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diff --git a/34060-0.txt b/34060-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f232f90 --- /dev/null +++ b/34060-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6401 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 34060 *** + + + + + PRISONERS OF POVERTY + + WOMEN WAGE-WORKERS, + THEIR TRADES AND THEIR LIVES. + + + By HELEN CAMPBELL + + AUTHOR OF "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME," + "MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY," ETC. + + + BOSTON + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + 1900 + + + + _Copyright, 1887_, + BY HELEN CAMPBELL + + + University Press: + JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE + + + + +PRISONERS OF POVERTY. + + + "_Make no more giants, God, + But elevate the race at once. We ask + To put forth just our strength, our human strength. + All starting fairly, all equipped alike, + Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted,-- + See if we cannot beat Thy angels yet._" + + "_Light, light, and light! to break and melt in sunder + All clouds and chains that in one bondage bind + Eyes, hands, and spirits, forged by fear and wonder + And sleek fierce fraud with hidden knife behind; + There goes no fire from heaven before their thunder, + Nor are the links not malleable that wind + Round the snared limbs and souls that ache thereunder; + The hands are mighty were the head not blind. + Priest is the staff of king, + And chains and clouds one thing, + And fettered flesh with devastated mind. + Open thy soul to see, + Slave, and thy feet are free. + Thy bonds and thy beliefs are one in kind, + And of thy fears thine irons wrought, + Hang weights upon thee fashioned out of thine own thought._" + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The chapters making up the present volume were prepared originally as a +series of papers for the Sunday edition of "The New York Tribune," and +were based upon minutest personal research into the conditions +described. Sketchy as the record may seem at points, it is a photograph +from life; and the various characters, whether employers or employed, +were all registered in case corroboration were needed. While research +was limited to New York, the facts given are much the same for any large +city, and thus have a value beyond their immediate application. No +attempt at an understanding of the labor question as it faces us to-day +can be successful till knowledge of its underlying conditions is +assured. + +It is such knowledge that the writer has aimed to present; and it takes +more permanent form, not only for the many readers whose steady interest +has been an added demand for faithful work, but, it is hoped, for a +circle yet unreached, who, whether agreeing or disagreeing with the +conclusions, still know that to learn the struggle and sorrow of the +workers is the first step toward any genuine help. + +ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, _March_, 1887. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + CHAPTER FIRST. WORKER AND TRADE 7 + + CHAPTER SECOND. THE CASE OF ROSE HAGGERTY 18 + + CHAPTER THIRD. SOME METHODS OF A PROSPEROUS FIRM 30 + + CHAPTER FOURTH. THE BARGAIN COUNTER 43 + + CHAPTER FIFTH. A FASHIONABLE DRESSMAKER 55 + + CHAPTER SIXTH. MORE METHODS OF PROSPEROUS FIRMS 66 + + CHAPTER SEVENTH. NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE GOSPEL 76 + + CHAPTER EIGHTH. THE TRUE STORY OF LOTTE BAUER 88 + + CHAPTER NINTH. THE EVOLUTION OF A JACKET 100 + + CHAPTER TENTH. BETWEEN THE RIVERS 113 + + CHAPTER ELEVENTH. UNDER THE BRIDGE AND BEYOND 126 + + CHAPTER TWELFTH. ONE OF THE FUR-SEWERS 139 + + CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. SOME DIFFICULTIES OF AN EMPLOYER + WHO EXPERIMENTED 150 + + CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. THE WIDOW MALONEY'S BOARDERS 160 + + CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. AMONG THE SHOP-GIRLS 173 + + CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. TWO HOSPITAL BEDS 186 + + CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. CHILD-WORKERS IN NEW YORK 199 + + CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. STEADY TRADES AND THEIR OUTLOOK 210 + + CHAPTER NINETEENTH. DOMESTIC SERVICE AND ITS PROBLEMS 221 + + CHAPTER TWENTIETH. MORE PROBLEMS OF DOMESTIC SERVICE 233 + + CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. END AND BEGINNING 244 + + + + +PRISONERS OF POVERTY. + + + + +CHAPTER FIRST. + +WORKER AND TRADE. + + +In that antiquity which we who only are the real ancients look back upon +as the elder world, counting those days as old which were but the +beginning of the time we reckon, there were certain methods with workers +that centuries ago ceased to have visible form. The Roman matron, whose +susceptibilities from long wear and tear in the observation of fighting +gladiators and the other mild amusements of the period, were a trifle +blunted, felt no compunction in ordering a disobedient or otherwise +objectionable slave into chains, and thereafter claiming the same +portion of work as had been given untrammelled. The routine of the day +demanded certain offices; but how these offices should be most easily +fulfilled was no concern of master or mistress, who required simply +fulfilment, and wasted no time on consideration of methods. In the homes +of Pompeii, once more open to the sun, are the underground rooms where +wretched men and women bowed under the weight of fetters, whose +corrosion was not only in weary flesh, but in the no less weary soul; +and Rome itself can still show the same remnants of long-forgotten wrong +and oppression. + +That day is over, and well over, we say. Only for a few barbarians still +unreached by the march of civilization is any hint of such conditions +possible, and even for them the days of darkness are numbered. And so +the century moves on; and the few who question if indeed the bonds are +quite broken, if civilization has civilized, and if men and women may +claim in full their birthright of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of +happiness," are set down as hopeless carpers,--unpleasant, pragmatic, +generally disagreeable objectors to things as they are. Or if it is +admitted that there are defects here and there, and that much remains to +be remedied, we are pointed with pride to the magnificent institutions +of modern charity, where every possible want of all sorts and conditions +of men is met and fulfilled. + +"What more would you have?" cries the believer in things as they are. +"What is higher or finer than the beautiful spirit that has taken +permanent form in brick and mortar? Never since time began has charity +been on so magnificent a scale; never has it been so intelligent, so +far-seeing. No saints of the past were ever more vowed to good works +than these uncanonized saints of to-day who give their lives to the +poor and count them well lost. Shame on man or woman who questions the +beautiful work or dares hint that under this fair surface rottenness and +all foulness still seethe and simmer!" + +It is not easy in the face of such feeling to affirm that, perfect as +the modern system may be, beautiful as is much of the work accomplished, +it still is wanting in one element, the lack of which has power to +vitiate the whole. No good-will, no charity, however splendid, fills or +can fill the place owned by that need which is forever first and most +vital between man and man,--justice. No love, no labor, no +self-sacrifice even, can balance that scale in which justice has no +place. No knowledge nor wisdom nor any understanding that can come to +man counts as force in the universe of God till that one word heads the +list of all that must be known and loved and lived before ever the +kingdom of heaven can begin upon earth. + +It is because this is felt and believed by a few as a compelling power, +by many as a dimly comprehended need, so far in the shadow that its form +is still unknown, that I begin to-day the search for the real presence. +What I write will be no fanciful picture of the hedged-in lives the +conditions of which I began, many years ago, to study. If names are +withheld, and localities not always indicated, it is not because they +are not recorded in full, ready for reference or any required +corroboration. Where the facts make against the worker, they are given +with as minute detail as where they make against the employer. The one +aim in the investigation has been and is to tell the truth simply, +directly, and in full, leaving it for the reader to determine what share +is his or hers in the evil or in the good that the methods of to-day may +hold. That our system of charities and corrections is unsurpassable does +not touch the case of the worker who wants no charity and needs no +correction. It is something beyond either that must be understood. Till +the methods of the day are analyzed, till one has defined justice, asked +what claim it makes upon the personal life of man and woman, and +mastered every detail that render definition more possible, the +questions that perplex even the most conservative can have no solution +for this generation or for any generation to come. To help toward such +solution is the one purpose of all that will follow. + +In the admirable report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1885, +made under the direction of Mr. Charles Peck, whose name is already the +synonyme for careful and intelligent work, the number of working-women +in New York is given as very nearly two hundred thousand. Investigations +of the same nature have been made at other points, notably Boston, in +the work of Mr. Carroll D. Wright, one of the most widely known of our +statisticians. But neither Boston nor any other city of the United +States offers the same facilities or gives as varied a range of +employment as is to be found in New York, where grinding poverty and +fabulous wealth walk side by side, and where the "life limit" in wages +was established long before modern political economy had made the phrase +current. This number does not include domestic servants, but is limited +to actual handicrafts. Ninety-two trades are given as standing open to +women to-day, and several have been added since the report was made. A +lifetime would hardly be sufficient for a detailed examination of every +industry in the great city, but it is quite possible to form a just +judgment of the quality and character of all those which give employment +to women. The city which affords the largest percentage of habitual +drunkards, as well as the largest number of liquor saloons to the mile, +is naturally that in which most women are forced to seek such means of +subsistence may be had. + +The better-paying trades are filled with women who have had some form of +training in school or home, or have passed from one occupation to +another, till that for which they had most aptitude has been determined. +That, however, to which all the more helpless turn at once, as the one +thing about the doing of which there can be no doubt or difficulty, is +the one most overcrowded, most underpaid, and with its scale of payments +lessening year by year. The girl too ignorant to reckon figures, too +dull-witted to learn by observation, takes refuge in sewing in some of +its many forms as the one thing possible to all grades of intelligence; +and the woman with drunken or otherwise vicious husband, more helpless +often than the widow who turns in the same direction, seeks the same +sources of employment. If respectably dressed and able to furnish some +reference, employment is often found by her in factory or some large +establishments where regular workers have place. But if, as is often the +case, the need for work arises from the death or the evil habits of the +natural head of the family, fortunes have sunk to so low an ebb that +often the only clothing left is on the back of the worker, in the last +stages of demoralization; and the sole method of securing work is +through the middle-men or "sweaters," who ask no questions and require +no reference, but make as large a profit for themselves as can be wrung +from the helplessness and the bitter need of those with whom they +reckon. + +The difficulties to be faced by the woman whose only way of self-support +is limited to the needle, whether in machine or hand work, fourfold. (1) +Her own incompetency must very often head the list and prevent her from +securing first-class work; (2) middle-men or sweaters lower the price to +starvation point; (3) contract work done in prisons or reformatories +brings about the same result; and (4) she is underbid from still another +quarter, that of the country woman who takes the work at any price +offered. + +These conditions govern the character and quality of the work obtained, +even the best firms being somewhat affected by the last two clauses. And +in every trade there may always be found three distinct classes of +employers: the west-side firms, which in many cases care for their +workmen, in degree at least, and where the work is done under conditions +that must be called favorable; the east-side firms, representing +generally cheaper material and lower rates; and last, the slop-work, +which may be either east or west, most often the former, and includes +every form of outrage and oppression that workers can know. + +Clothing in all its multiplied forms takes the first place in the +ninety-two trades, and the workers on what is known as "white wear" form +the large majority of the always increasing army. For many reasons, the +shirt-makers naturally head the list,--the shirt-makers about whom has +hung a certain sentimental interest since the day when poor Tom Hood's +impassioned plea in their behalf first saw the light. Yet to-day, in +spite of popular belief that they are the class most grossly wronged, +the shirt-maker fares far better than the majority of the workers on any +other form of clothing. This always, however, if she is fortunate enough +to have direct relation with some large factory, or with an +establishment which gives out the work directly into the hands of the +women themselves. Given these conditions, it is possible for a +first-class operator to make from seven to twelve dollars per week, the +latter sum being certain only in the factories where steam is the motive +power and where experience has given the utmost facility in handling the +work. In one factory on the west side, employing some one hundred and +fifty girls, and where everything had been brought to almost +mathematical accuracy, the price paid per dozen for shirts was $2.40. +But one of the operatives was able to make a dozen a day, her usual +average being about nine, or five dozen per week of sixty hours. Here +every condition was exceptionally favorable. The building occupied the +centre of a small square, and thus had light on all sides; ventilation +was good; and the forewoman, on whose intelligence and good disposition +much of the comfort of the operatives depends, was far beyond the +average woman in this position. The working day was ten hours, with half +an hour for dinner, and the sanitary conditions more favorable than in +any other establishment of the same size. Many of the operatives had +been there for years, and the dull season, common to all phases of the +clothing trade, was never marked enough here to produce discharges or +materially lessen production. The wages averaged seven dollars per week, +though the laundry women and finishers seldom exceeded five. No +middle-men were employed, and none of the customary exactions in the way +of fines and other impositions were practised. Piece-work was regarded +as the only secure method for both employer and employed, as in such +case it rested with the girl herself to make the highest or the lowest +rate at pleasure. There were no holidays beyond the legal ones, but all +the freedom possible to constant labor was given, the place representing +the best conditions of this special industry. Another firm quite as well +known and employing equal number of workers had found it more expedient +to give up the factory system, and simply retained rooms for cutting and +general handling of the completed work, giving it out in packages to +workers at home. One woman employed by them for seven years had never +made anything but the button-holes in the small piece attached to the +bosom, and such fine lettering as was ordered for custom shirts, her +wages in the busy season being often twelve dollars a week, the year's +average, however, bringing them to seven. She worked exclusively at +home, and represented the best paid and most comfortable phase of the +industry. + +Descending a step, and turning to establishments on the east side, one +found every phase of sanitary condition, including under this head bad +ventilation, offensive odors, facilities for washing, quality of +drinking water, position of water-closets, length of time allowed for +lunch, length of working day, etc. Here the quality of the work was +lower, material, thread, and sewing being all of an order to be expected +from the price of the completed garment, ranging from forty to sixty +cents. The wages, however, did not fall so far below the average as +might be expected, the operator earning from five to eight dollars a +week during the busy season. But the greater number of manufacturers on +both east and west sides of the city turn over the work to middle-men, +or send it to the country, many factories being run in New Jersey and +Pennsylvania, where rents are merely nominal. This proved to be the case +with several firms whose names represent a large business, but who find +less trouble and more profit in the contract system. + +Still another method has gone far toward reducing the rates of payment +to the city worker, and this is the giving out the work in packages to +the wives and daughters of farmers in the outlying country. These women, +having homes, and thus no rent or general expenses to meet, take the +work at rates which for the city operators mean simply starvation, and +thus prices are kept down, and one more stumbling-block put in the way +of the unprotected worker. Careful examination of this phase shows that +the applicants, many of whom give assumed names, work simply for the +sake of pin-money, which is expended in dress. Now and then it is a case +of want, and often that of a woman who, failing to make her husband see +that she has any right to an actual cash share in what the work of her +own hands has helped to earn, turns to this as the only method of +securing some slight personal income. But for the most part, it is only +for pin-money; and no argument could convince these earners that their +work is in any degree illegitimate or fraught with saddest consequences +to those who, because of it, receive just so much the less. Nor would it +be possible to bring such argument to bear. To earn seems the +inalienable right of any who are willing to work, and the result of +methods will never be questioned by employer or employed, unless they +are forced to it by more powerful considerations than any at present +brought forward. + +I have chosen to give these details minutely because they are, +practically, the summing up, not only for shirt-making, but for every +trade which can be said to come under the head of clothing, whether for +men, women, or children,--this including every form of trimming or other +adornment used in dress from artificial flowers to gimps, fringes, and +buttons. And now, having given this general outline, we may pass to the +stories of the units that make up this army,--stories chosen from +quarters where doubt is impossible, and confirmed often by the unwilling +testimony of those from whom the work has come, giving with them also +the necessary details of the trades they may represent, and seeking +first, last, and always, only the actual facts that make up the life of +the worker. + + + + +CHAPTER SECOND. + +THE CASE OF ROSE HAGGERTY. + + +"The case of Rose Haggerty." So it stands on the little record-book in +which long ago certain facts began to have place, each one a count in +the indictment of the civilization of to-day, and each one the story not +only of Rose but of many another in like case. For the student of +conditions among working-women soon discovers that workers divide +themselves naturally into four classes: (1) those who have made +deliberate choice of a trade, fitted themselves carefully for it, and in +time become experts, certain of employment and often of becoming +themselves employers; (2) those who by death of relatives or other +accident of fortune have been thrown upon