The number of persons employed in the
works is 3920; and the weekly wages paid to them is 4000L., or
over 200,000L. annually. Since the commencement of the
undertaking, about two millions sterling have been paid in wages.
All this goes towards the support of the various industries of
the place. That the working classes of Belfast are thrifty and
frugal may be inferred from the fact that at the end of 1882 they
held deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of 230,289L.,
besides 158,064L. in the Post Office Savings Banks.[22] Nearly
all the better class working people of the town live in separate
dwellings, either rented or their own property. There are ten
Building Societies in Belfast, in which industrious people may
store their earnings, and in course of time either buy or build
their own houses.
The example of energetic, active men always spreads. Belfast
contains two other shipbuilding yards, both the outcome of
Harland and Wolff's enterprise; those of Messrs. Macilwaine and
Lewis, employing about four hundred men, and of Messrs. Workman
and Clarke, employing about a thousand. The heads of both these
firms were trained in the parent shipbuilding works of Belfast.
There is do feeling of rivalry between the firms, but all work
together for the good of the town.
In Plutarch's Lives, we are told that Themistocles said on one
occasion, "'Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a
harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and
inconsiderable city to glory and greatness.
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