CONJUGAL CONDITION OF EMPLOYEES.

From such statistics as have been gathered it would appear that a large percentage of the successful applicants for employment with street railway companies are single. Thus, of 200 employees on the Detroit United Railway, 79 were married and 121 single. (") Of 50 employees of the Scranton Railway Company, 18 were married and 32 were single. Of 100 conductors of the Pittsburg Railways Company, 21 were married, 2 were widowers, and 77 were single, while of 100 motormen 37 were married, 1 was a widower, and 62 were single. Of 200 employees of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, 77 were married and 123 were single, while of 216 street railway employees of the Connecticut Railway and Lighting Company of Bridgeport, Conn., 101 were married and 115 single. In this company, as in the others, motormen are the older, and the proportion of married men is greater for motormen than for conductors, 44 per cent of the conductors and 50 per cent of the motormen being married.

The German Industrial Census of 1895 (') gives the ages of the street railway men in that country. The prevailing age is from 20 to 40. Of the 15,446 street railway employees in Germany in 1895, 5,090, or 33 per cent, were from 20 to 30 years of age; 5,903, or 38 per cent, were from 30 to 40; there being 71 per cent from 20 to 40, and over 88 per cent from 20 to 50. Above the age of 50 there were but few. There were but 800 employees, or 5.2 per cent, from 50 to 60; but 217, or 1.4 per cent, from 60 to 70; and but 31, or 1 in 500, over 70.

The great majority of the street railway employees were married. Thus, of the total number, 11,205, or almost 73 per cent, were married; 3,941, or 25 per cent, were single; while 300, or 2 per cent, were widowed or divorced. After 30 the employees married rapidly, and even after 20, only 48 per cent of the employees from 20 to 30 years of age being single; only 10 per cent from 30 to 40, and only 4 per cent of those above 40 years of age.

Of the 15,446 employees on street railways in Germany, only 408, or less than 3 per cent, were with other occupation; and only 110, or less than 1 per cent, were with other occupation outside of agriculture.

Of the total number of street railway employees in Germany in 1895, 15,303, or over 99 per cent, were men, and 143, or less than 1 per cent, were women. Of the latter, only 46, or less than one-third, were married, there being 49 single and 48 widowed or divorced.

Of 1,865 employees of the street railway companies of Michigan in 1895, 1,285, or 69 per cent, were married; 557, or 30 per cent, were single; and 23, or 1 per cent, were widowed. The families of the

a Of these 200 men, 69 were housekeeping and 131 boarding.

Berufs- und Gewerbezählung vom 14. Juni, 1895 (Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Neue Folge, Band 103), pp. 352, 353.

1,308 married and widowed employees comprised 2,647 adults and 2,444 children, or a total of 5,091 persons. The family of each married and widowed person included, therefore, in all, 3.9 persons. (")

The following table shows the classification by weight of 200 newly appointed conductors and motormen on the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, of Philadelphia, Pa.:

WEIGHT OF CONDUCTORS AND MOTORMEN AT ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE PHILADELPHIA RAPID TRANSIT COMPANY.

The following table shows the classification by weight of 200 motormen and conductors upon the Pittsburg Railways Company, of Pittsburg, Pa. The table shows a greater weight for motormen than for conductors:

• WEIGHT OF CONDUCTORS AND MOTORMEN AT ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE PITTSBURG RAILWAYS COMPANY.

The following table shows the height of 100 conductors and 100 motormen employed by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, of Philadelphia, Pa.:

HEIGHT OF CONDUCTORS AND MOTORMEN AT ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE PHILADELPHIA RAPID TRANSIT COMPANY.

a Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor of Michigan, p. 54.

16818-No. 57-05-13

The following table shows the height of 100 conductors and 100 motormen employed by the Pittsburg Railways Company, of Pittsburg, Pa.:

HEIGHT OF CONDUCTORS AND MOTORMEN AT ENTERING THE SERVICE OF THE PITTSBURG RAILWAYS COMPANY.

FORMER OCCUPATIONS OF EMPLOYEES.