their own resources and accept +blindly the first means of support that offers, sometimes developing +unexpected power and meeting with the same success as the first class; +(3) those who have known no other life but that of work, and who accept +that to which they most incline with neither energy nor ability enough +to rise beyond a certain level; and (4) those who would not work at all +save for the pressure of poverty, and who make no effort to gain more +knowledge or to improve conditions. But the ebb and flow in this great +sea of toiling humanity wipes out all dividing lines, and each class so +shades into the next that formal division becomes impossible, but is +rather a series of interchanges with no confinement to fixed limits. +Often in passing from one trade to another, chance brings about much the +same result for each class, and no energy or patience of effort is +sufficient to check the inevitable descent into the valley of the +shadow, where despair walks forever hand in hand with endeavor. + +This time had by no means come for Rose, with just enough of her +happy-go-lucky father's nature to make her essentially optimistic. Born +in a Cherry Street tenement-house, she had refused to be killed by +semi-starvation or foul smells, or dirt of any nature whatsoever. Dennis +Haggerty, longshoreman professionally, and doer of all odd jobs in the +intervals of his discharges and re-engagements, explained the situation +to his own satisfaction, if not to that of Rose and the five other small +Haggertys remaining from the brood of twelve. + +"If a man wants his dhrink that bad that no matter what he's said +overnight he'd sell his soul by the time mornin' comes for even a +thimbleful, he's got jist to go to destruction, an' there's no sthoppin' +him. An' I've small call to be blamin' Norah whin she comforts herself a +bit in the same manner of way, nor will I so long's me name's Dennis +Haggerty. But you, Rose, you look out an' get any money you'll find in +me pockets, an' keep the children straight, an' all the saints'll see +you through the job." + +Rose listened, the laugh in her blue eyes shadowed by the sense of +responsibility that by seven was fully developed. She did not wonder +that her mother drank. Why not, when there was no fire in the stove, and +nothing to cook if there had been, and the children counted it a day +when they had a scraping of butter on the bread? But, as often happens +in these cases, the disgust at smell and taste of liquor grew with every +month of her life, and two at least of the children shared it. They were +never beaten; for Haggerty at his worst remained good-natured, and when +sober wept maudlin tears over his flock and swore that no drop should +ever pass his lips again; and Norah echoed every word, and for days +perhaps washed and scrubbed and scoured, earning fair wages, and +gradually redeeming the clothes or furniture pledged round the corner. +Rose went to school when she had anything to wear, and learned in time, +when she saw the first symptoms of another debauch, to bundle every +wearable thing together and take them and all small properties to the +old shoemaker on the first floor, where they remained in hiding till it +was safe to produce them again. She had learned this and many another +method before the fever which suddenly appeared in early spring took +not only her father and mother, but the small Dennis whose career as +newsboy had been her pride and delight, and who had been relied upon as +half at least of their future dependence. There remained, then, Norah, +hopelessly incurable of spinal disease and helpless to move save as Rose +lifted her, and the three little ones, as to whose special gifts there +was as yet no definite knowledge. In the mean time they were simply +three very clamorous mouths to be stopped with such food as might be; +and Rose entered a bag-factory a block away, leaving bread and knife and +molasses-pitcher by Norah's bed, and trusting the saints to avert +disaster from the three experimenting babies. She earned the first month +ten dollars, or two and a half a week, but being exceptionally quick, +was promoted in the second to four dollars weekly. The rent was six +dollars a month; and during the first one the old shoemaker came to the +rescue, had an occasional eye to the children, and himself paid the +rent, telling Rose to return it when she could. When the ten hours' +labor ended, the child, barely fourteen, rushed home to cook something +warm for supper, and when the children were comforted and tucked away in +the wretched old bed, that still was clean and decent, washed and mended +their rags of clothes, and brought such order as she could into the +forlorn room. + +It was the old shoemaker, a patient, sad-eyed old Scotchman, who also +had his story, who settled for her at last that a machine must be had +in order that she might work at home. The woman in the room back of his +took in shirts from a manufacturer on Division Street, and made often +seven and eight dollars a week. She was ready to teach, and in two or +three evenings Rose had practically mastered details, and settled that, +as she was so young, she would not apply for work in person, but take it +through Mrs. Moloney, who would be supposed to have gone into business +on her own account as a "sweater." Whatever temptations Mrs. Moloney may +have had to make a little profit as "middle-man," she resisted and +herself saw that the machine selected was a good one; that no advantage +was taken of Rose's inexperience; and that the agent had no opportunity +to follow out what had now and then been his method, and hint to the +girl that her pretty face entitled her to concessions that would be best +made in a private interview. Shame in every possible form and phase had +been part of the girl's knowledge since babyhood, but it had slipped +away from her, as a foul garment might fall from the fair statue over +which it had chanced to be thrown. It was not the innocence of +ignorance,--a poor possession at best. It was an ingrained repulsion, +born Heaven knows how, and growing as mysteriously with her growth, an +invisible yet most potent armor, recognized by every dweller in the +swarming tenement. She had her father's quick tongue and laughing eyes, +but they could flash as well, and the few who tried a coarse jest +shrunk back from both look and scorching word. + +Thus far all went well with the poor little fortunes. She worked always +ten and twelve, sometimes fourteen, hours a day, yet her strength did +not fail, and there was no dearth of work. It was in 1880, and prices +were nearly double the present rates. To-day work from the same +establishment means not over $4.50 per week, and has even fallen as low +as $3.50. In 1880 the shirts were given out by the dozen as at present, +going back to the factory to pass through the hands of the finisher and +buttonhole maker. The machine operator could make nine of the best class +of shirts in a day of ten hours, being paid for them at the rate of +$1.75 per dozen. Four spools of cotton, two hundred yards each, were +required for a dozen, the price of which must be deducted from the +receipts; but the firm preferred to supply twenty-four-hundred-yard +spools, at fifty cents for six-cord cotton used for the upper thread, +and thirty cents for the three-cord cotton used as under thread, the +present prices for same quality and size being respectively forty-five +and twenty-five cents. Making nine a day, the week's wages would be for +the four dozen and a half $7.87, or $7.50 deducting thread; but Rose +averaged five dozen weekly, and for nearly two years counted herself as +certain of not less than thirty dollars per month and often thirty-five. +The machine had been paid for. The room took on as comfortable a look +as its dingy walls and narrow windows would allow; and Bridget, age +five, had developed distinct genius for housekeeping, and washed dishes +and faces with equal energy and enthusiasm. She did all errands also, +and could not be cheated in the matter of change. She knew where the +largest loaves were to be had, and sniffed suspiciously at the packets +of tea. + +"By the time she's seven, she'll do all but the washing," Rose said with +pride, and Bridget reverted to childhood for an instant, and spun round +on one foot as she made answer:-- + +"Shure, I could now, if you'd only be lettin' me." + +"There's women on the west side that'll earn $2.50 a dozen, for work no +better than you're doing now," some one who had come from that quarter +said to her one day, but Rose shook her head. There is a curious +conservatism among these workers, who cling to familiar haunts and +regard unknown regions with suspicion and even terror. + +"I've no time for change," Rose said. "It might not be as certain when +I'd got it. I'll run no risks;" and she tugged her great bundle of work +up the stairs, rejoicing that living so near saved just so much on +expressage, a charge paid by the workers themselves. + +There were signs well known to the old hands of a probable reduction of +prices, weeks before the first cut came. More fault was found. A slipped +stitch or a break in the thread was pounced upon with even more +promptness than had been their usual portion. Some hands were +discharged, and at last came the general cut, resented by some, wailed +over by all, but accepted as inevitable. Another, and another, and +another followed. Too much production; too many Jew firms competing and +under-bidding; more and more foreigners coming in ready to take the work +at half price. These reasons and a dozen others of the same order were +given glibly, and at first with a certain show of kindliness and attempt +to soften harsh facts as much as possible. But the patience of diplomacy +soon failed, and questioners of all orders were told that if they did +not like it they had nothing to do but to leave and allow a crowd of +waiting substitutes to take their places at half rates. The shirt that +had sold for seventy-five cents and one dollar had gone down to +forty-five and sixty cents respectively, and as cottons and linens had +fallen in the same proportion, there was still profit for all but the +worker. Here and there were places on Grand or Division Streets where +they might even be bought for thirty and forty cents, the price per +dozen to the worker being at last from fifty to sixty cents. In the +factories it was still possible to earn some approximation to the old +rate, but employers had found that it was far cheaper to give out the +work; some choosing to give the entire shirt at so much per dozen; +others preferring to send out what is known as "team work," flaps being +done by one, bosoms by another, and so on. + +For a time Rose hemmed shirt-flaps at four cents a dozen, then took +first one form and then another of underclothing, the rates on which had +fallen in the same proportion, to find each as sure a means of +starvation as the last. She had no knowledge of ordinary family sewing, +and no means of obtaining such work, had any training fitted her for it; +domestic service was equally impossible for the same reason, and the +added one that the children must not be left, and she struggled on, +growing a little more haggard and worn with every week, but the pretty +eyes still holding a gleam of the old merriment. Even that went at last. +It was a hard winter. The steadiest work could not give them food enough +or warmth enough. The children cried with hunger and shivered with cold. +There was no refuge save in Norah's bed, under the ragged quilts; and +they cowered there till late in the day, watching Rose as she sat silent +at the sewing-machine. There was small help for them in the house. The +workers were all in like case, and for the most part drowned their +troubles in stale beer from the bucket-shop below. + +"Put the children in an asylum, and then you can marry Mike Rooney and +be comfortable enough," they said to her, but Rose shook her head. + +"I've mothered 'em so far, and I'll see 'em through," she said, "but the +saints only knows how. If I can't do it by honest work, there's one way +left that's sure, an' I'll try that." + +There came a Saturday night when she took her bundle of work, shirts +again, and now eighty-five cents a dozen. There were five dozen, and +when the $1.50 was laid aside for rent it was easy to see what remained +for food, coal, and light. Clothing had ceased to be part of the +question. The children were barefoot. They had a bit of meat on Sundays, +but for the rest, bread, potatoes, and tea were the diet, with a cabbage +and bit of pork now and then for luxuries. Norah had been failing, and +to-night Rose planned to buy her "something with a taste to it," and +looked at the sausages hanging in long links with a sudden reckless +determination to get enough for all. She was faint with hunger, and +staggered as she passed a basement restaurant, from which came savory +smells, snuffed longingly by some half-starved children. Her turn was +long in coming, and as she laid her bundle on the counter she saw +suddenly that her needle had "jumped," and that half an inch or so of a +band required resewing. As she looked the foreman's knife slipped under +the place, and in a moment half the band had been ripped. + +"That's no good," he said. "You're getting botchier all the time." + +"Give it to me," Rose pleaded. "I'll do it over." + +"Take it if you like," he said indifferently, "but there's no pay for +that kind o' work." + +He had counted her money as he spoke, and Rose cried out as she saw the +sum. + +"Do you mean you'll cheat me of the whole dozen because half an inch on +one is gone wrong?" + +"Call it what you like," he said. "R. & Co. ain't going to send out +anything but first-class work. Stand out of the way and let the next +have a chance. There's your three dollars and forty cents." + +Rose went out silently, choking down rash words that would have lost her +work altogether, but as she left the dark stairs and felt again the +cutting wind from the river, she stood still, something more than +despair on her face. The children could hardly fare worse without her +than with her. The river could not be colder than this cold world that +gave her no chance, and that had no place for anything but rascals. She +turned toward it as the thought came, but some one had her arm, and she +cried out suddenly and tried to wrench away. + +"Easy now," a voice said. "You're breakin' your heart for trouble, an' +here I am in the nick o' time. Come with me an' you'll have no more of +it, for my pocket's full to-night, an' that's more 'n it'll be in the +mornin' if you don't take me in tow." + +It was a sailor from a merchantman just in, and Rose looked at him for a +moment. Then she took his arm and walked with him toward Roosevelt +Street. + +It might be dishonor, but it was certainly food and warmth for the +children, and what did it matter? She had fought her fight for twenty +years, and it had been a vain struggle. She took his money when morning +came, and went home with the look that is on her face to-day. + +"I'll marry you out of hand," the sailor said to her; but Rose answered, +"No man alive'll ever marry me after this night," and she has kept her +word. She has her trade, and it is a prosperous one, in which wages +never fail. The children are warm and have no need to cry for hunger any +more. + +"It's not a long life we live," Rose says quietly. "My kind die early, +but the children will be well along, an' all the better when the time +comes that they've full sense for not having to know what way the living +comes. But let God Almighty judge who's to blame most--I that was +driven, or them that drove me to the pass I'm in." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRD. + +SOME METHODS OF A PROSPEROUS FIRM. + + +"The emancipation of women is certainly well under way, when all +underwear can be bought more cheaply than it is possible to make it up +at home, and simple suits of very good material make it hardly more +difficult for a woman to clothe herself without thought or worry, than +it has long been for a man." + +This was the word heard at a woman's club not long ago, and reinforced +within the week by two well-known journals edited in the interests of +women at large. The editorial page of one held a fervid appeal for +greater simplicity of dress and living in general, followed by half a +column of entreaty to women to buy ready-made clothing, and thus save +time for higher pursuits and the attainment of broader views. With +feebler pipe, but in the same key, sounded the second advocate of +simplification, adding:-- + + "Never was there a time when women could dress with as much real + elegance on as small an expenditure of money. Bargains abound, and + there is small excuse for dowdiness. The American woman is fast + taking her place as the best-dressed woman in the civilized world." + +Believing very ardently that the right of every woman born includes not +only "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but beauty also, it +being one chief end of woman to include in her own personality all +beauty attainable by reasonable means, I am in heartiest agreement with +one side of the views quoted. But in this quest we have undertaken, and +from which, once begun, there is no retreat, strange questions arise; +and in this new dawn of larger liberty and wider outlook is seen the +little cloud which, if no larger than a man's hand, holds the seed of as +wild a storm as has ever swept over humanity. + +For emancipation on the one side has meant no corresponding emancipation +for the other; and as one woman selects, well pleased, garment after +garment, daintily tucked and trimmed and finished beyond any capacity of +ordinary home sewing, marvelling a little that a few dollars can give +such lavish return, there arises, from narrow attic and dark, foul +basement, and crowded factory, the cry of the women whose life-blood is +on these garments. Through burning, scorching days of summer; through +marrow-piercing cold of winter, in hunger and rags, with white-faced +children at their knees, crying for more bread, or, silent from long +weakness, looking with blank eyes at the flying needle, these women toil +on, twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours even, before the fixed task is done. +The slice of baker's bread and the bowl of rank black tea, boiled to +extract every possibility of strength, are taken, still at the machine. +It is easier to sit there than in rising and movement to find what +weariness is in every limb. There is always a child old enough to boil +the kettle and run for a loaf of bread; and all share the tea, which +gives a fictitious strength, laying thus the foundation for the fragile, +anæmic faces and figures to be found among the workers in the +bag-factories, paper-box manufactories, etc. + +"Why don't they go into the country?" is often asked. "Why do they +starve in the city when good homes and ample pay are waiting for them?" + +It is not with the class to whom this question is applicable that we +deal to-day. Of the army of two hundred thousand who battle for bread, +nearly a third have no resource but the needle, and of this third many +thousands are widows with children, to whom they cling with a devotion +as strong as wiser mothers feel, and who labor night and day to prevent +the scattering into asylums, and consequent destruction of the family as +a family. They are widows through many causes that can hardly be said to +come under the head of "natural." Drunkenness leads, and the thousand +accidents that are born of drunkenness, but there are other methods +arising from the same greed that underlies most modern civilization. The +enormous proportion of accidents, which, if not killing instantly, imply +long disability and often death as the final result, come nine tenths of +the time from criminal disregard of any ordinary means of protecting +machinery. One great corporation, owning thousands of miles of railroad, +saw eight hundred men disabled in greater or less degree in one year, +and still refused to adopt a method of coupling cars which would have +saved the lives of the sixty-eight brakemen who were sacrificed to the +instinct of economy dominating the superintendent. The same man refused +to roof over a spot where a number of freight-handlers were employed +during a stormy season, rheumatism and asthma being the consequences for +many, and his reason had at least the merit of frankness,--a merit often +lacking in explanations that, even when most plausible, cover as +essential a brutality of nature. + +"Men are cheaper than shingles," he said. "There's a dozen