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