Page:Economic Development in Denmark Before and During the World War.djvu/24

 Copenhagen, after the great fire which devastated the city in 1728, shows that only in the carpenter's and mason's trades did a majority of the journeymen live outside their masters' homes. From a later date there is testimony that carpenter journeymen were very independent in their relations with their masters. In the other trades 85 per cent, of the workmen lived with their masters. When his journeymen or his apprentices lived with him, the master artisan generally had three workmen in his house; but a great many artisans had no assistants at all. Apart from the carpenters and masons, who on the whole did a considerable amount of work considering the circumstances of the time, it may be said that there was an almost equal number of masters and journeymen, so that most of the journeymen could look forward to becoming masters themselves. Proof of this is furnished by the census of 1787. In that year the population of the entire kingdom of Denmark was about 840,000, of whom approximately one-fifth lived in the towns. The artisan class comprised about 22,000 of the male inhabitants of the towns, and the number of masters and of journeymen was about equal. Between the ages of twenty and thirty, 17 per cent, of this group were masters; between thirty and forty, 55 per cent.; between forty and fifty, 74 per cent.; and above fifty, 81 per cent. These figures were slightly lower for the industrial world. Only about 6,000 of the male inhabitants of the towns belonged to the industry, and 46 per cent, of them were either employers or sons of employers. But here too, the chances of becoming independent rapidly increased with age. The average size of industrial establishments must have been very small as compared with those of the present day.

Where a young apprentice might expect soon to become a master there was little reason for class distinctions, though, of course, there was the ever-present difference of outlook on life in the new generation and the old. But in the German guild customs, with their clubs, journeymen's houses, &c., there