waiting to +fill the place of one that drops out." + +In another case, in a great saw-mill, the owner had been urged to +protect a lath-saw, swearing at the persistent request, even after the +day when one of his best men was led out to the ambulance, his right +hand hanging by a bit of skin, his death from lockjaw presently leaving +one more widow to swell the number. It is of such men that a sturdy +thinker wrote last year, "Man is a self-damnable animal," and it is on +such men that the curse of the worker lies heaviest. That they exist at +all is hardly credited by the multitude who believe that, for this +country at least, oppression and outrage are only names. That they +exist in numbers will be instantly denied; yet to one who has heard the +testimony given by weeping women, and confirmed by the reluctant +admissions of employers themselves, there comes belief that no words can +fully tell what wrong is still possible from man to man in this America, +the hope of nations. + +Is this a digression hardly to be pardoned in a paper on the trades and +lives of women,--a deliberate turning toward an issue which has neither +place nor right in such limits? On the contrary, it is all part of the +same wretched story. The chain that binds humanity in one has not one +set of links for men and another for women; and the blow aimed at one is +felt also not only by those nearest, but by successive ranks to whom the +shock, though only by indirect transmission, is none the less deadly in +effect. And thus the wrong done on the huge scale appropriate to a great +corporation finds its counterpart in a lesser but quite as well +organized a wrong, born also of the spirit of greed, and working its +will as pitilessly. + +"If you employed on a large scale you would soon find that you ceased to +look at your men as men," said an impatient iron-worker not long ago. +"They are simply so much producing power. I don't propose to abuse them, +but I've no time even to remember their faces, much less their names." + +Precisely on this principle reasons the employer of women, who are even +less to be regarded as personalities than men. For the latter, once a +year at least the employer becomes conscious of the fact that these +masses of "so much producing power" are resolvable into votes, and on +election day, if on no other, worthy of analysis. There is no such +necessity in the case of women. The swarming crowd of applicants are +absolutely at the mercy of the manager or foreman, who, unless there is +a sudden pressure of work, makes the selections according to fancy, +youth and any gleam of prettiness being unfailing recommendations. There +are many firms of which this could not be said with any justice. There +are many more in which it is the law, tacitly laid down, but none the +less a fact. With such methods of selection go other methods supposed to +be confined to the lowest grade of work and the lowest type of employer, +both being referred to regions like Baxter or Division Streets. But they +are to be found east or west indifferently, the illustration at present +in mind being on Canal Street, within sound of Broadway. It is a +prosperous firm, one whose trade-mark can be trusted; and here are a few +of the methods by which this prosperity has been attained, and goes on +in always-increasing ratio. + +In the early years of their existence as a firm they manufactured on the +premises, but, like many other firms, found that it was a very +unnecessary expense. A roof over the heads of a hundred or more women, +with space for their machines, meant not less than twenty-five hundred +dollars a year to be deducted from the profits. Even floors in some +cheaper quarter were still an expense to be avoided if possible. The +easy way out of the difficulty was to make the women themselves pay the +rent, not in any tangible imposition of tax, but none the less certainly +in fact. Nothing could be simpler. Manufacturing on the premises had +only to cease, and it could even be put as a favor to the women that +they were allowed to work at home. The rule established itself at once, +and the firm, smiling serenely at the stoppage of this most damaging and +most unnecessary leak, proceeded to make fresh discoveries of equally +satisfactory possibilities. To each woman who applied for work it was +stated:-- + +"We send all packages from the cutting-room by express, the charges to +be paid by you. It's a small charge, only fifteen cents, to be paid when +the bundle comes in." + +"We can come for ours. We live close by. We don't want to lose the +fifteen cents," a few objected, but the answer was invariable:-- + +"It suits us best to make up the packages in the cutting-room, and if +you don't like the arrangement there are plenty waiting that it will +suit well enough." + +Plenty waiting! How well they knew it, and always more and more as the +ships came in, and the great tide of "producing power" flowed through +Castle Garden, and stood, always at high-water mark, in the wards where +cheap labor may be found. Plenty waiting; and these women who could not +wait went home and turned over their small store of pennies for the +fifteen cents, the payment of which meant either a little less bread or +an hour or two longer at the sewing-machine, defined as the emancipator +of women. + +In the mean time the enterprising firm had made arrangements with a +small express company to deliver the packages at twelve cents each, and +could thus add to the weekly receipts a clear gain of three cents per +head. It is unnecessary to add that they played into each other's hands, +and that the wagon-drivers had no knowledge of anything beyond the fact +that they were to collect the fifteen cents and turn it over to their +superiors. But in some manner it leaked out; and a driver whose feelings +had been stirred by the sad face of a little widow on Sixth Street told +her that the fifteen cents was "a gouge," and they had all better put +their heads together and refuse to pay more than twelve cents. + +"If we had any heads, it might do to talk about putting them together," +the little widow said bitterly. "For my part, I begin to believe women +are born fools, but I'll see what I can do." + +This "seeing" involved earning a dollar or two less for the week, but +the cheat seemed so despicable a one that indignation made her +reckless, and she went to the woman who had first directed her to the +firm and had been in its employ almost from the beginning. + +"It's like 'em; oh, yes, it's like 'em!" she said, "but we've no time to +spend in stirring up things, and you know well enough what would be the +end of it if we did,--discharged, and somebody else getting our wages. +You'd better not talk too much if you want to keep your place." + +"That isn't any worse than the thread dodge," another woman said. "I +know from a clerk in the house where they buy their thread, that they +charge us five cents a dozen more than it costs them, though they make a +great point of giving it to us at cost and cheaper than we could buy it +ourselves." + +"Why don't you club together and buy, then?" the little widow asked, to +hear again the formula, "And get your walking-ticket next day? We know a +little better than that." + +A few weeks later a new system of payment forced each worker to +sacrifice from half an hour to an hour of precious time, her only +capital. Hitherto payments had been made at the desk when work was +brought in, but now checks were given on a Bowery bank, and the women +must walk over in heat and storm alike, and wait their turn in the long +line on the benches. If paid by the week this would make little +difference, as any loss of time would be the employers', but this form +of payment is practically abolished, piece-work done at home meaning the +utmost amount of profit to the employer, every loss in time being paid +by the workers themselves. When questioned as to why the check system of +payment had been adopted by this and various other firms, the reply was +simply:-- + +"It saves trouble. The bank has more time to count out money than we +have." + +"But the women? Does it seem quite fair that they should be the losers?" + +"Fair? Anything's fair in business. You'd find that out if you undertook +to do it." + +As the case then at present stands, for this firm, and for many which +have adopted the same methods, the working-woman not only pays the rent +that would be required for a factory, but gives them a profit on +expressage, thread, time lost in going to bank, and often the price on a +dozen of garments, payment for the dozen being deducted by many foremen +if there is a flaw in one. This foreman becomes the scapegoat if +unpleasant questions are asked by any whose investigation might bring +discredit on the firm. In some cases they refuse positively to give any +information, but in most, questions are answered with suspicious +glibness, and if reference is made to any difficulties encountered by +the women in their employ, they take instant refuge in the statement:-- + +"Oh, that was before the last foreman left. We discharged him as soon as +we found out how he had served the women." + +"Do you see those goods?" another asked, pointing to a counter filled +with piles of chemises. "How do you suppose we make a cent when you can +buy a chemise like that for fifty cents? We don't. The competition is +ruining us, and we're talking of giving up the business." + +"That's so. It's really more in charity to the women than anything else +that we go on," his partner remarked, with a look toward him which +seemed to hold a million condensed winks. "That price is just ruin; +that's what it is." + +Undoubtedly, but not for the firm, as the following figures will +show,--figures given by a competent forewoman in a large establishment +where she had had eleven years' experience: twenty-seven yards and +three-quarters are required for one dozen chemises, the price paid for +such cotton as is used in one selling at fifty cents being five cents +per yard, or $1.40 for the whole amount; thirty yards of edging at 4-1/2 +cents a yard furnishes trimming for the dozen, at $1.35; and four +two-hundred-yard spools of cotton are required, at twenty-five cents per +dozen, or eight cents per dozen garments. The seamer who sews up and +hems the bodies of the garments receives thirty cents a dozen, and the +"maker"--this being the technical term for the more experienced worker +who puts on band and sleeves--receives from ninety cents to one dollar +a dozen, though at present the rates run from seventy-five to ninety +cents. Our table, then, stands as follows:-- + + Cloth for one dozen chemises $1.40 + Edging " " 1.35 + Thread " " .08 + Seamer " " .30 + Maker " " .90 + ----- + Total cost of dozen $4.03 + Wholesale price per dozen 5.25 + Profit per dozen 1.22 + +The chemise which sells at seven dollars per dozen has the additional +value in quality of cloth and edging, the same price being paid the +work-women, this price varying only in very slight degree till the +excessively elaborate work demanded by special orders. One class of +women in New York, whose trade has been a prosperous one since ever time +began, pay often one hundred dollars a dozen for the garments, which are +simply a mass of lace and cobweb cambric, tucked and puffed, and +demanding the highest skill of the machine operator, who even in such +case counts herself happy if she can make eight or nine dollars a week. +And if any youth and comeliness remain to her, why need there be wonder +if the question frame itself: "Why am I the maker of this thing, earning +barest living, when, if I choose, I, too, can be buyer and wearer and +live at ease?" + +Wonder rather that one remains honest when the only thing that pays is +vice. + +For the garments of lowest grade to be found in the cheapest quarters of +the city the price ranges from twenty-five to thirty cents, the maker +receiving only thirty cents a dozen, and cloth, trimming, and thread +being of the lowest quality. The profit in such case is wellnigh +imperceptible; but for the class of employer who secures it, content to +grovel in foul streets, and know no joy of living save the one delight +of seeing the sordid gains roll up into hundreds of thousands, it is +still profit, and he is content. As I write, an evening paper containing +the advertisement of a leading dry-goods firm is placed before me, and I +read: "Chemises, from 12-1/2 cents up." Here imagination stops. No list +of cost prices within my reach tells me how this is practicable. But one +thing is certain. Even here it is not the employer who loses; and if it +is a question of but a third of a cent profit, be sure that that profit +is on his side, never on the side of the worker. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTH. + +THE BARGAIN COUNTER. + + +The problem of the last chapter is, if not plain, at least far plainer +than when it left the pen, and it has become possible to understand how +the garment sold at twelve and a half cents may still afford its margin +of profit. It has also been made plain that that profit is, as there +stated, "never on the side of the worker," but that it is wrung from her +by the sharpest and most pitiless of all the methods known to +unscrupulous men and the women who have chosen to emulate them. For it +has been my evil fortune in this quest to find women not only as filled +with greed and as tricky and uncertain in their methods as the worst +class of male employers, but even more ingenious in specific modes of +imposition. Without exception, so far as I can discover, they have been +workers themselves, released for a time it may be by marriage, but +taking up the trade again, either from choice or necessity. They have +learned every possibility of cheating. They know also far better than +men every possibility of nagging, and as they usually own a few machines +they employ women on their own premises and keep a watchful eye lest +the smallest advantage be gained. The majority prefer to act as +"sweaters," this releasing them from the uncertainties attending the +wholesale manufacturer, and as the work is given to them at prices at or +even below the "life limit," it is not surprising that those to whom +they in turn pass it on find their percentage to mean something much +nearer death than life. + +"Only blind eyes could have failed to see all this before," some reader +is certain to say. "How is it possible that any one dealing directly +with the question could doubt for a moment the existence of this and a +thousand-fold worse fraud?" + +Only possible from the same fact that makes these papers a necessity. +They hold only new phases of the old story. The grain has had not one +threshing alone, but many, and yet for the most patient and persistent +of searchers after truth is ever fresh surprise at its nature and +extent. Given one or a dozen exposures of a fraud, and we settle +instinctively into the conviction that its power has ended. It is barely +conceivable to the honest mind that cheating has wonderful staying +power, and that not one nor a thousand exposures will turn into straight +paths feet used to crooked ones. And when a business man, born to all +good things and owning a name known as the synonyme of the best the +Republic offers to-day, states calmly, "There is no such thing as +business without lying," what room remains for honor or justice or +humanity among men whose theory is the same, and who can gild it with no +advantage of birth or training? It is a wonderful century, and we are +civilizing with a speed that takes away the breath and dims the vision, +but there are dark corners still, and in the shadow Greed and Corruption +and Shame hold high carnival, with nameless shapes, before which even +civilization cowers. Their trace is found at every turn, but we deal +with only one to-day, helpless, even when face to face, to say what +method will most surely mean destruction. + +We settle so easily into the certainty that nothing can be as bad as it +seems, that moments of despair come to all who would rouse men to +action. Not one generation nor many can answer the call sounding forever +in the ears of every son of man; but he who has heeded has at least made +heeding more possible for those that follow; and the time comes at last +when the way must be plain for all. To make it plainer many a popular +conviction must be laid aside, and among them the one that follows. + +It is a deeply rooted belief that the poor understand and feel for the +poor beyond any possibility in those who have never known cold and +hunger and rags save as uncomfortable terms used too freely by +injudicious agitators. Like many another popular belief the groundwork +is in the believer's own mind, and has its most tangible existence in +story-books. There are isolated cases always of self-sacrifice and +compassion and all gentle virtues, but long experience goes to show that +if too great comfort is deadening, too little is brutalizing, and that +pity dies in the soul of man or woman to whom no pity has been shown. It +is easy to see, then, how the woman who has found injustice and +oppression the law of life, deals in the same fashion when her own time +comes, and tyrannizes with the comfortable conviction that she is by +this means getting even with the world. She knows every sore spot, and +how best to make the galled jade wince, and lightens her own task by the +methods practised in the past upon herself. This is one species to be +dealt with, and a far less dangerous one than the craftier and less +outspokenly brutal order, just above her in grade. It is by these last +that some of the chief frauds on women are perpetrated, and here we find +one source of the supplies that furnish the bargain counters. + +We read periodically of firms detected in imposing upon women, and are +likely to feel that such exposure has ended their career as firms once +for all. In every trade will be found one or more of these, whose +methods of obtaining hands are fraudulent, and who advertise for "girls +to learn the trade," with no intention of retaining them beyond the time +in which they remain content to work without pay. There are a thousand +methods of evasion, even when the law faces them and the victim has made +formal complaint. As a rule she is too ignorant and too timid for +complaint or anything but abject submission, and this fact is relied +upon as certain foundation for success. But, if determined enough, the +woman has some redress in her power. Within a few years, after long and +often defeated attempts, the Woman's Protective Union has brought about +legislation against such fraud, and any employer deliberately +withholding wages is liable to fifteen days' imprisonment and the costs +of the suit brought against him, a fact of which most of them seem to be +still quite unaware. This law, so far as imprisonment is concerned, has +no application to women, and they have learned how to evade the points +which might be made to bear upon them, by hiring rooms, machines, etc., +and swearing that they have no personal property that can be levied +upon. Or, if they have any, they transfer it to some friend or relative, +as in the case of Madame M----, a fashionable dressmaker notorious for +escaping from payment seven times out of ten. She has accumulated money +enough to become the owner of a large farm on Long Island, but so +ingeniously have all her arrangements been made that it is impossible to +make her responsible, and her case is used at the Union as a standing +illustration of the difficulty of circumventing a woman bent upon +cheating. + +A firm, a large proportion of whose goods are manufactured in this +manner, can well afford to stock the bargain counters of popular +stores. They can afford also to lose slightly by work imperfectly done, +though, even with learners, this is in smaller proportion than might be +supposed. The girl who comes in answer to their advertisement is anxious +to learn the trade at once, and gives her best intelligence to mastering +every detail. Her first week is likely to hold an energy of effort that +could hardly last, and she can often be beguiled by small payments and +large promises to continue weeks and even months, always expecting the +always delayed payment. Firms dealing in such fashion change their +quarters often, unless in league with police captains who have been +given sufficient reasons for obliviousness of their methods, and who +have also been known to silence timid complaints with the threat of a +charge of theft. But there is always a multitude ready to be duped, and +no exposure seems sufficient to prevent this, and women who have once +established a business