Some idea of the varied character of the former occupations of street railway conductors and motormen may be seen from the blanks to be filled out by applicants for these positions. No less than 87 different former occupations were represented by 200 persons seeking employment as conductor and motorman with the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, of Philadelphia, Pa. Of these 200, 26 had been farmers, 21 drivers, and 19 general laborers, but representatives were found from bakers, barbers, bookkeepers, butchers, carpenters, cooks, glass blowers, hostlers, janitors, millers, nriners, nurses, painters, tailors, students, etc.

PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS FOR POSITIONS WITH THE PHILADELPHIA RAPID TRANSIT COMPANY.

PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS FOR POSITIONS WITH THE PHILADELPHIA RAPID TRANSIT COMPANY-Concluded.

With the change from horse cars to electric cars has come a marked improvement in the character of the men employed. It was soon found that the man who was capable of standing upon a car behind a pair of overdriven horses was not necessarily intelligent enough to run an electric car. Despite greater speed the congestion of traffic increased, and on the main streets of large cities the work became so intense and exigent that a higher class of men gradually came to the fore. This development has been very generally recognized by the companies. According to an editorial in the Street Railway Journal, May 3, 1902, "it requires a higher order of intelligence to drive a high-speed electric car than it does to drive a mule team, and it takes a more active and able-bodied man on the rear platform to collect fares on a 40-foot car running 10 miles an hour than on a 12-foot horse car traveling at 6 miles an hour. To be sure, many horse-car employees have held over to the present time, but they are better men than they were in horse-car days, for they have grown to their new positions along with the advancement of the industry."

This improvement is partly to be accounted for by the fact that a revolution is taking place in the street railway industry, by which the personnel is being changed from a loose body of unskilled men to a closer and more homogeneous group of steadily employed skilled men. Formerly, and the same is true to a certain extent even to-day, street railway employees consisted of men who were picked up and put upon cars without any previous training and without any assurance of a fixed position. The introduction of electricity tended to make employment more regular and to improve the quality of the men employed. The damage which might result from a careless handling of the car, and the resulting financial loss to the company, made the management more careful in the selection of its employees. In reply to a question addressed to a number of street railway presidents throughout the country, as to whether the caliber of employees had improved, a large

number of answers were received. The overwhelming preponderance of opinion is to the effect that the improvement has been very marked. To a certain extent, however, street railway employment still acts as a training school for men in other occupations. It still serves as a refuge for men out of employment, and many a man takes a job as motorman or conductor during hard times when work is scarce. The result is seen in a visible lowering of the average age of platform men when the older and better men rise to higher positions in other fields of work, and an increase in this average age in bad times when men are forced out of other positions and are obliged to have recourse to street railway operations.

Upon the whole there is now a strong tendency toward restricting employment as far as possible to men who desire to engage in the work permanently. The attempt to organize the service into one of a permanent character is fostered both by the trade unions and by the railway companies. Trade unions, in accumulating funds and making temporary sacrifices for permanent gains, necessarily appeal most strongly to men who intend to remain in the service and to benefit ultimately by their sacrifices. The companies, on the other hand, by paying higher rates of wages to men who have been in their employ for longer periods also accentuate this tendency. The requirements of modern electric service compel the creation of a permanent force.

From a large number of statements made by various representatives of street railway companies upon this point, a single one is selected: "In a general way, we find more men willing to take up street car work as their regular employment, and we make it a condition of their employment. We avoid, wherever possible, employing a man who simply wants a temporary job. The use of electrical machinery and the additional speed at which people require to be carried, makes it necessary for us to employ a better class of men-and to select them with greater care and to have them well drilled and informed in regard to the machinery, etc., on the car-than was necessary in old times either with horses or cables."

FORMER CONDITIONS.

The evil conditions under which employees worked during horse car days were evidenced by an investigation made by the bureau of statistics of labor of New York in 1885 into the conditions of street railway employment in that State. This report was quite extended, and included testimony from large numbers of conductors, drivers, and other employees. The result of the inquiry was to convince the commissioner of labor "that this class of wage-workers have grievances of a real and serious nature, which, in my judgment, it is not only within the power but it is the solemn duty of the legislature to