Excerpt from Labor in Europe and America: A Special Report on the Rates of Wages, the Cost of Subsistence, and the Condition of the Working Classes, in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and Other Countries of Europe, Also in the United States and British America It will be observed t at the strangers impressed by Solomon into his service, as well as the thirty thousand men raised by a levy upon all Israel, appear to have been assigned to unskilled labor, and except in the case of Hiram of Tyre, no account is given of the manner in which artisans were obtained for the execution of such work as required a higher degree of mechanical and artistic skill. It is probable, however, that these were mainly free laborers, Jewish and Phcenician, who te ceived regular wages for their services. In later times skilled mechanics were held in high esteem among the Jews, and in some cases, like that of St. Paul, men of learning and of superior talents thought it no dis honor to earn their subsistence by a mechanical occupation. Indeed, the head of every Jewish family was required to have his sons instructed in some trade. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.