on this system seem absolutely reckless as to any +possible consequences. + +There is at present on Third Avenue a Mrs. F----, who for eleven years +has conducted a successful business built upon continuous fraud. She is +a manufacturer of underwear, and the singular fact is that she has +certain regular employees who have been with her from the beginning, and +who, while apparently unconscious of her methods, are practically +partners in the fraud. She is a woman of good presence and address, and +one to whom girls submit unquestioningly, contending, even in court, +that she never meant to cheat them; and it is still an open question +with those who know her best how far she herself recognizes the fraud in +her system. The old hands deny that it is her custom to cheat, and +though innumerable complaints stand against her, she has usually paid on +compulsion, and insisted that she always meant to. Her machines never +lack operators, and the grade of work turned out is of the best quality. +Her advertisement appears at irregular intervals, is answered by swarms +of applicants, and there are always numbers waiting their turn. On a +side street a few blocks distant is a deep basement, crowded with +machines and presided over by a woman with many of her personal +characteristics. It is the lowest order of slop work that is done here, +but it helps to fill the bargain counters of the poorer stores, and the +workers are an always shifting quantity. It is certain that both places +are practically the property of Mrs. F----, but no man has yet been +cunning enough to determine once for all her responsibility, and no law +yet framed covers any ground that she has chosen as her own. Her +prototypes are to be found in every trade open to women, and their +numbers grow with the growth of the great city and strengthen in like +proportion. The story of one is practically the story of all. Popularly +supposed to be a method of trickery confined chiefly to Jews, +investigation shows that Americans must share the odium in almost as +great degree, and that the long list includes every nationality known to +trade. + +We have dealt thus far with fraud as the first and chief procurer for +bargain counters. Another method results from a fact that thus far must +sum up as mainly Jewish. Till within very little more than a year, a +large dry-goods firm on the west side employed many women in its +underwear department. The work was piece-work, and done by the class of +women who own their own machines and work at home. Prices were never +high, but the work was steady and the pay prompt. The firm for a time +made a specialty of "Mother Hubbard" night-gowns, for which they paid +one dollar a dozen for "making," this word covering the making and +putting in of yoke and sleeves, the "seamer" having in some cases made +the bodies at thirty cents a dozen. Many of the women, however, made the +entire garment at $1.30 per dozen, ten being the utmost number +practicable in a day of fourteen hours. Suddenly the women were informed +that their services would not be required longer. An east-side firm +bearing a Jewish name had contracted to do the same work at eighty cents +a dozen, and all other underwear in the same proportions. Steam had +taken the place of foot-power, and the women must find employment with +firms who were willing to keep to slower methods. Necessarily these are +an always lessening minority. Competition in this race for wealth +crushes out every possibility of thought for the worker save as so much +producing power, and what hand and foot cannot do steam must. In several +cases in this special manufacture the factories have been transferred to +New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where rent is a mere song, and where girls +flock in from the adjacent country, eager for the work that represents +something higher than either ordinary mill work or the household service +they despise. + +"What can we do?" said one manufacturer lately, when asked how he +thought the thing would end. "If there were any power quicker than +steam, or any way of managing so that women could feed five or six +machines, that would have to come next, else every one of us would go to +the wall together, the pressure is so tremendous. Of course there's no +chance for the women, but then you must remember there's precious little +chance for the employer either. This competition is a sort of insanity. +It gluts the market with cheap goods, and gives a sense of prosperity, +but it is the death of all legitimate, reasonable business. It won't +surprise me if this whole trade of manufacturing underwear becomes a +monopoly, and one man--like O'H----, for instance--swallows up the whole +thing. Lord help the women then, for there'll be no help in man!" + +"Suppose co-operation were tried? What would be the effect?" + +"No effect, because there isn't confidence enough anywhere to make men +dare a co-operative scheme. Even the workers would distrust it, and a +sharp business man laughs in your face if you mention the word. It +doesn't suit American notions. It might be a good thing if there were +any old-fashioned business men left,--men content with slow profits and +honest dealing,--as my father was, for instance. But he wouldn't have a +ghost of a chance to-day. The whole system of business is rotten, and +there will have to be a reconstruction clean from the bottom, though +it's the men that need it first. We're the maddest nation for money on +the face of the earth, and the race is a more killing one every year. +I'm half inclined to think sometimes that mankind will soon be pretty +much a superfluity, the machines are getting so intelligent; and it may +be these conditions that seem to upset you so are simply means of +killing off those that are not wanted, and giving place to a less +sensitive order of beings. Lord help them, I say again, for there's no +help in man." + +The speaker nodded, as if this rather unexpected flight of imagination +was an inspiration in which might lie the real solution of all +difficulties, and hurried away to his waiting niche in the great +competitive system. And as he went, there came to me words spoken by one +of the workers, in whose life hope was dead, and who also had her theory +of any future under to-day's conditions:-- + +"I've worked eleven years. I've tried five trades with my needle and +machine. My shortest day has been fourteen hours, for I had the children +and they had to be fed. There's not one of these trades that I don't +know well. It isn't work that I've any trouble in getting. It's wages. +Five years ago I could earn $1.50 a day, and we were comfortable. Then +it began to go down,--$1.25, then $1.00. There it stopped awhile, and I +got used to that, and could even get some remains of comfort out of it. +I had to plan to the last half cent. We went cold often, but we were +never hungry. But then it fell again,--to ninety cents, to eighty-five. +For a year the best that I can do I have earned not over eighty cents a +day,--sometimes only seventy-five. I'm sixty-two years old. I can't +learn new ways. I am strong. I always was strong. I run the machine +fourteen hours a day, with just the stoppings that have to be to get the +work ready. I've never asked a man alive for a penny beyond what my own +hands can earn, and I don't want it. I suppose the Lord knows what it +all means. It's His world and His children in it, and I've kept myself +from going crazy many a time by saying it was His world and that somehow +it must all come right in the end. But I don't believe it any more. He's +forgotten. There's nothing left but men that live to grind the face of +the poor; that chuckle when they find a new way of making a cent or two +more a week out of starving women and children. I never thought I +should feel so; I don't know myself; but I tell you I'm ready for murder +when I think of these men. If there's no justice above, it isn't quite +dead below; and if men with money will not heed, the men and the women +without money will rise some day. How? I don't know. We've no time to +plan, and we're too tired to think, but it's coming somehow, and I'm not +ashamed to say I'll join in if I live to see it come. It's seas of tears +that these men sail on. It's our life-blood they drink and our flesh +that they eat. God help them if the storm comes, for there'll be no help +in man." + +Employer and employed had ended in wellnigh the same words; but the gulf +between no words have spanned, and it widens day by day. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTH. + +A FASHIONABLE DRESSMAKER. + + +"Come now, be reasonable, won't you? You've got to move on, you know, +and why don't you do it?" + +"I'm that reasonable that a bench of judges couldn't be more so; and +I'll not move on for anything less than dynamite, and I ain't sure I +would for that. It's only a choice between starvation and going into the +next world in little bits, and I don't suppose it makes much difference +which way it's done." + +The small, pale, dogged-looking little woman who announced this +conviction did not even rise from the steps where she sat looking up to +the big policeman, who faced her uneasily, half turning as if he would +escape the consequences of rash action if he knew how. Nothing could be +more mysterious. For it was within sight of Broadway, on one of the +best-known side streets near Union Square, where business signs were few +and of the most decorous order, and where before one door, bearing the +name of one of the best-known fashionable dressmakers, a line of +carriages stood each day during the busy season. A name hardly less +known was on the door-plate of the great house before which she sat, and +which still bore every mark of prosperous ownership, while from one of +the windows looked the elaborately dressed head of Madame herself, the +anxiety in her eyes contradicting the scornful smile on her thin lips. +The door just beyond No. -- opened, and a stout gentleman descended one +step and stood eying the policeman belligerently. That official looked +up the street as if wishing for cry of "murder" or "stop thief" around +the corner, but hearing neither, concentrated again on the antagonist +whose irregular methods defied precedent and gave him a painful sense of +insecurity. If two could listen, why not three?--and I paused near the +steps, eyed considerately by the stout gentleman, who was evidently on +the outlook for allies. A look of intelligence passed between Madame and +the policeman, and her head disappeared from the window, a blind on the +second story moving slightly and announcing a moment later that she had +taken a less conspicuous post of observation. + +"Move on now, I tell you!" began the policeman again, but paused, for as +he spoke a slender, bright-eyed girl came swiftly toward them, and +paused on the first step with a glance of curiosity at the little group. + +"Have you come to answer Madame M----'s advertisement?" the little woman +said, as she rose from the steps and laid her hand detainingly on the +hurrying figure. + +"Yes," the girl answered hesitatingly, pulling away from the hand that +held. + +"Then, unless you've got anything else to do and like to give your time +and strength for naught, keep away. You'll get no wages, no matter +what's promised. I've been there six months, kept on by fair promises, +and I know. I'll let no girl go in there without warning." + +"It's a good-looking place," the girl said doubtfully. + +"It's a den of thieves all the same. If you don't believe me, come down +to the Woman's Protective Union on Clinton Place, and you'll see my case +on the book there, and judgment against this woman, that's no more mercy +than a Hottentot and lies that smoothly that she'd humbug an angel of +light. Ah! that's good!" she added, for the girl had shaken off her hand +and sped away as swiftly as she had come. "That's seven since yesterday, +and I wish it were seven hundred. It's time somebody turned watchdog." + +"That ain't your business. That's a matter for the law," said the big +policeman, who had glanced anxiously up to the second-story window and +then looked reassured and serene, as the stout gentleman made a +significant movement, which indicated that bribery was as possible for +one sex as for the other. "The law'll straighten out anything that +you've a mind to have it." + +"The law! Lord help them that think the law is going to see them +through," the small woman said, with a fierceness that made the big +policeman start and lay his hand on his club. "What's the law worth when +it can't give to you one dollar of two hundred and eight that's owed; +and she that earned them gasping her life out with consumption? If it +was my account alone do you suppose I'd care? Mine's eighty-five, and I +went to law for it, to find she'd as long a head as she has smooth +tongue, and had fixed things so that there wasn't a stick of furniture +nor a dollar of property that could be levied on. If she'd been a man +the new law that gives a cheating employer fifteen days' imprisonment +might have worked with her as it's worked with many a rascal that never +knew he could be brought up with a round turn. But she's a woman and she +slides through, and a judgment against her isn't worth the paper it's +written on. So as I can't take it out in money I take it out in being +even with her. There are the papers that show I don't lie, and here I +sit the time I've fixed to sit, and if she gets the three new hands +she's after, it won't be because I haven't done what came to me to do to +hinder it." + +The policeman had moved away before the words ended, the stout gentleman +having descended the steps for a moment, and stood in a position which +rendered his little transaction feasible and almost invisible. He +beckoned to me as the small woman sat down again on the steps, and I +followed him into the vestibule. + +"You're interested, my dear madam," he said. "You're interested, and you +ought to be. I've stayed home from business to make sure she wasn't +interfered with, and I'd do it again with the greatest pleasure. I'd +like to post one like her before every establishment in New York where +cheating goes on, and I'm going to see this thing through!" + +There was no time for questions. My appointment must be kept, and with +one pause to take the name and number of the small Nemesis I went my +way. Three days later she sat there still, and on the following one, as +the warm spring rain fell steadily, she kept her post, sheathed in a +rubber cloak, and protected by an umbrella which, from its size and +quality, I felt must be the stout gentleman's. With Saturday night her +self-imposed siege ended, and she marched away, leaving the enemy badly +discomfited and much more disposed to consider the rights of the +individual, if not of the worker in general. As Madame's prices were +never less than fifty dollars for the making of a suit, ranging from +this to a hundred or more, and as her three children were still small +and her husband an undiscoverable factor, it became an interesting +question to know where she placed the profits which, even when lessened +by non-paying customers, could never be anything but great. Madame, +however, had been too keen even for the sharp-witted lawyer of the +Protective Union, whose utmost efforts only disclosed the fact that she +was the probable backer of a manufacturer whose factory and farm were on +Long Island, and whose business capacity had till within a few years +never insured him more than a bare living. + +It is an old story, yet an always new one, and in this case Madame had +quieted her conscience by providing a comfortable lunch for the workers +and allowing them more space than is generally the portion in a busy +establishment. Well housed and well fed through the day and paid at +intervals enough to meet the demands of rent or board bill, it was easy +to satisfy her hands by the promise of full and speedy settlement, and +when this failed, to tell a pitiful tale of unpaid bills and +conscienceless customers, who could not be forced. When these resources +were exhausted discharge solved any further difficulties, and a new set +came in, to undergo the same experience. In an establishment where +honesty has any place, the wages are rather beyond the average, +skirt-hands receiving from seven to nine dollars a week and waist-hands +from ten to fifteen. In the case of stores this latter class make from +eighteen to forty dollars per week, and often accumulate enough capital +to start in business for themselves. But a skirt-hand like Mary M---- +seldom passes on to anything higher, and counts herself well paid if +her week of sixty hours brings her nine dollars, not daring to grumble +seriously if it falls to seven or even six. On the east side the same +work must be done for from four to six dollars a week, the latter sum +being considered high pay. But the work is an advance upon factory work +and has a better sound, the dressmaker's assistant looking down upon the +factory hand or even the seamstress as of an inferior order. + +In time I learned the full story of the little woman, ordinarily +reticent and shrinking, but brought by trouble and indignation to the +fiercest protest against oppression. Born in a New-England village she +had learned a milliner's trade, to which she presently added +dressmaking, and succeeded in making a fair living, till bitten by the +desire to see larger life and share all the good that the city seems to +offer the shut-in country life, she came to New York with her small +savings, expecting to find work easily, and did so, going at once into a +store where a friend was at work. Sanitary conditions were all bad. Her +hall bedroom on a fourth floor and the close confinement all did their +work, and a long illness wasted strength and savings. When recovery came +her place had been filled; and she wandered from store to store seeking +employment, doing such odd jobs as were found at intervals, and +powerless to recover the lost ground. + +"It was like heaven to me," she said, "when my friend came back to the +city and got me that place as skirt-hand at Madame M----'s. I was so far +gone I had even thought of the river, and said to myself it might be the +easiest way out. You can't help but like Madame, for she's +smooth-tongued and easy, and praises your work, and she made me think +I'd soon be advanced and get the place I ought to have. She paid +regularly at first, and I began to pick up courage. It was over-hours +always. Madame would come in smiling and say: 'Ah, dear girls! What +trouble! It is an order that must be finished so soon. Who will be kind +and stay so leetle longer?' Then we all stayed, and she'd have tea made +and send it in, and sandwiches or something good, and they all said, +'She's an angel. You won't find anybody like Madame.' She was so +plausible, too, that even when there was longer and longer time between +the payments the girls didn't blame her, but borrowed of one another and +put off their landladies and managed all ways to save her feelings. +Jenny G---- had been here longer than any of them, and she worshipped +Madame and wouldn't hear a word even when one or another complained. But +Jenny's feet were on the ground and she hadn't a stitch of warm +underclothes, and she took a cold in December, and by January it had +tight hold of her. I went to Madame myself then, and begged her to pay +Jenny if it wasn't but a little, and she cried and said if she could +only raise the money she would. She didn't; and by and by I went again, +and then she turned ugly. I looked at her dumfounded when she spoke her +real mind and said if we didn't like it we could leave; there were +plenty of others. I wouldn't believe my ears even, and said to myself +she was worn out with trouble and couldn't mean a word of it. I wanted +money for myself, but I wouldn't ask even for anybody but Jenny. + +"Next day Madame brought her ten dollars of the two hundred and twenty +she owed her, and Jenny got shoes; but it was too late. I knew it well, +for I'd seen my sister go the same way. Quick consumption ain't to be +stopped with new shoes or anything but new lungs, and there's no patent +for them yet that ever I've heard of. She was going last night when I +went round, and sure as you live I'm going to put her death in the paper +myself. I've been saving my money off lunches to do it, and I'll write +it: 'Murdered by a fashionable dressmaker on ---- Street, in January, +1886, Jenny G----, age nineteen years and six months.' Maybe they won't +put it in, but here it is, ready for any paper that's got feeling enough +to care whether sewing-girls are cheated and