AN acquaintance of mine who works on the Moscow-Kursk Railway as a weigher, in the course of conversation mentioned to me that the men who load the goods on to his scales work for thirty-seven hours on end.
Though I had full confidence in the speaker's truthfulness I was unable to believe him.I thought he was making a mistake, or exaggerating, or that I misunderstood something.
But the weigher narrated the conditions under which this work is done so exactly that there was no room left for doubt.He told me that there are two hundred and fifty such goods-porters at the Kursk station in Moscow.
They were all divided into gangs of five men, and were on piece-work, receiving from one rouble to iR.15 (say two shillings to two and fourpence, or forty-eight cents to fifty-six cents) for one thousand poods (over sixteen tons) of goods received or despatched.
They come in the morning, work for a day and a night at unloading the trucks, and in the morning, as soon as the night is ended, they begin to reload, and work on for another day.So that in two days they get one night's sleep.
Their work consists of unloading and moving bales of seven, eight, and up to ten poods (say 252, 280 and up to nearly 364 pounds).Two men place the bales on the backs of the other three who carry them.By such work they earn less than a ruble (two shillings, or forty-eight cents) a day.They work continually without holiday.
The account given by the weigher was so circumstantial that it was impossible to doubt it, but, nevertheless, Idecided to verify it with my own eyes, and I went to the goods-station.
Finding my acquaintance at the goods-station, I told him that I had come to see what he had told me about.
"No one I mention it to believes it," said I.
Without replying to me, the weigher called to some one in a shed."Nikita, come here."From the door appeared a tall, lean workman in a torn coat.
"When did you begin work?"
"When? Yesterday morning."
"And where were you last night?"
"I was unloading, of course."
"Did you work during the night?" asked I.
"Of course we worked."
"And when did you begin work to-day?"
"We began in the morning-when else should we begin?""And when will you finish working?"
"When they let us go; then we shall finish!"The four other Workmen of his gang came up to us.
They all wore torn coats and were without overcoats, though there were about -2O Reaumur of cold (13below zero, Fahrenheit).
I began to ask them about the conditions of their work, and evidently surprised them by taking an interest in such a simple and natural thing (as it seemed to them) as their thirty-six hour work.
They were all villagers; for the most part fellow-countrymen of my own-from Tula; some, however, were from ArIa', and some from Voro6nezh.They lived in Moscow in lodgings, some of them with their families, but most of them without.Those who have come here alone send their earnings home to the village.
They board with contractors.Their food costs them ten rubles (say ? Is., or five dollars per month).They always eat meat, disregarding the fasts.
Their work always keeps them occupied more than hours running, because it takes more than half an hour to get to their lodgings and from their lodgings, and, besides, they are often kept at work beyond the time fixed.
Paying for their own food, they earn, by such thirty-seven-hour-on-end work, about twenty-five rubles a month.
To my question, why they did such convict work, they replied:
"Where is one to go to?"
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"We do what we're told to."
"Yes; but why do you agree to it?"
"We agree because we have to feed ourselves.'If you don't like it-be off!' If one's even an hour late, one has one's ticket shied at one, and is told to march; and there are ten men ready to take the place."The men were all young, only one was somewhat older, perhaps about forty.All their faces were lean, and had exhausted, weary eyes, as if the men were drunk.
