6d. or 7s. a week! And, as has been already
mentioned in one case, the man who will earn even that, must work all
Sunday. He is even liable to be thrown out of his work for refusing to work
on Sunday. Why not? Is there anything about one idle day in seven to be
found among the traditions of Mammon? When the demand comes, the supply
must come; and will, in spite of foolish auld-warld notion about keeping
days holy--or keeping contracts holy either, for, indeed, Mammon has no
conscience--right and wrong are not words expressible by any commercial
laws yet in vogue; and therefore it appears that to earn this wretched
pittance is by no means to get it. "For," says one, and the practice is
asserted to be general, almost universal, "there is at our establishment a
mode of reducing the price of our labour even lower than we have mentioned.
The prices we have stated are those _nominally_ paid for making the
garments; but it is not an uncommon thing in our shop for a man to make a
garment, and receive nothing at all for it. I remember a man once having a
waistcoat to do, the price of making which was 2s.
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