starved and killed, or +whether they get what they've earned. I've got work at home now. It +don't matter so much to me; but I'm a committee to attend to this thing, +and I'll find out every fraud in New York that I can. I've got nine +names now,--three of 'em regular fashionables on the west side, and six +of 'em following their example hard as they can on the east; and a +friend of mine has printed, in large letters, 'Beware of' at the head of +a slip, and I add names as fast as I get them, and every girl that comes +in my way I warn against them. Do much good? No. They'll get all the +girls they want, and more; but it's some satisfaction to be able to say +they are cheats, making a living out of the flesh and blood of their +dupes, and I'll say it till I die." + +Here stands the experience of one woman with fearlessness enough to +protest and energy enough to have at last secured a tolerable living. +The report, for such it may be considered, might be made of many more +names than those upon her black list, or found on the books of the +Union. Happily for the worker, they form but a small proportion of the +long list of dressmakers who deal fairly. But the life of the ordinary +hand who has not ability enough to rise is, like that of the great +majority who depend on the needle, whether machine or hand, filled with +hardship, uncertainty, overwork, under-pay. The large establishments +have next to no dull season, but we deal in the present chapter only +with private workers; and often, on the east side especially, where +prices and wages are always at the lowest ebb, the girls who have used +all their strength in overwork during the busy season of spring and fall +must seek employment in cigar factories or in anything that offers in +the intermediate time, the wages giving no margin for savings which +might aid in tiding over such periods. The dressmaker herself is often +a sufferer, conscienceless customers abounding, who pay for the work of +one season only when anxious for that of the next. Often it is mere +carelessness,--the recklessness which seems to make up the method of +many women where money obligations are concerned; but often also they +pass deliberately from one dressmaker to another, knowing that New York +holds enough to provide for the lifetime of the most exacting customer. +There is small redress for these cases, and the dressmaker probably +argues the matter for herself and decides that she has every right, +being cheated, to balance the scale by a little of the same order on her +own account. + +A final form of rascality referred to in a previous chapter is found +here, as in every phase of the clothing trade, whether on small or large +scale. Girls are advertised for "to learn the trade," and the usual army +of applicants appear, those who are selected being told that the first +week or two will be without wages, and only the best workers will be +kept. Each girl is thus on her mettle, and works beyond her strength and +beyond any fair average, to find herself discharged at the end of the +time and replaced by an equally eager and equally credulous substitute. +There are other methods of fraud that will find place in a consideration +of phases of the same work in the great establishments, some +difficulties of the employer being reserved for the same occasion. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTH. + +MORE METHODS OF PROSPEROUS FIRMS. + + +To do justice to employer as well as employed is the avowed object of +our search, yet as it goes on, and the methods made necessary by +competition become more and more clear, it is evident that back of every +individual case of wrong and oppression lies a deeper wrong and a more +systematized oppression. Master and servant alike are in the same bonds, +and the employer is driven as mercilessly as he drives. He may deny it. +He may even be quite unconscious of his own subjection, or, if he thinks +at all of its extent, may look enviously at the man or the corporation +that has had power to enslave him. The monopolist governs not only the +market but the bodies and souls of all who provide wares for that +market; yet the fascination of such power is so tremendous that to stand +side by side with him is the dream of every young merchant,--the goal on +which his eyes are set from the beginning. Only in like power is any +satisfaction to be found. Any result below this high-water mark can be +counted little else than failure. + +To this end, then, toils the employer of every grade, bringing every +faculty to bear on the lessening of waste, whether in material or time; +the conservation of every force working in line with his purpose. +Naturally, the same effect is produced as that mentioned in a previous +paper. The employees come to represent "so much producing power," and +are driven at full speed or shut off suddenly like the machines of which +they are the necessary but still more or less accidental associates. +Certain formulas are used, evolved apparently from experience, and +carrying with them an assurance of so much grieved but inevitable +conviction that it is difficult to penetrate below the surface and +realize that, while in degree true, they are in greater degree false. In +various establishments, large and small, beginning with one the pay-roll +of which carries 1,462 employees, and ending with one having hardly a +third this number, the business manager made invariably the same +statement: "We make our money from incidentals rather than from any +given department. You are asking particularly about suits. I suppose +you'll think it incredible, but in suits we work at a dead loss. It is +only an accommodation to our customers that makes us keep that +department open. The work should be put out to mean any profit, but we +can't do that with the choicest materials, and so we make it up in other +directions. You would have to go into business yourself to understand +just how we are driven." + +"Suppose you refused to be driven? A firm of your standing must have +matters a good deal in its own hands. Suppose--" + +"Suppose!" The manager threw out his hands in a gesture more full of +disclaimer than any words. "There is no room for supposes in business, +madam. We do what we must. How are we to compete with a factory turning +out suits by steam power? Not that we would compete. There is really no +occasion," he added hastily. "But their methods certainly have an +unpleasant influence, and we are obliged to take them into account +slightly." + +"Then your statement would be, that no matter how expensive the suit +made up, you can make no profit on it?" + +"Absolutely none. It is a concession to a customer's whims. We could buy +the same thing and sell to her at half the price, but she prefers to +select materials and have them put together in our work-room, and we +must humor her. But rents are so enormous that the space for every woman +employed by us in these departments may be said to represent simply so +many cubic feet in good coin, bringing us no return. Our profits are +dwindling with every year." + +"Might not co-operation--" + +Again the manager threw out his hands. + +"Simply another form of robbery. We have investigated the history of +co-operation, and it does not appear to affiliate with our institutions. +The lamentable failure of the Co-operative Dress Association ought to +be the answer to that suggestion. No, madam. There is no profit in +suits, or in any form of made-up clothing for ladies' wear, if it is +done on the premises. You have to turn it over to the wholesale +manufacturer if you want profit." + +Having heard this statement in many forms, and recognizing the fact that +increase in rents as well as in systematized competition might well have +reduced profits, it still appeared incredible that the rates charged +held no surplus for the firm. Little by little it has become possible to +supplement each statement by others of a different order. Nothing is +more difficult than to obtain trustworthy information regarding the +methods of a firm whose standing is such that to have served it is +always a passport to other employment; whose payments are regular, and +where every detail of work-room is beyond criticism. It is no question +of bare-faced robbery as in that of many cited, yet even here the old +story tells itself in different form, and with an element which, in many +a less pretentious establishment, has not yet been found to exist. + +The work done here is piece-work. French cutters and fitters, receiving +from thirty to fifty dollars a week, give that guarantee of style and +elegance which is inherent in everything bearing the stamp of the firm. +Experts run the machines in the sewing-machine room, being paid by the +day at the rate of from six to eight dollars per week in the busy +season. The buttonholes are made by women who do nothing else, and who +are paid by the dozen, earning from five to seven dollars weekly. All +stitched seams are done in the machine-room, and the dress passes from +there to the sewing-room, into the hands of the sewing-girls, who +receive from three to four dollars and a half for each garment. The +latter price is seldom reached; four dollars and a half or five dollars +paying for a dress loaded with trimming, puffs, flounces, etc. + +At this rate there would seem to be a chance for wages a good deal +beyond the average, but it is one of the unwritten laws that no +sewing-girl shall exceed five dollars per week; whether formulated by +superintendent or by firm remains yet to be discovered. The one +unquestionable fact is that if the superintendent of the work-room finds +that any girl is expert enough to make over this amount the price per +garment is docked, to bring her down to the level. They are never +driven. On the contrary, they must wait often, two or three hours at +times, for the arrival of "Madame," who must inspect the work, drape a +skirt, or give some suggestion as to trimming. No entreaty can induce +the superintendent to give out another piece of work which might fill +this vacant time, and the girls dare not state their case to the +employer. No member of the firm enters the work-rooms. Reports are made +by the superintendent of the department, and the firm remains content +with knowing that it has provided every comfort for its employees. +Complaint would insure discharge, and if a girl hints that she cannot +live on five dollars a week the answer has been for the years during +which the present superintendent has held the place, always the same:-- + +"If you haven't a home so that you have no expense of board, it is your +own fault, and I can't be expected to do anything about it." + +There appears to be no question as to the entire "respectability" of the +woman, who would undoubtedly deny the implication contained in her own +words. But there is rivalry between the superintendents as to which +department shall make largest returns in profits, and wages are kept +down to secure that end. There is also no question that a proportion of +those employed are "supported," and merely add this work as a means of +securing a little more pin-money. It is true of but a very few, but of +those few an undeniable fact. It is equally a fact that, in spite of the +managers' assertions, profit can be made and is made from this +department, and that a large percentage of such profit comes directly +from the pocket of the sewing-girl, who, even when she adds +buttonhole-making in the simpler dresses, can never pass beyond a fixed +wage. + +In other large establishments on both sides of the city methods are much +the same, with merely slight variations as to comfort of quarters, time +for lunch, sanitary conditions, etc. But in all alike, the +indispensable, but always very helpless, sewing-girl appears to be one +of the chief sources of profit, and to have small capacity and no +opportunity for improving her condition. Even where the work comes from +the manufactory, and steam has taken the place of foot-power, no machine +has yet been run so automatically that the human hand can be entirely +dispensed with. The "finisher" remains a necessity, and as finisher +sometimes passes slightly beyond the rate obtained when merely +sewing-girl. Only slightly, however. It is a deeply rooted conviction +among these workers that a tacit or even, it may be, formal +understanding has been settled upon by employers in general. + +"I don't know how it is," said one of the most intelligent among the +many I have talked with; "there's never any trouble about getting work. +I've even had them send after me when I had gone somewhere else in hopes +of doing better. I used to earn ten and twelve dollars a week on suits, +children's or ladies', but now if I earn five or sometimes six I do +well. The work goes on with a rush. It's a whole building except the +first floor,--five stories, and suits of every kind. The rooms are all +crowded, and they give out piece-work, but they've managed it so that we +all earn about alike. When the rush of the fall and spring season is +over they do white work and flannel skirts and such things, and a great +many are discharged in the lull. But go where you will, up-town or +down, it doesn't seem to matter how well you can turn off the work or +how long you have been at it. They all say, if we ask for better pay, +'It can't be had as long as there is such competition. We're losing +straight ahead.' I don't understand. We don't any of us understand, +because here is the great rush of work and it must be done. They can't +do without us, and yet they are grinding us down so that I get half +distracted sometimes, wondering where it will end and if things will +ever be better." + +"Would not private sewing be better? There is always a demand for good +seamstresses." + +"I don't know anything about private sewing. You have to cut and plan, +and I never learned that. I like to work on things that are cut by a +cutter and just so, and I can make up my dozen after dozen with not an +eighth of an inch difference in my measurements. I'm an expert, you +know." + +"But if you learned to do private sewing perfectly you could earn a +dollar and a quarter a day and board and have your evening quite free." + +The girl shook her head. "I've had that said to me before, but you know +it's more independent as I am. Maybe things will be better by and by." + +There is no obstinacy like the obstinacy of deep-seated prejudice, and +this exists to a bewildering degree among these workers, who, for some +inscrutable reason, seem filled with the conviction that private employ +of any nature whatever is inevitably a despotism filled with unknown +horrors. There appears to be also a certain _esprit du corps_ that holds +sustaining power. The girl likes to speak of herself as one of such and +such a firm's hands, and to regard this distinction as compensation for +over-hours and under-pay and all known wretchedness encompassing her +trade. The speaker I have quoted was an American girl of twenty-six, had +had three years in public schools, and regarded the city as the only +place in which life could be considered endurable. + +"I shouldn't know what to do in the country if I were there," she said. +"I don't seem to like it somehow. It isn't the company, for mother and +me keep to ourselves a good deal, but somehow we know how to get along +in the city, and the country scares me. I like my work if only I could +get more pay for it." + +"Do you ever think that if all who work in your line joined together and +made common cause you might even things a little; that it might be +easier for all of you?" + +"We wouldn't dare," she answered, aghast. "Why, do you know, there'd be +ten for each one of us that was turned off. Women come there by the +hundred. That's what they say to me in our firm: 'What's the use of +fussing when here are dozens waiting to take your place?' There isn't +any use. They say now that it is the dull season, and they've put our +room on flannel skirts; two tucks and a hem, and a muslin yoke that has +to be gone round four times with the stitching. One day I made ten, but +nine is all one can do without nearly killing themselves, and they pay +us one dollar a dozen for making them. It used to be a dollar and a +half, and that was fair enough. It's the kind of work I like. I +shouldn't be content to do any other; but it's bringing us all down to +starvation point, and I think something ought to be done." + +In a case like this, and it is the type of many hundreds of skilled +workers, who regard their calling with a certain pride, and could by no +possibility be induced to seek other lines of work or other methods of +living, there seems little to be accomplished. They are, however, but a +small portion of the army who wait for some deliverance, and who, if +they had been born to a trifle more common sense, would turn in the one +sole direction from which relief is certain, this relief and the reasons +for and against it having no place at this stage of the investigation. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTH. + +NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE GOSPEL. + + +From the fig-leaf down, it would seem as if a portion of the original +curse accompanying it had passed on to each variation or amplification +of first methods, its heaviest weight falling always on the weak +shoulders that, if endurance could make strong, should belong to-day to +a race of giants. Of the ninety and more trades now open to women, +thirty-eight involve some phase of this question of clothing, about +which centre some of the worst wrongs of modern civilization. It is work +that has legitimate place. It must be done by some one, since the +exigencies of this same civilization have abolished old methods and made +home manufactures seem a poor and most unsatisfactory substitute for the +dainty stitching and ornamentation of the cheaper shop-work. It is work +that many women love, and, if living wages could be had, would do +contentedly from year to year. Of their ignorance and blindness, and the +mysterious possession they call pride, and the many stupidities on which +their small lives are founded, there is much to be said, when these +papers have done their first and most essential work of showing +conditions as they are;--as they are, and not as the disciples of +_laissez faire_ would have us to believe they are. + + "It is the business of these philanthropists to raise a hue and + cry; to exaggerate every evil and underrate every good. They are + not to be trusted. Look at our institutions and see what we are + doing for the poor. Study statistics and see how comfortable they + are!" + +This is the word of a recent correspondent of a Podsnapian turn of mind, +who proceeded to present facts and figures bearing out his theory. And +on a Sunday shortly after, he was confirmed in his faith and greatly +strengthened and comforted by words from a popular preacher, long owner +of a popular pulpit, who, standing there as the representative of a +master whose message was to the poor, and who turned to them from the +beginning, as the hearers who alone could know most truly what meaning +the message bore, spoke these words:-- + + "Moreover, all this hue and cry about so much destitution and + misery and the unscrupulous greed of employers is groundless. I am + convinced that more than one half--yes, fully three quarters--of + the pauperism of which you heard so much in the late campaign + exists only in the minds of the Georgeites. The picture drawn of + New York's misery is over-colored, and its inspiration is in the + distorted imaginations of the George fanatics.... The rum-holes are + the cause of all the misery.... I have been watching for + thirty-five years, and in all my investigations among the poor I + never yet found a family borne down by poverty that did not owe its + fall to rum." + +This most extraordinary statement, from a man who in one year alone +could not have listened to even half the appeals for help likely to have +come to him in his position, without discovering that death and disaster +in many forms played, if not the chief part, certainly that next in +order to rum, can be accounted for only on the ground that a hobby +ridden too hard has been known to bear off at the same time both the +common-sense and power of judgment of the rider. Prohibition appears to +him, as to many another, the only solution; the gospel of negation the +only gospel for rich or poor. Since the Church first began to +misinterpret the words of its Founder, since men who built hospitals +first made the poor to fill them, the "thou shalt not" of the priest has +stood in the way of a human development that, if allowed free