wives look after in their absence, and which
yield a modest addition to their own earnings, especially when, as is sometimes
the case, they also possess a cow. When the slack season comes round
in October the peasant-mason migrates to his country house for the winter
and there spends his time in such outdoor work as may be practicable
either upon his own land or in the forest. Masons of this class are able to
board and lodge in Stuttgart for Is. 3d. or Is. 0>d. a day, not counting beer,
and many lodging houses have no other patrons.
Beer brewing is an important Stuttgart industry employing a large number
of workpeople. The money wages were in 1905 supplemented by an allowance
of beer. A revised wages agreement has, however, recently altered the position
of all classes of workpeople in this industry. Their hours have been changed
as from April, 1906, from 60 in summer and 57 in winter to 57 all the
year round. A week’s holiday, with wages, is to be given once a year to most
of the men. The old system of beer allowances will also be abolished and a
money addition be made to the wages of each class of workmen proportionate to
the value of the forfeited perquisite. The beer was reckoned at 15 pfennige
(nearly 2d.) per litre, and, thus, where six litres of beer were allowed daily, as in
the case of maltsters, draymen, mechanics, and stokers, 5s. 5d. extra per week
will henceforth be paid in money ; where four litres were allowed, as in the case
of draymen’s helpers, 3s. Id. extra will be paid ; though the men will still be
entitled to buy beer for their own use at the old price.
Stuttgart is one of the most important centres of the publishing trade in
Germany, ranking with Berlin and Leipzig, and is the home of the well-known
Cotta firm of printers, whose first fame came as the publishers of works of
Goethe and Schiller at the end of the 18th century. As regulated by national
agreement the minimum rate of wages for compositors, machine minders, and
pressmen is 26s. 5d. per week, but the majority of the workmen earn from
28s. to 30s. In the art printing trade, lithographers (draughtsmen) have a
minimum rate of 25s., and good men earn, as a rule, 30s. to 33s. ; while
hand-press printers earn 30s. to 33s., and machine printers 32s. to 34s.
Stuttgart is also a leading centre of the ready-made clothing trade, and
bespoke tailoring engages a large number of hands. Of the workpeople in the
former trade it is estimated that only one-tenth are employed in workshops, and
the rest at home. They are but little organised, a considerable proportion of
them are women, the work is very irregular, and the earnings, save in the busy
seasons, are small, from 15s. to 20s. a week covering the majority of the male
workers, and 12s. to 15s. the female. The tailors in the bespoke business, who
are well organised, have better earnings ; efficient men in the first tariff class
can make from 25s. to 30s. a week on the year’s average, and many exceed the
higher fio-ure ; medium men earn from 20s. to 23s. ; but young and weaker
hands barely reach 16s. on the average. These earnings entail, however, a long
working week, especially in the busy seasons, when the home workers are not
uncommonly twelve hours on the bench between daylight and dark, in contrast
to which come the slack times of January, February, and August, when more
opportunities for exertion would be welcome. The wife often helps the husband
at the sewing-machine, and the value of her time is included in the latter’s
earnings. It is in the ready-made clothes trade, however, that the real pinch
is felt, for the bespoke tailors are a superior class of men, and are able to look
after themselves.
A large number of female workers find employment at home in connection
with the hosiery industry, being engaged in simple operations such as making
