heaters, 11_s_.
7_d_.: roughers, 10_s_. 9_d_.: rollers, 13_s_. 2_d_., or equal to that
amount.]

[Footnote 3: Even at the present time, when business is so much
depressed, the mill-rollers make an average wage of L5 10_s_. a week.]

These earnings are far above the average incomes of the professional
classes. The rail rollers are able to earn a rate of pay equal to that
of Lieutenant-Colonels in Her Majesty's Foot Guards; plate-rollers equal
to that of Majors of Foot; and roughers equal to that of Lieutenants and
Adjutants.

Goldsmith spoke of the country curate as "passing rich with forty pounds
a year." The incomes of curates have certainly increased since the time
when Goldsmith wrote, but nothing like the incomes of skilled and
unskilled workmen. If curates merely worked for money, they would
certainly change their vocation, and become colliers and iron-workers.

When the author visited Renfrewshire a few years ago, the colliers were
earning from ten to fourteen shillings a day. According to the common
saying, they were "making money like a minting machine." To take an
instance, a father and three sons were earning sixty pounds a month,--or
equal to a united income of more than seven hundred pounds a year. The
father was a sober, steady, "eident" man. While the high wages lasted,
he was the first to enter the pit in the morning, and the last to leave
it at night. He only lost five days in one year (1873-4),--the loss
being occasioned by fast-days and holidays. Believing that the period of
high wages could not last long, he and his sons worked as hard as they
could. They saved a good deal of money, and bought several houses;
besides educating themselves to occupy higher positions.

In the same neighbourhood, another collier, with four sons, was earning
money at about the same rate per man, that is about seventy-five-pounds
a mouth, or nine hundred pounds a year. This family bought five houses
within a year, and saved a considerable sum besides. The last
information we had respecting them was that the father had become a
contractor,--that he employed about sixty colliers and "reddsmen,"[1]
and was allowed so much for every ton of coals brought to bank. The sons
were looking after their father's interests. They were all sober,
diligent, sensible men; and took a great deal of interest in the
education and improvement of the people in their neighbourhood.

[Footnote 1: "Reddsmen" are the men who clear the way for t