play, had +long ago made its own code, and found in natural spiritual law the key +to the overcoming of that formulated by men to whom the divine in man +was forever unrecognized and unrecognizable. + +This is no place for the discussion of what, to many good men and women, +seems the only safety for human kind; but to one who studies the +question somewhat at least with the eyes of the physician, it becomes +certain that no "thou shalt not" will ever give birth to either +conscience or love of goodness and purity and decent living, or any +other good that man must know; and that till the Church learns this, her +hold on men and women will lessen, year by year. Every fresh institution +in the miles of asylums and hospitals that cover the islands of the East +River, and stretch on farther and farther with every year, is an added +disgrace, an added count in the indictment against modern civilization. +There are moments when the student of social conditions abhors +Philanthropy; when a disaster that would wipe out at one stroke every +institution the city treasures would seem a gift straight from God, if +only thereby the scales might fall from men's eyes, and they might learn +that hiding foulness in an asylum is not extirpation; that something +deeper and stronger than Philanthropy must work, before men can be +saved. + +It is as student, not as professional philanthropist, that I write; and +the years that have brought experience have brought also a conviction, +sharpened by every fresh series of facts, that no words, no matter what +fire of fervor may lie behind, can make plain the sorrow of the poor. To +ears that will hear, to souls that seek forever some way that may help +in truth and not in name, even to them it loses power at moments. To +souls that sit at ease and leave to "the power that works for +righteousness" the evolution of humanity from its prison of poverty and +ignorance and pain, it is quite useless to speak. They have their +theory, and the present civilization contents them. But for the men and +women who are neither Georgeites merely, nor philanthropists merely, nor +certain that any sect or creed or ism will help, but who know that the +foulest man is still brother, and the wretchedest, weakest woman still +sister, whose shame and sorrow not only bear a poison that taints all +civilization, but are forever our shame and our sorrow till the world is +made clean,--for these men and women I write, not what I fancy, but what +I see and know. + +Most happily for humanity, they are stronger, more numerous, with every +year; but the hardest fact for them remains ever that their battle is a +double one, and that, exhausted as they may be with long conflict +against lowest forms of evil, they must rally to a sharper one against +the army of the Philistines. Strong soul and high endeavor: never since +time began has man more needed them; never was there harder work to do. + +The story of the working-woman in one great city is, with slight +variations in conditions, the story of the working-woman in all; and +when we have once settled conclusively what monopoly or competition has +done and is doing for New York, we know sufficiently well what Boston +and Philadelphia and Chicago and all the host of lesser cities could +easily tell us in detail. With the mass of poor who work chiefly to +obtain money for drink, and who, with their progeny, are filling the +institutions in which we delight, we have absolutely nothing to do. It +is seldom from their ranks that workers are recruited. A small +proportion, rescued by societies or mission schools, may be numbered +among them, but the greater part are a grade above, and while perhaps +wellnigh as ignorant, have an inheritance of better instincts, and could +under any reasonable conditions of living find their fate by no means +intolerable. + +I have chosen to-day, instead of passing on to another form of the +clothing trade, to return to that of underwear, and this because it is +the record most crowded with cases in which the subjects could not enter +household service and have not been reduced to poverty by intemperance. +Nor is the selection made with a view to working up as startling a case +as possible. On the contrary, it has been made almost at random from the +many recorded, any separate mention of which would be impossible in the +space at command. First on the long list comes Catherine E----, an +"expert" in underwear, and living on the top floor of a large, +old-fashioned house in Clinton Place; the lower part stores and offices, +the upper a tenement. She earned three years ago $1.50 a day; at times, +$1.75. The same work now brings her eighty-five cents, and now and then +but seventy-five. The husband was a "boss painter," and they were +comfortable, even prosperous, till the fate of his calling came upon +him, and first the "drop hand," and later blood-poisoning and +heart-disease followed. He is just enough alive to care a little for +the children and to oversee the pitiful household affairs; the oldest +girl, a child of seven, doing the marketing, boiling the kettle, etc., +and this season going to school. They are fair-faced, gentle children, +and this is their mother's story:-- + +"I can run the machine, and I did with every one of them when they were +two weeks old, for I've always been strong. Nothing that happens is bad +enough to kill me, and it's lucky it's so, for it's two years and over +since William there could earn a dollar. He helps me; but you see for +yourself he's half dead and no getting well, because we've nothing to +buy food with, or medicine, or anything that could help him. We were +both brought up here in the city. We don't know anything about the +country, but sometimes I wish we did, and that I could take the children +and live somehow. But I don't know how people live there. I'm certain of +work here, and I'd be afraid to go anywhere else. I'm making babies' +slips now; three tucks and a hem and find your own cotton, and it takes +eighteen hours to make a dozen, and these are seventy-five cents a +dozen. I can buy cotton at eighteen cents a dozen, but we have to take +it from the manufacturer at twenty cents--sometimes twenty-five cents. +Last week I was on corset-covers; I take whatever they send up, for I'm +an old hand, and always sure of work. They were plain corset-covers, and +I got forty cents a dozen without the buttonholes. If I did them it +would be five cents on every dozen, and sometimes I do. That pile in the +corner is extra-size chemises. I get $1.50 a dozen for making them, and +if I cord the bands, fifty cents a dozen for them. I can do seven or +eight a day; but there are no more just now, they say. I work fourteen +hours a day; yes, I've often worked sixteen, for you see there are six +of us, and we must be clothed and fed. William is handy, but, poor soul! +he's only a man, and he's sick past cure, and nobody but me for us all. +God help us! I wouldn't mind if wages were steady, but they cut and cut, +and always some excuse for making them lower, and here am I, that can do +anything, private orders and all, down to eighty-five cents a day. I +could earn more by family sewing, but I can't leave William or the +children, for he's likely to go any minute, the doctors say, if he +over-exerts himself; and suppose it came, and I not here, and the baby +and Willie and all! I've turned all ways. I think and think as I sit +here, and there's no help in God or man. It's all wrong somehow, but we +don't know why nor how, and the only way I can see is just to die. +There's no place for honesty or hard work. You must lie and cheat if you +want standing room. God help us!--if there is a God; but I've my doubts. +Why don't he help, if there is one?" + +Here the average earnings were twenty-five dollars a month, the rent of +the room they occupied seven dollars, leaving eighteen dollars for +food, fire, light, and clothing. + +Another disabled husband, recovering, but for many months unable to +work, was found in a tenement-house in East Eleventh Street. In this +case work and earnings were almost identical with the last, but there +were but two children, and thus less demand for food, etc. For a year +and a half the wife, though also an "expert," had never exceeded +eighty-five cents a day and had sometimes fallen as low as seventy. She +had sometimes gone to the factory instead of working at home, and the +last firm employing her in this way had charged ten cents on the dollar +for the steam used in running the machine which she operated. + +"It didn't pay," the little woman said, with a laugh that ended as a +sob, checked instantly. "I could earn eight dollars a week, but there +was the steam, ten cents on the dollar, and my car fares, for there was +no time to walk,--sixty cents for them,--$1.40, you see, altogether. I +might as well work at home and have the comfort of seeing that the +children were all right. There's plenty of work, it seems. It's wages +that's the trouble, and do you know how they cut them? If I could work +any other way I would, but I like to sew, and I don't know any other +trade. I'm not strong, but somehow I can run the machines, and there's +nothing else. But we're clean discouraged. It isn't living, and we don't +know what way to turn." + +In East Sixth Street, near the Bowery, Mrs. W., a widow still young and +with a nervously energetic face and manner, gave her experience. She had +been forewoman in a factory before her husband's death, having supported +him through his last year of life, working all day and nursing him at +night. In this way her own health broke down, and she was at last taken +to the hospital, where she remained nearly six months, coming out to +find her place filled, but a subordinate one open to her. + +"I had to wait for that," she said, "and I had to learn. I knew a +sewing-machine place where often you could get ruffling for skirts to +do, and I went up there one morning. It was the three tucks and a hem +ruffling, and I did one hundred and forty-two yards from eight in the +morning till half-past four, and they paid me twenty-three cents. 'We +could get it done for that by steam power,' they said, 'so we can't give +more. It's a favor anyway to give it out at all.' That was my first +day's work. The next I went down to my place on Canal Street. They think +a good deal of me there, and they put me on drawers right away; +thirty-five cents a dozen for making them. I can make two dozen a day +sometimes, but fine ones not over a dozen, though they pay fifty cents. +You wonder how they make anything. I've been forewoman, and I know the +prices. Why, even at forty cents a pair they make on them. Twenty-one +yards of cloth at five cents makes a dozen; that's $1.05; and eighteen +yards of edge at four and a half cents, that's eighty-one cents; and the +making thirty-five cents; that's $2.21. Thread and all, they won't cost +over $2.25, and they sell at wholesale at three dollars a dozen and +retail at $4.80. There's profit even when you think a cent couldn't be +made. Take skirts, three yards of cloth in each at six cents. They pay +thirty cents a dozen for tucking, twenty-five cents a dozen for +ruffling, and thirty cents for seaming,--eighty-five cents a dozen for +the entire skirt; and the cloth makes it, at eighteen cents apiece, +$3.01 for the dozen. Those skirts retail at sixty cents apiece, and +wholesale at fifty cents. There's profit on them all, no matter what +they say, for I've figured every penny over and over, down to the tape +and thread. But they swear to you they are ruined by competition, and so +the wages go down and down and down. Leave the city? I don't know how to +live anywhere else. I've never learned. It's something to be sure of +your work, even if it is starvation wages. But there's distress all +around me. I don't see what it means. There's a girl in the room next to +me, with an invalid mother. She does flannel shirts, but before she got +them she nearly starved on underwear. Now she earns a dollar a day, but +she works fourteen hours for it, seven cents an hour. That's nice pay in +a Christian land. Christian! Bah! I used to believe there was +Christianity, but I've given it up, like many another. There's just one +religion left, and that is the worship of money. The Golden Calf is God, +and every man sells his soul for a chance to bow to it. I don't know but +what I would myself. So far I've kept decent; I came of decent folks; +but it's no fault of many a man that I've worked for that I can say so +still. I've had to leave three places because they wouldn't let me +alone, and I stay where I am now because they're quiet, respectable +people, and no outrageousness. But if you know what it all means I wish +you'd tell me, for I'm dazed, and I can't make out the reason of +anything any more." + +In the same house a widow with three children,--the father killed by +falling from a scaffolding,--earns sixty cents a day by making +buttonholes, and above her is another well past sixty, whose trade and +wages are the same. How they live, what they can wear, how they are fed, +on this amount is yet to be told, but every detail waits; and having +gathered them from these and other women in like case, I am not yet +prepared to believe that they live at ease, or that the "hue and cry +about so much destitution and misery, and the unscrupulous greed of +employers, is groundless." + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTH. + +THE TRUE STORY OF LOTTE BAUER. + + +It was the Prussian War that seemed to settle the question. So far as +Grossvater Bauer himself was concerned, he would still have toiled on +contentedly. To be alive at all on German soil was more than honor or +wealth or any good thing that the emigrant might report as part of his +possession in that America to which all discontented eyes looked +longingly. The reports might all be true; yet why should one for the +sake of better food or more money be banished from the Vaterland and +have only a President, a man of the people, in place of the old Kaiser, +whose very name thrilled the heart, and for whose glory Grossvater Bauer +would have given many sons? He had given them. Peace had come, and +France was paying tribute; and, one by one, the few who had escaped +French bullets came home to the little Prussian village and told their +tales of the siege and of the three who had fallen at Sedan. Grossvater +Bauer sat silent. He had been as silent when they brought the news to +him in the beginning. It was the fortune of war. He had served his own +time, and having served it, accepted as part of his birthright the same +necessity for his sons. They had worked side by side with him on the +great farm where he had been for most of his life head laborer and +almost master; worked contentedly until Annchen, the oldest daughter, +had married a tailor, dissatisfied like all tailors, and set sail for +the strange country where fortune had always open hands for all the +world. He had prospered, and in Annchen's letters, coming at rare +intervals, was always an appeal to them to come over. The boys listened; +doubtfully at first, for the father's faith was strong in them that no +land could ever hold the same good as this land through which the Rhine +flowed to the sea. But as the time came when they must enter the army +there was rebellion. Here and there, in the air it seemed, for no one +could say from whence the new feeling had come, were questions the sound +of which was not to be tolerated by any true Prussian. Why should this +great army live on the toil of the peasant? Why should the maintenance +of these conscripts swallow up every possible saving in the wages and be +the largest item save one in the year's expenses? Why should there be a +standing army at all? + +Hans, when his time came, had learned to ask, but he had not learned to +answer. The splendor of his uniform appeared to be in some sort a reply, +and its tightness may also have had its effect in restricting his mental +operations. For three years the carefully kept accounts of Grossvater +Bauer held the item: "Maintenance of son in army, $121.37." Then Hans +came home and married Lieschen, the little dairy-maid, and in due time +Lotte's blue eyes opened on the world whose mysteries were still not +quite explicable to the heavy father. Wilhelm and Franz had taken their +turn, and in spite of questions settled passively at last into the farm +life. Then came the war,--the war that called for every man with +strength to carry a gun,--and when it was over Lotte was fatherless, and +there were no more sons to bear the name, or to trouble Grossvater +Bauer's mind with further questions. + +Very glorious, but what use if there were no boys left to whom the story +could be told? If he had yielded, if even one had crossed the sea, there +would be something still to live for. But Lieschen had given them no +boys. He thought of it day after day, till the familiar fields grew +hateful and he wished only to escape from the land to which he had paid +a tax too heavy for mortal endurance. There was no one but Lieschen and +her little ones, Lotte first of all and best beloved, and in another +month they had set sail and the old life was over. + +"Work for all, homes for all, plenty for all," Annchen had written how +many times. Yet now, when the Grossvater appeared, and the round-eyed +Lieschen and her tribe of five, Peter shook his head. He had prospered, +it is true. From journeyman tailor he had become master on a small +scale, and packed himself and his men into a shop so tiny that it was +miraculous how elbow-room remained to use the goose. But work for the +Grossvater was quite another thing. He had no trade, and while his +capacity as farmer on scientific methods ought to give him paying +employment in the country, the city held nothing for him. Work for +Lieschen and Lotte was easy. A week or two of apprenticeship would teach +them all that need be known to do the work on cheap coats or pantaloons, +but even for them it was certain that the country would be better. + +It was here that Grossvater Bauer developed unexpected obstinacy. He had +a little money. He was still strong and in good case. Here was this +great city which must have work of some nature, and which, so far from +weighing upon him as Lotte had feared, seemed to have for him a curious +fascination. He haunted the wharves. The smell of the sea and the tarred +ropes of the ships bewitched him, and on the wharves he soon found work, +and loaded and unloaded all day contentedly, with a feeling that this +was after all more like living than anything could have been in the home +fields where only the ghosts of his own remained to have place at his +side. + +It is now only that the story of Lotte begins,--Lotte, who pined for the +great farm and the fields across which the wind swept, and the cows she +had named and cared for. Her mother forgot, or did not care. She had +never loved her work, and liked better to chatter with the other women +in the house, or even to run the machine hour after hour, than to milk, +or feed the cattle, or churn. Lotte hated the machine. Her back ached, +her eyes burned, and her head throbbed after only an hour or two of it. +"Let me take a place," she begged, but the Grossvater shook his head +angrily. This was a free country. There was no need that she should +serve. Let her learn to be contented and thankful that she could earn so +much. For with their simple habits the wages paid in 1881 seemed wealth. +Forty-five cents a pair, three of which she could make in a day, brought +the week's earnings to eight dollars, sometimes to nine dollars, and +Peter prophesied that it might even be ten or twelve dollars. Lieschen +had as much. Down on the wharves the Grossvater earned sometimes +eighteen dollars a week. It was a fortune. At home, in the best of +times, with sons and daughters all at work, his books, which he kept +always with the accuracy of a merchant, showed something under $1,000 a +year as receipts, the expenses hardly varying from the $736.28 which +represented the maintenance of the family during Hans's first year as +soldier. Their food ration at home had been nine and a half cents daily. +Wheat bread had stood for festivals and high days. Black bread, cabbage +soup, beer, cheese, and sausage, with meat on Sundays, had been their +only ambition as to food, and here Grossvater Bauer insisted upon the +same regimen, and frowned as one by one the fashions of the new country +crept in. Peter had been right after all. One must work, it is true, but +no harder and no longer, and the return was double. The little iron +chest which had held the savings at home held them here, and