HOW AND WHY EDWARD GALLAGHER DIED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 43, 18 February 1887, Page 11

HOW AND WHY EDWARD GALLAGHER DIED.

(Special correspondence of the Pilot.") New Haven, Conn., Dec. 27. Edward Gallag her, of 104 Oakland Avenue, Jersey City, is dead. Poverty killed him. He had been a slave to poverty all his life. He had vainly struggled to escape ;he had labored and planned, and no doubt had ofteu entertained rebellious thoughts, and in the end fell an easy victim to the beast that bad so persistently pursued him through life. He was an exemplary workman. He had never taken part in strikes nor boycotts, nor any of the other criminal practices to which workmen nowadays are prone. Daring the last seventeen years of his life he served one employer continually. He must, therefore, have been steady and temperate. And during that time he was on duty every day from four o'clock in the morning until •ight o'clock at night— conclusive proof that he was not lazy. Several years ago his wife died. Her husband's " long hours " made " long hours " for her, and, being the weaker, she succumbed first. After a time he married again, and his second wife, too, fell a victim to the long-hours system. After that he struggled on, with five children and a housekeeper, fifteen hours a day for seven years. He had four periods of rest during the whole time. The monotony was first broken by the death of his wife— the law of supply and demand still permits the workman time to bury his dead. Another rest came at the death of his second wife. And a few months ago he again rested from his labors. He was attacked by pneumonia, and for nine weeks he " rested " on a bed of sickness. On the tenth week, his money having been all spent, and his debts daily increasing, he returned to work. He had not fully recovered : the disease was still in his system, but starvation loomed up in the distance, and for a whole week he labored with a deadly disease racking big frame, with the hand of death actually upon him. When the week's task was done he lay down and died. He had been sober and industrious all his life ; at the age of fifty he died penniless, and just in time to escape the poorhouse. His five children have been placed in an orphan asylum. The papers that told of his death published on the following day figures that had been prepared by Mr. Atkinson, of Boston, and which proved that the workingmen of to-day are much better off than they were in 1860. The workingmen of 1860 most have had a pretty hard time.

Gallagher received 10 dols. a week, which is considerably higher than the average. His family wa3 large, but not an exceptionally large family by any means ; and even in the matter of hoars his was not an exceptional case. There are thousands of workmen in bakeries, breweries, in stables, on horse railroads, and in various other employments who are on duty fifteen or sixteen hoars every day. In the matter of economy Gallagher was probably far behind Mr. Atkinson ; yet it is very likely that he was as good an economist as is the average workman.

Mr. Edward Atkinson has recently proven that with 10 dols. a week a workman can easily support his familyjand even save money. All that is required is a diet in which soup figures largely. And if a workman finds that his family is larger than that specified by Mr. Atkinson, he can give it soup three times a day, and nothing else. The workman who earns less than ten dollars a week mast be satisfied with less soup. Borne medical authorities say that people in this age eat more than is neceeary. There are workman who seem to have a vague idea of the great discovery recently made by Mr. Atkinßon. There are workmen in every community who never earned more than ten dollars a week, and yet have brought up large families and saved money, they did not exactly adopt the soup theory, bat they managed in other ways to live very cheaply. Their children were put at work the instant they became strong enough to carry- a dinner basket. I have seen some of these " economical " workmen. At the age of sixty they are broken down old men ; their wives are mere wrecks ; their chi ldren are seldom healthy, alwayß ignorant, and frequently vicious. Every dollar saved by this class of workmen iB a dollar stolen from the stomachs or the backs of their children. The solution of the labour problem would be a great blessing. But even to obtain that result it is not quite proper to destroy the health and morals of the common people. FHINEAB.