Brothers,
which counts 600 mills, turning as many cylinders or " skaifs."
Everyone of these is occupied by one polisher; and these, with the
number of "setters" (verstellers) and apprentices, bring the total up
to at least a thousand persons for this single factory. If we estimate
that the 52 large establishments have an average of but 60 mills each,
or a total of 3,120 mills, and that the 20 small ones average 20 mills
each, making 400 mills, we have in all 3,520 wheels or skaifs. Then
counting for each mill or wheel, including polishers, setters,
apprentices, scaive-scrapers, and machinists, at least two persons, we
have 7,040 employes. To these must be added the diamond cleavers and
cutters, about 460 persons, of whom one-quarter are women, giving a
total of 7,500 persons for Amsterdam. Now, the large diamond-trading
club, composed of diamond merchants and brokers, numbers about 900, and
the two smaller ones about 400, with perhaps 100 additional dealers who
transact their diamond business in the cafes in the vicinity of the
clubs. Adding to these the merchants aud brokers who do not frequent
any of these places, and the employes of the one steam diamond-cutting
shop at Rotterdam, we have about 10,000 persons in all engaged in the
diamond industry in Holland.
Antwerp
has been rapidly becoming one of the greatest diamond-cutting centers.
Whereas in 1870 there were 4 mills and 200 diamond workers, in 1893
there were 78 mills aud 4,000 workers, and diamonds are annually cut to
the value of 12,000,000 francs. London comes third in importance, where
the diamond polishers, brokers, importers, and dealers in rough
diamonds must number about 1,000 persons. St. Claude and adjoining
cities in the Jura mountains, in France, have several diamond-cutting
establishments that employ in various capacities about 1,000 people.
Paris comes next with several diamond works, as also a great number of
diamond merchants and brokers; these will reach above 500 individuals.
Geneva and Berlin each possess a diamond-cutting shop, at each of
which perhaps 100 people are employed; and, finally, Hanau, the jewelry
center in Hesse, Germany, where much goldsmiths' work is done, and
where a few years ago were established two large diamond mills and four
or five small ones, all operated by steam power, which on an average
employ 500 persons.
In
ldar and Oberstein about 1,000 more are similarly engaged, giving a
total of above 16,500 persons occupied in the diamond business in
Europe; but this does not include the merchants, dealers, and work
people who set diamonds in jewelry, or any of the white and colored
population engaged in diamond mining at the Cape and in Brazil. If we
estimate, therefore, the number of dealers in Europe at about 4,000,
and about 200 in the United States and elsewhere, and the workers at
the mines, which at present are not carried on with great activity, at
between 7,000 and 8,000 persons, we reach a total approximating 28,000
people at the principal diamond centers of the world. When we read,
therefore, that in past centuries 60,000 persons were working at
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