BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 181 
and the stamping of the label upon it are done in Yew York. The tin 
is first printed and then baked. Six firms are engaged in the business, 
three of them devoting their entire attention to supplying the sardine 
canneries. 
The solder used in putting together the cans and sealing the covers 
is a mixture of pig tin and lead in equal proportions. The amount 
used varies according to the skillfulness of the employes who handle it. 
In sealing, for example, the poorest workmen will use 2 pounds and 13 
ounces for a case of cans, while the best will not exceed 1 pound and 15 
ounces. The average amount required for each case is 4} to 5 pounds, 
including something over 2 pounds for sealing. A cannery will often 
use more than 100 tons of solder during a single season. 
The expenses of operating a cannery are, as may be readily seen, very 
great, and it is therefore necessary in most cases for the factory owners 
to turn over their working capital several times in a year. This is illus- 
trated by an instance where a factory with a cash capital of $8,500 pays 
out $52,000 a year. 
Wades paid. — The cost of labor amounts to from a fourth to a third 
of the entire expenses of a cannery. The price of labor is lower and 
less variable in the factories outside of Eastport. A large percentage 
of the operatives employed in the industry of that town are young per- 
sons of both sexes, who come from their homes in the neighboring por- 
tions of the Provinces, to which they return at the close of the season. 
The factories being so numerous there is considerable competition for 
labor among the factory-men, who, when there is a rush of fish, bid 
against each other for the services of the workmen, who go wherever 
they can get the best pay. When fish are received by any factory the 
cutters and flakers are summoned by a steam whistle, each cannery 
having a signal peculiar to itself which is easily distinguishable from 
that of any other. 
The following is a schedule of the average wages paid by the Eastport 
factories. A working day for ordinary labor is ten hours, and those 
who are paid by the day receive extra remuneration for every hour’s 
work which they do in excess of that time. Skilled laborers are usually 
employed at piece-work or by the hour. They are, as a rule, occupied 
only a few hours each day, as they do not assist in the general work of 
the cannery, but return to their homes after their special work for the 
day is completed. 
Boatmen . — Formerly $50 to $60 a month • now $1 per hogshead, or 
$30 per month and an additional 50 cents per hogshead. 
Cutters . — Paid by the box and average ordinarily $5 to $6 per week, 
or, when the factories are working full time, $2 or more per day. Some- 
times when fish are abundant they will make very large wages, and a 
child of twelve or thirteen years will occasionally earn from $18 to $20 
a week. If the cutters had all that they could do, they would earn 
more than any other class of employes. This results from the fact that 