at rare +intervals the Grossvater allowed Lotte to look, and said as he turned +over the shining coins, "Thou wilt have most, my Lottchen. It is for +thee that I put them away." + +"There is enough for a little farm," Lotte said one day. "We could go on +this Long Island and have land, and not be shut all day in these dark +rooms." + +"That is slower," the Grossvater said. "We will go back with much money +when it is earned, and I shall be owner, and thou, Lotte, the mistress, +and Franz maybe will go also." + +Lotte shook her head, though her cheeks were pink. + +"Franz cares only for America," she said. "Come with us some day, +Grossvater, and let us look at the little house he knows. There is land, +two acres, and a barn and a cow, and all for so little. I could be +stronger then." + +"That is folly," the old man said angrily. "It would be but shillings +there, where here it is dollars. Wait and you will see." + +Lotte looked after him wonderingly as he turned away. To save was +becoming his passion. He grudged her even her shoes and the dress she +must have, though no one had so little. Peter revolted openly and came +less and less. Lieschen cried, but still looked at the week's wages as +compensation for many evils, and Lotte worked on, the pink spot fixing +itself on her cheeks, and her blue eyes growing sadder with every week. +Franz, the son of their old neighbor at home, hated this crowded city as +she did, and urged her to take her chances and marry him, even if, as +yet, he was only laborer in the market gardens out on the Island. There +were minutes when Lotte nearly yielded, but the Grossvater seemed to +hold her as with chains. She loved him, and she had always submitted. +Perhaps in time he would yield and learn again to care for the old life +of the country. + +At last a change came, but there was in it no release, only closer +imprisonment. Peter and Annchen had followed a brother to Chicago and +opened a shop double the size of the old one, and they were hardly +settled when Lieschen sickened suddenly and after long illness died. For +many weeks there was no earning. Even the angry Grossvater saw that it +was impossible, and doled out reluctantly the money they had helped him +to save. Lieschen had always fretted him. Lotte was the best gift she +had ever made the Bauer name, and when the funeral was over, he went +home, secretly relieved that the long watch was over; went home to find +that the precious chest, hidden always under piles of bedding in the +closet where he locked his own possessions, had disappeared. There had +been a moving from the story above. Men had gone up and down for an +hour, and no one had noticed specially what was carried. There was no +clew, even after days of searching; and Grossvater Bauer, who had rushed +madly to the police station, haunted it now, with imploring questions, +till told they could do nothing and that he must keep away. He sank then +into the sort of apathy that had held him when the news came from Sedan. +He went to his work, but there was no heart in it, and sat by the fire +when night came, with only an impatient shake of the head when Lotte +tried to comfort him. Till then no one had realized his age, but now his +hair whitened and his broad shoulders bowed. He was an old man; and +Lotte said to herself that his earning days were nearly over, and worked +an hour or two later that the week's gain might be a little larger and +so comfort him. + +She came home one afternoon with her bundle of work. Gretchen, who was +nearly thirteen, had helped her carry it, and had shrunk back frightened +as the foreman put a finger under her chin, and nodded smilingly at the +peach-like face and the great blue eyes. Lotte struck down his hand +passionately. She knew better than Gretchen what the smile meant. The +child should never know if she could help it, and she did not mind the +evil glance that followed her toward the door. There were people +standing at their doors as she went slowly up the stairs, her breath +coming quickly, as now it always did when she climbed them. + +"Poor soul!" one of them said. "She little knows what she's coming to." + +"Was ist los?" Lotte cried as the door opened, and then shrieked aloud, +for the Grossvater lay there on the bed, crushed and disfigured and +almost speechless, but lifting one hand feebly as she flew toward him. + +"A sugar hogshead," somebody said. "It rolled over him when he thought +it was firm, and brought down some barrels with it. He's past helping. +May the saints have a heart for the poor children! He would be brought +here, but what will you do with him?" + +"There'll be naught to do by morning," said another. "Can't you see he's +going?" But by morning no change had come, nor for many mornings. The +wounds and bruises slowly healed, but save for the one hand that moved +toward her, there were no signs of life. The strong body held by +paralysis might linger for years, and Lotte must earn for him and for +all. Even then a living might have been possible, for Gretchen had a +place as cash-girl and earned two dollars a week, and Lisa was promised +one after New Year's. But it was a hard winter. They ate only what they +must, and Lotte's blue eyes looked out from hollow sockets, and she +shivered with cold. Wages had fallen, and they fell faster and faster +till by January her ten and twelve hours' work brought her but six +dollars instead of the eight or nine she had always earned. The foreman +she hated made everything as difficult as possible. Though the bundle +came ready from the cutting room, he had managed more than once to slip +out some essential piece, and thus lessened her week's wages, no price +being paid where a garment was returned unfinished. He had often done +this where girls had refused his advances, yet it was impossible to make +complaint. The great house on Canal Street left these matters entirely +with him, and regarded complaint as mere blackmailing. Lotte tried +others, but wages were even less. She was sure of work here, and pay was +prompt. With the spring things must be better. But long before the +spring Lisa had sickened and died, and Lotte buried her in the Potter's +Field, and hurried home to make up the lost time, and hush the crying +little ones as she could. It did not occur to her that she could write +to Annchen and ask for help, and Franz had quarrelled with her because +she did not put the Grossvater in a hospital and send the children to +some asylum. + +"I will even marry you with the children," he said, "but never with the +Grossvater who hindered and spoiled everything." + +"He has cared for me always, even when he was hard," said Lotte. "I +shall care for him now;" and Franz rushed away and had come no more. + +For a year Lotte's struggle went on. She knew only the one form of work; +and she dared not take time to learn another. + +"If it were not for the Grossvater," she said, "and the children, I +should have a place and work in the country and grow strong, but I +cannot. If I die before them what can they do?" + +There was other trouble. Gretchen's light little head could never guard +her pretty face. She was fourteen now, and tall and fair, fretting +against the narrow life and refusing to stay indoors when evening came. +One day she did not come home; and when Lotte sought her she saw only +the evil smile and triumphant eyes of the foreman who had followed her a +year ago and who laughed in her face as he shut the door. + +"You'd better come in yourself," he called. "You'd fare better if you +did." + +Lotte went home dumb, and sat down at her machine. There was no money in +the house, nor would be till she had taken home this work; but as she +bent over it the blood poured in a stream from her mouth. She tried to +rise, but fell back; and when the screaming children had brought in +neighbors, Lotte's struggle was quite over. When they had buried her in +the Potter's Field by Lisa, they took the bundle of work stained with +her life-blood and carried it back to its owners. + +"She'll need no more," said the old neighbor from the floor above as she +laid it on the counter. "You've cut her down and cut her down, till +there wasn't life left to stand it longer. There's not one of you to +blame, you say, but I that know, know you've fastened her coffin-lid +with nails o' your own makin', an' that sooner or later you'll come face +to face, an' find that red-hot is cowld to the hate that's makin' ready +for you. An' as for him that stands there smilin', if it weren't for the +laws that spare the guilty and send the innocent to their deaths, God +knows it would be the best thing these hands ever did to tear him to +bits. But there's no one to blame. Ye're sure o' that. Wait a while. The +day's comin' when you'll maybe think different; an' may God speed it!" + + + + +CHAPTER NINTH. + +THE EVOLUTION OF A JACKET. + + +"If underwear, whether for men or women, has proven itself a most +excellent medium for starvation; if suits and dresses in general rank +but a grade above; if shirts, whether of cotton or woollen, are a +despair; and in each and all competition has cheapened material and +manufacture and brought labor to the 'life limit' and below, at least it +cannot be so bad with cloaks and jackets. Here are single garments, +often of the most expensive material and put together in the most +finished and perfect manner. Skilled labor is demanded, careful +handling, spotless neatness. Here is one industry which must give not +only a living wage, but a surplus. These women must be on the way to at +least semi-prosperity." + +This was the thought in the days in which one phase after another of the +underwear problem presented itself, each one more bewildering, more +heart-sickening, than the last. Here and there had been the encounter +with one who had always been sure of work and who had never failed to +receive a fair return. But the summary had been inevitably as it stands +recorded,--overwork, under-pay; a fruitless struggle against +overwhelming odds. + +With this thought the quest began anew. The manufacturers of cloaks and +jackets reported "piece-work" as the rule. The great dry-goods +establishments had the same word. Here and there was one where work was +done on the premises, and where skilled hands held the same places year +after year, the wages ranging from six to ten dollars, hardly varying. +But for most of them the same causes stated in the third chapter, "The +Methods of a Prosperous Firm," have operated, and it has been found +expedient to settle upon "piece-work" and let rent be paid and space be +furnished by the workers themselves. + +"They like it better," said the business manager of the great firm +against whom there have never been charges of dishonesty or unkindness +in their treatment of employees. "It would be impossible to do all our +work on the premises. We should want the entire block if we even half +did it. But we know some of the women, and we pay as high as anybody; +perhaps higher. It saves them car fares and going out in all weathers, +and a great many other inconveniences, when they work at home, and I +don't see why there should be any objections made. The amount of it is, +there are too many women. The best thing to be done is to ship them +West. They say they're wanted there, and there is certainly not room +enough for them here. Machinery will soon take their place, anyway. I +have one in mind now that ought to do the work of ten women perfectly, +and require simply a tender and finisher. We shall get the thing down to +a fine point very soon. Hard on the women? Why, no. We always hold on to +first-class workers, and there's nothing much to be done with second and +third class except to use them through the busy season, and let them go +in the dull." + +"Go where?" + +The manager paused and looked reflectively at his well-kept +finger-nails. + +"My dear madam, that's a question I have no time to consider. I dare say +they earn a living somehow. Indeed, I'm told they go into cigar +factories. There's always plenty of work." + +"Plenty of work,"--a form of words so familiar that I looked for it now +from both employer and employed. But for the last was an addition +finding no place on the lips of the first: "Plenty of work? Oh, yes! I +can always get plenty of work. The trouble is to get the wages for it." + +A block or so below, and further west, one great window of a cheaper +establishment held jackets and wraps large and small, marked down for +the holidays, their advertisement in a morning paper having read, +"Jackets from $4 up." Still further over, another window displayed +numbers as great, and a placard at one side announced: "These elegant +jackets from $2.87 up." The cloth might be shoddy, but here was a +garment, fashionably cut, well finished to all appearance, and +unexceptionable in pattern and color. All along the crowded avenue the +story was the same, and as east took the place of west, and Grand Street +and the Bowery and Third Avenue gave in their returns, "These elegant +jackets from $2.35 up" gave the final depth to which cheapness could +descend. + +If this was retail, what could be the wholesale price, and what was +likely to be the story of the worker from whose hands they had come? It +is worth while to follow these jackets as they emerge from the +cutting-room, and in packages holding such number of dozens as has been +agreed upon, pass to the express wagon which distributes them among the +workers, the firm in mind at present, like many others, preferring this +arrangement to any which involves dealing directly with the women. + +First on the list stands the name of a woman a little over fifty years +old, whose husband is a painter and who left Germany eight years ago, +urged to come over by a daughter more adventurous than the rest, who had +married and emigrated at once. Work was plentiful when they arrived, and +the husband found immediate employment at his trade, with wages so high +that the wife had no occasion for any employment outside her own rooms. +The youngest child, a girl of nine, went to school. They lived in +comfortable rooms on a decent street, put money in a savings bank, and +felt that America held more good even than the name had always seemed to +promise. Then came the financial troubles of 1879 and 1881, the gradual +fall of wages, the long seasons when there was no work, and last, the +fate that overtakes the worker in lead, whether painter or in any other +branch,--first painter's colic, and the long train of symptoms preceding +the paralysis which came at last, the stroke a light one, but leaving +the patient with the "drop hand" and all the other complications, +testifying that the working days were over. Strength enough returned for +an odd job now and then, and the little man accepted his fate cheerily, +and congratulated himself that the bank held a little fund and that thus +the lowering wages could be pieced out. The bank settled this question +by almost immediate failure; a long and expensive illness for the wife +followed; and when it ended furniture and small valuables of every sort +had been pawned, and they left the empty rooms for narrower quarters and +sought for work in which all could share. To add to the complication, +the daughter, who had had good sense enough to take a place as child's +nurse, broke her leg, and became, even when able to walk again, too +disabled to return to this work. She could run the machine, and her +mother was an expert buttonhole-maker and had already learned various +forms of work on cloth, both in cheap coats and pantaloons, and in +jackets and cloaks. The jackets seemed to promise most, for in 1884 each +one brought to the maker sixty cents, buttonholes being $1.50 per +hundred, the presser receiving ten cents each and the finisher six +cents, these amounts being deducted from the price paid on each. To save +this amount the husband learned how to press, and though his crippled +hands can barely grasp the iron, and often his wife must help him place +the cramped fingers in position, he stands there smiling and well +content to add this mite to the fund. For a year their home has been in +a deep basement, where, save at noonday, it is impossible to run the +machines without artificial light. A dark room opens from the one in +which they work, itself dark, unventilated save from the hall, and +chosen as abiding place because it represents but four dollars a month +in rent. Two machines run by mother and daughter stand as near the +window as possible, and close by is the press-board and the pale but +optimistic little man, who looks proudly at each seam as he lays it +open. Jackets are everywhere,--piled on chairs and scattered over the +floor,--waiting the various operations necessary before they can at last +be bundled on the ex-painter's back, who smiles to himself as he toils +down to the firm's headquarters, reflecting that he has saved the +expressage another week. What are the returns? Lisa will give them,--the +wife whose English is still uncertain, and whose gentle, anxious eyes +grow eager and bright as she talks, the husband nodding confirmation, or +shaking his head as he sees the tears come suddenly, with a "Not so, not +so, Lisa." + +"I know not if we shall live at all," she says. "For see. We two, my +Gretchen and I, we make but ten for a day. Tree dollar? Yes, but you +must take from it de buttonhole an' finish and much else, and it is so +short--so short that we can work on them. The season, that is it--six +weeks--two months, maybe, and then pantaloon till spring jacket come. +See. It is early that we begin,--seven, maybe,--and all day we shall sew +and sew. We eat no warm essen. On table dere is bread and beer in +pitcher and cheese to-day. We sit not down, for time goes away so. No, +we stand and eat as we must, and sew more and more. Ten jackets to one +day--so Gretchen and me can make ten jackets to one day, but we sit +always--we go not out. It is fourteen hours efery day--yes, many time +sixteen--we work and work. Then we fall on bed and sleep, and when we +wake again it is work always. And I must stop a leetle; not much, but a +leetle, for my back have such pain that I fall on the bed to say, 'Ach +Gott! is it living to work so in this rich, free America?' But he is +sick always, my man, even if he will laugh. He say he must laugh alway +for two because I cannot. For when this work is past it is only +pantaloons, and sew so hard as we may it is five, six pair maybe, for +Gretchen and me all day, and that not always. Many day we do nothing +because they say work is dull, and then goes away all we save before. +But we need not to ask help. So much is good that we work and earn, but +I think I die soon of my pain, and who then helps his fingers so stiff +to press or thinks how he will ache even when he will laugh? It is +because America is best that we come, but how is it best to die because +it is always work and no joy, no hope, never one so small stop?" + +"Never one so small stop." The attic had the same story, and the +white-faced, hollow-eyed woman who tried to smile as she spoke turned +also from the waiting pile of jackets and drew one or two back to the +sheet spread for them on the floor to which they had slipped. A table +and two chairs, a small stove in which burned bare handful of coals, the +two machines, at one of which a girl of twenty still sewed on, and in +the corner a bed, on which lay another girl of the same age, but with +the crimson spot on her cheeks and the shining eyes of advanced +consumption. It had been one of the faces so often seen behind the +counters of the great stores, delicate in features and coloring, with +soft dark eyes and fair masses of hair loose on the pillow. + +"I try to keep her tidy," the mother said, "but she can't bear her hair +up a minute, it's so heavy on her head, an' I've no time to 'tend to it +but the minute I take in the morning. It's jackets now that I'm on. I +thought maybe there'd be less risk in them than cloaks. Cloaks seem to +give 'em so much chance to cheat. I wouldn't work at all at home, I'd be +out doing by the day, for I had a good run of work, but there's Maggie, +and I can't leave her, though God knows she gets little good of me but +the knowing I'm here. I'll tell you what they did to me on cloaks. I +work for S---- & Co., far down on Broadway, and they give out the most +expensive kind of cloaks, and nine dollars a dozen for the making; other +kinds, too, but I'd been on them a good while and knew just how. The pay +was regular, but before I'd had work from them a month I saw they were +bound to make complaints and dock pay whether there was any fault in the +work or not. One and another took their turn, and no help for it; for if +they complained the foreman just said: 'You needn't take any work unless +you like. There are plenty waiting to fill your place.' Poor souls! What +could they do but go on? + +"At last came my turn. He tossed them all over. 