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Martin then went to Detroit, where he worked a year on the steamboat Wisconsin. In 1843, he came to Cleveland and commenced work for G. W. Jones, on the steamboat Empire. This work finished, he commenced sub-contracting, wrecking, planking, and jobbing generally, until 1846, when he went into the employ of another firm, with whom he worked two years.
This makes the second stage in the evolution of the term; the sweater now "sweated" others as well as himself, and he figured as a "middleman" between the tailoring firm which employed him, and the assistants whom he employed for fixed wages. Other clothing trades have passed through the same process of development, and have produced a sub-contracting middleman.
They call the sweater in this business a "chamber master," and in these foul chambers, in the midst of "bad smells, great heat, no ventilation, and fetid refuse," men and women swelter and die, the men getting ten shillings, and the women about five shillings a week. The cabinet and upholstery trade is not exempt. Sub-contracting here, as in clothing, is the first step in sweating.
"No," was his reply, "I have contracted to make and maintain the road, and nothing shall prevent Thomas Brassey from being as good as his word." As a contractor on a large scale, and especially as a contractor for foreign railroads, Mr. Brassey was led rapidly to develop the system of sub-contracting. His mode of dealing with his sub-contractors, however, was peculiar.
To our hasty vision, here seems to be the responsible party. Forty years ago Alton Locke gave us a powerful picture of the wicked sub-contracting tailor, who, spider-like, lured into his web the unfortunate victim, and sucked his blood for gain.
Her wages were rarely over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was out of work came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them!
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