of average weekly wages in most employments is enough to make it a matter of surprise how working people manage to exist on what they earn. In localities where an extensive Trades Union exists, wages are higher than elsewhere, and the wages of all more nearly agree. This is a fact we have noticed in compiling our returns.

The year for which these returns are made is for the year ending September 1, 1879. For purposes of classification, this part of our report is subdivided under five heads, viz: The Building Trades, The Iron Industries, Manufactures, Mining and Miscellaneous-the whole to be followed by a complete recapitulation of both employers' and employes' returns. It will be observed in the comparison of these returns that there is very little discrepancy between employers' and employes' statements.

The Building Trades.

The building trades, in a great measure, are affected by changes of weather, Rain, frost, etc., bring many days of idleness to employes,. and for this reason steady employment is unusual. The work is mostly done by contract, and the men are employed by the day or hour, and only such a number hired as will be able to complete the contract in a given time; after that, unless another contract is secured in the meantime, the employes are at liberty to look elsewhere for employment. Thus a workman may have a half-dozen different employers during a season. This makes it extremely difficult to ascertain the average employment in the year. Occasionally there are cases, however, where men work steadily for years with one employer. This is true of the carpenter trade. But in bricklaying, mason work, plastering, painting, etc., there is considerable change of hands.

Carpenters have suffered considerably from the introduction of machinery. Doors, sash, blinds, and much of the wood-work is prepared in planing mills, thus diminishing the employment of carpenters to a great extent.

In former years the plasterers did their own lathing. Now, this work is turned over to professional lathers, who take it on contract, and employ half-grown young men at from 75 cents to $1.25 per day. Throughout the building trades the inroads of machinery are being felt by the workmen in reduced employment, which has been made more and more stringent by the past six years of hard times. When the number of days work in the year is considered, it will be noticed that $2.50 or $3.00 a day in these trades is not equal to other employment at $9.00 per week, with steady work the whole year. The Fall of 1879, however, has shown a marked improvement in the building trades, not alone in St. Louis, but in every small town in the State; work is steadier, wages higher, and the mildness of the weather, all combined, will make the present season one of the best for the building trades in many years.