Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 105

When the author visited Renfrewshire a few years ago, the colliers were earning from ten to fourteen shillings a day. According to the common saying, they were "making money like a minting machine." To take an instance, a father and three sons were earning sixty pounds a month,--or equal to a united income of more than seven hundred pounds a year. The father was a sober, steady, "eident" man. While the high wages lasted, he was the first to enter the pit in the morning, and the last to leave it at night. He only lost five days in one year (1873-4),--the loss being occasioned by fast-days and holidays. Believing that the period of high wages could not last long, he and his sons worked as hard as they could. They saved a good deal of money, and bought several houses; besides educating themselves to occupy higher positions.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 105 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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