Strona 270 z 2651

When the inconstancy of employment is combined with the hardship,

disagreeableness, and dirtiness of the work, it sometimes raises

the wages of the most common labour above those of the most

skilful artificers. A collier working by the piece is supposed,

at Newcastle, to earn commonly about double, and, in many parts

of Scotland, about three times, the wages of common labour. His

high wages arise altogether from the hardship, disagreeableness,

and dirtiness of his work. His employment may, upon most

occasions, be as constant as he pleases. The coal-heavers in

London exercise a trade which, in hardship, dirtiness, and

disagreeableness, almost equals that of colliers; and, from the

unavoidable irregularity in the arrivals of coal-ships, the

employment of the greater part of them is necessarily very

inconstant.