With a thrifty
use of his means, he may, if he earns from thirty to forty shillings a
week, dress well, live well, and educate his children creditably.
Hugh Miller never had more than twenty-four shillings a week while
working as a journeyman stonemason, and here is the result of his
fifteen years' experience:--
"Let me state, for it seems to be very much the fashion to draw dolorous
pictures of the condition of the labouring classes, that from the close
of the first year in which I worked as a journeyman until I took final
leave of the mallet and chisel, I never knew what it was to want a
shilling; that my two uncles, my grandfather, and the mason with whom I
served my apprenticeship--all working men--had had a similar experience;
and that it was the experience of my father also. I cannot doubt that
deserving mechanics may, in exceptional cases, be exposed to want; but I
can as little doubt that the cases _are_ exceptional, and that much of
the suffering of the class is a consequence either of improvidence on
the part of the competently skilled, or of a course of trifling during
the term of apprenticeship, quite as common as trifling at school, that
always lands those who indulge in it in the hapless position of the
inferior workman."
It is most disheartening to find that so many of the highest paid
workmen in the kingdom should spend so large a portion of their earnings
in their own personal and sensual gratification.
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