'It's poor work,' he +said. 'They're not finished properly. You can't be paid for botching. +There's three dollars, and that's too much.' 'The work is the same it's +always been. There's no botching,' I said; but he held out the three +dollars. 'No,' I said, 'If you won't pay fair I'll go to the Woman's +Protective Union and see what they'll do.' His face was black as +thunder. 'Take your money,' he says, holding out the rest, 'but you may +sing for more work from this establishment,' and he flung the money on +the floor. That didn't trouble me, because I knew I could get work just +below, and I did that same day; twenty cloaks, ten to be made at sixty +cents apiece, and ten at fifty-five cents. I had Angie here to help, and +when they were done I carried them down. This man was a Jew, but there's +small difference. If the Jew knew best how to cheat in the beginning, +the Christian caught up with him long ago. 'The buttons are all on +wrong,' he said. 'I told you to set them an inch further back. We'll +have to alter them every one and charge you for the time.' 'I can take +oath they are on as I was told to put them on,' I said, 'but if they +must be changed I'll change them myself and save the money.' + +"It took long talking to make him agree, but at last he said I could +come next morning but one, and he'd let me alter them as a great favor. +I did come down, but he said they couldn't wait and had made the change, +and he charged me six dollars for what he said was my mistake. It was no +use to complain. He could swear I had done the job wrong, and so I went +home with $5.50 instead of eleven dollars for nearly a fortnight's work. +I changed the place, and so far nobody has docked me; but doing my best, +and Angie working as steady as I do, we can't make more than twenty +cents on a jacket, and it's a short season. When it's over I do coats, +but it's less pay than jackets, and there's living and Maggie's +medicine and the doctor, though he won't take anything. I'd feel better +if he did, but he won't. Angie used to be in a factory, but there's the +baby now, and she doesn't know what way to turn but this. See, he's here +by Maggie." The sick girl lifted a corner of the quilt, and something +stirred,--a baby of seven or eight months whose great eyes looked out +from a face weazened and sharpened, deep experience seeming graven in +every line. + +"He's a wise one," the sick girl said. "He's found it's no use to cry, +and he likes to be by me because it's warm. But he frightens me +sometimes, for he just lies and looks at me as if he knew a million +things and could tell them every one. He's always hungry, and maybe that +makes him wiser. I'm sure I could tell some things that people don't +know." + +The words came with gasps between. It was plain that what she had to +tell must find speedy listener if it were to be heard at all, but for +that day at least the story must wait. Here, as in other places, the +cloakmaker was earning from sixty to seventy cents a day, but even this +was comfort and profusion compared with the facts that waited in a +Fourth Ward street, and in a rookery not yet reached by any sanitary +laws the city may count as in operation. Here and there still remains +one of the old wooden houses with dormer windows, a remnant of the +city's early days and given over to the lowest uses,--a saloon below +and tenements above. In one of these, in a room ten feet square, +low-ceiled, and lighted by but one window whose panes were crusted with +the dirt of a generation, seven women sat at work. Three machines were +the principal furniture. A small stove burned fiercely, the close smell +of red-hot iron hardly dominating the fouler one of sinks and reeking +sewer-gas. Piles of cloaks were on the floor, and the women, white and +wan, with cavernous eyes and hands more akin to a skeleton's than to +flesh and blood, bent over the garments that would pass from this +loathsome place saturated with the invisible filth furnished as air. +They were handsome cloaks, lined with quilted silk or satin, trimmed +with fur or sealskin, and retailing at prices from thirty to +seventy-five dollars. A teapot stood at the back of the stove; some cups +and a loaf of bread, with a lump of streaky butter, were on a small +table absorbing their portion also of filth. An inner room, a mere +closet, dark and even fouler than the outer one, held the bed; a +mattress, black with age, lying on the floor. Here such as might be had +was taken when the sixteen hours of work ended,--sixteen hours of toil +unrelieved by one gleam of hope or cheer; the net result of this +accumulated and ever-accumulating misery being $3.50 a week. Two women, +using their utmost diligence, could finish one cloak per day, receiving +from the "sweater," through whose hands all must come, fifty cents each +for a toil unequalled by any form of labor under the sun, unless it be +that of the haggard wretches dressed in men's clothes, but counted as +female laborers, in Belgian mines. They cannot stop, they dare not stop, +to think of other methods of earning. They have no clothing in which +they could obtain even entrance to an intelligence office. They have no +knowledge that could make them servants of even the meanest order. They +are what is left of untrained, hopelessly ignorant lives, clinging to +these lives with a tenacity hardly higher in intelligence than that of +the limpet on the rock, but turning to one with lustreless eyes and +blank faces, holding only the one question,--"Lord, how long?" They are +one product of nineteenth-century civilization, and these seven are but +types, hundreds of their kind confronting the searcher, who looks on +aghast and who, as the list lengthens and case after case gives in its +unutterably miserable details, turns away in a despair only matched by +that of the worker. Yet they are here, this army of incompetents, +marching through torture to their graves; and till we have found some +method by which torture may lessen, these lives as they vanish pass on +to the army of avengers, and will face us by and by when excuses fall +away and Justice comes face to face with the weak souls that failed in +the flesh to know its nature or its demand. + + + + +CHAPTER TENTH. + +BETWEEN THE RIVERS. + + +"The nearer the river the nearer to hell." + +It was a strong word, and the big chest from which it issued held more +of the same sort,--a tall worker, carpenter apparently, hurrying on with +his box of tools and talking, as he went, with a companion half his +size, but with quite his power of expression, interjecting strange +German oaths as he listened to the story poured out to him. With that +story we have at present nothing to do. But the first words lingered, +and they linger still as the summary of such life as is lived by many +workers on east and west sides alike. + +Were the laws governing a volume of this nature rigidly observed, the +present phase of this investigation could hardly be the point at which +to stop for any detail of how these workers live from day to day. But as +the search has gone on through these hours when Christmas joy is in the +air, when the smallest shop hangs out its Christmas token, and the great +stores are thronged with buyers far into the evening, I think of the +lives in which Christmas has no place, of the women for whom all days +are alike, each one the synonyme of relentless, unending toil; of the +children who have never known a childhood and for whom Christmas is but +a name. For even when mission and refuge have done their utmost, there +is still the army unreached by any effort and in great part unreachable, +no method recorded in any system of the day having power to drag them to +the light and thus make known to us what manner of creature it is that +cowers in shadowy places and has no foothold in the path we call +progress. That their own ignorance holds them in these shadows, bound as +with chains; that even a little more knowledge would break the bonds, in +part at least, has no present bearing on the fact that thousands are +alive among us to whom existence has brought only pain, and that fresh +thousands join this dumb throng of martyrs with every added year. If +they had learned in any degree how to use to the best advantage the +pittance earned, there would be less need of these chapters; yet as I +read the assurances of our political economists, that a wage of four +dollars per week is sufficient, if intelligently used, to supply all the +actual necessities of the worker, the question pushes itself between the +lines: "Why should they be forced to know only necessities; and is this +statement made of any save those too ignorant to define their wants and +needs, too helpless to dare any protestation, even if more knowledge had +come?" + +The professional political economist of the old school, the school to +which all but a handful belong, takes refuge in the census returns as +the one reply to any arraignment of the present. Blind as a bat to any +figures save his own, he answers all complaint with the formula: "In +1860 the property of this country, equally divided, would have given +every man, woman, and child $514 each. In 1870 the share would have been +$624; in 1880, $814. In 1886 returns are not in, but $900 and more would +be the division per capita. What madness to talk of suffering when this +flood of wealth pours through the land. Admitting that the lowest class +suffer, it is chiefly crime, drunkenness, etc., that bring suffering. +The majority are perfectly comfortable." + +Having read this statement in many letters and heard it in interviews as +well, it seems plain that the conviction embodied in both has fastened +itself upon that portion of the public whose thinking is done for them, +and who range themselves by choice with that order who would not be +convinced "even though one rose from the dead." "The majority are +perfectly comfortable." Let us see how comfortable. + +I turn first to the pair, a mother and daughter, a portion of whose +experience found place in the chapter on "More Methods of Prosperous +Firms." Here, as in so many cases, there had been better days, and when +these suddenly ended a period of bewildered helplessness, in which the +widow felt that respectability like hers must know no compromise, and +that any step that would involve her "being talked about" was a step +toward destruction. She must live on a decent street, in a house where +she need not be ashamed to have the relations come, and she did till +brought face to face with the fact that there were no more dollars to +spend upon respectability, and that her quarters must hereafter conform +to her earnings. She had been a dweller in that curious triangle, the +remnant of "Greenwich village," the stronghold still of old New York, +and she went at once to a region as unfamiliar to her conservative feet +as Baxter or Hester, or any other street given over to evil. Far over +toward the North River, in the first floor of a great tenement-house +inhabited by the better class of Irish chiefly, she took two rooms, one +a mere closet where the bed could stand; bestowed in them such furniture +as remained, and at fifty, with no clew left that any friend could +trace, began the fight for bread. + +"It might have been better to go to the country," she said. "But you see +I wasn't used to the country, and then any work I could get to do was +right here. I'd always liked to sew, and so had Emeline, and we found we +could get regular work on children's suits, with skirts and such things +in the dull seasons. It was good pay, and we were comfortable till +prices began to fall. We made fifteen dollars a week sometimes, and +could have got ahead if it hadn't been for a little debt of my husband's +that I wanted to pay, for we'd never owed anybody a penny and I couldn't +let even that debt stand against his name. But when it was paid, somehow +I came down with rheumatic fever, and I've never got back my full +strength yet. And the prices kept going down. Emmy is an expert. I never +knew her make a mistake, but working twelve and fourteen hours a +day,--and it's 'most often fourteen,--the most she has made for more +than a year and a half is eighty-five cents a day, and on that we've +managed. I suppose we couldn't if I ever went out, but I've had no shoes +in two years. I patch the ones I got then with one of my husband's old +coats, and keep along, but we never get ahead enough for me to have +shoes, and Emmy too, and she's the one that has to go out. How we live? +It's all in this little book. It's foolish to put it down, and yet I +always somehow liked to see how the money went, even when I had plenty, +and it's second nature to put down every cent. Take last month. It had +twenty-seven working days: $22.95. Out of that we took first the ten +dollars for rent. I've been here eleven years, and they've raised a +dollar on me twice. That leaves $12.95 for provisions and coal and light +and clothes. 'Tisn't much for two people, is it? You wouldn't think it +could be done, would you? Well, it is, and here's the expense for one +week for what we eat:-- + + Sugar, 23; Tomatoes, 7; Potatoes, 5 $0.35 + Tea, 15; Butter, 30; Bread, 12 0.57 + Coal, 12; Milk, 15; Clams, 10 0.37 + Oil, 15; Paper, 1; Clams, 10; Potatoes, 5 0.31 + Cabbage, 5; Bread, 7; Flour, 15; Rolls, 3 0.30 + ---- + Total $1.90 + +"This week was an expensive one, for I got a pound of butter at once, +but it will last into next week. And we had to have the scissors +sharpened; that was five cents. There would have been five cents for +wood, but you see they're building down the street, and one of the boys +upstairs brought me a basketful of bits. You see there's no meat. We +like it, but we only get a bit for Sundays sometimes. Emmy never wants +much. Running a machine all day seems to take your appetite. But she +likes clams; you see we had them twice, and I happened to read in the +paper a good while ago that you could make soup of the water the cabbage +was boiled in; a quart of the water and a cup of milk and a bit of +butter and some flour to thicken. You wouldn't think it could be good, +but it is, and it goes a good way. The coal ought not to be in with the +food, ought it, unless it stays because I have to use it cooking? We +oughtn't to spend so much on food, but I can't seem to make it less. +Really, when you take out the coal and oil and the paper,--and we do +want to see a paper sometimes,--it's only 1.62 for us both; eighty-one +cents apiece; almost twelve cents a day, but I can't well seem to make +it less. I call it twelve cents a day apiece. For the month that makes +$7.44, and so you see there's $5.51 left. Then there are Emmy's +car-fares when she goes out, for sometimes she works down-town and only +evenings at home. Last month it was sixty cents a week, $2.70 for the +month, and so there was just $2.81 left, and $1.50 of that went for +shoes for Emmy. The month before, my hands weren't so stiff and I helped +her a good deal, so we earned $26.70, and she got two remnants for $1.80 +at Ehrich's and I made her a dress that looks very well. But she's +nothing but patchwork underneath, and I'm the same, only worse. The coal +is the trouble. By the scuttle it costs so much, and I try to get ahead +and have a quarter of a ton at once, for there are places here to keep +coal, but I never can. If it weren't for Emmy's missing me, it would be +better for me to die, for I'm no use, you see, and times get no better, +but worse. But I can't, and we must get along somehow. Lord help us +all!" + +"How could twelve cents' worth of coal do a week's cooking?" + +"It couldn't. It didn't. I've a little oil stove that just boils the +kettle, and tea and bread and butter what we have mostly. A gallon of +oil goes a long way, and I can cook small things over it, too. The +washing takes coal, and you see I must have soap and all that. I don't +see how we could spend less. I've learned to manage even with what we +get now, but there's a woman next door that I know better than anybody +in this house,--for here it always seemed to me best to keep quite to +myself for many reasons, but the chief that I'm always hoping for a +change and a chance for Emmy. But this woman is a nice German woman that +fell on the ice and sprained her ankle last winter, and we saw to her +well as we could till she got better. She won't mind telling how she +manages, but she's in the top of the house. She's a widow, and everybody +dead belonging to her." + +This house was a grade below the last in cleanliness, and children +swarmed on stairs and in hall. Up to the fourth floor back; a +ten-feet-square room, with one window, where, in spite of a defective +sink in the hall, the odor from which seemed to penetrate and saturate +everything, spotless cleanliness was the expression of every inch of +space. + +"Vy not?" the old woman said, when she understood my desire. "I tells +you mine an' more, too, for down de stairs I buy every day for the girl +that is sick and goes out no more. If I quick were as girl I could save +much, but I have sixty-five year. How shall I be quick? I earn +forty-five, fifty cents sometime, but forty-five for day's work when I +go as I can. An' so for week dat is $2.70; I can ten dollars a month, +sometimes twelve dollars, and I pays three dollars for this room. To eat +I will buy tea and our bread,--rye, for dat is stronger as your fine +wheat. Tea is American, but I will not beer any more, since I see how +women drinks it and de kinder, and it not like our beer but more tipsy. +So I makes tea, and de cheese and de wurst is all not so much. It is de +coal that is most. Vat I vill eat, he cost not so more as fifty cent; +sometimes sixty, but I eat not ever all I could, for I must be warm a +little, and dere is light, and to wash, and some shoe. It is bad to be +big as I, for shoe not last. But a loaf of bread, five cents, do all day +and some in next; and cheese a pound is ten, if I have him; and wurst is +fifteen, for sometime he is best, and a pound stay a week if I not +greedy. Tea will be thirty cents, but he is good a month, and sugar a +pound, two pound sometime, but butter no, and milk a cent for Sunday. So +I live, and I beg not. Can I more? I thank the good God only that there +is no more Hans or Lisa or any to be hungry with me. It is good they +go." + +"And you buy for some one else?" + +"Oh ja, but she will die soon and care not. It is de kinder that care. +Two, and one six and one eight and cannot earn. She sew all day on +machine. It is babies' cloaks, so vite and nice. In two days she will +make dree, for see, dere is two linings and cape and cuff is all +scallop, and she must stitch first and then bind and hem. All is hem, +all over inside, so nice, and she make dem so nice. But eight dollars a +dozen is all, and it is a week for nine, and so she get not more as five +dollars because she is sick and must stop. And there is the grandvater +that is old, and de kinder and she and all must live. Rent is $5.50, dat +I know, and I pay for her dis week $1.60 for bread and tea and potatoes +and some milk, and molasses for de kinder on bread, and butter a little, +and milk, but not meat. It is de grandvater eat too much, but how shall +one help it? De rest is clothes for all, but dere is no shoe for de +kinder, and I see not if dere will be shoe. How shall it be?" + +One after another the cases on the west side gave in their testimony. +Save in the first one there were no formal accounts. But a little +thinking brought out the items,--for many baker's bread, tea, sugar, a +little milk, and butter and a bit of meat once or twice a week, the +average cost of food per head for the majority of cases being ninety +cents per week. All coal was bought by the scuttle, a scuttle of medium +size counting as twelve cents' worth, thus much more than doubling the +cost per ton. In the same way, wood by the bundle and oil by the quart +gave the utmost margin of profit to the seller, and the same fact +applied to all provisions sold. In no case save the one first mentioned, +where the mother had learned that cabbage-water can form the basis for a +nourishing and very palatable soup, was there the faintest gleam of +understanding that the same amount of money could furnish a more +varied, more savory, and more nourishing regimen. + +"Beans!" said one indignant soul. "What time have I to think of beans, +or what money to buy coal to cook 'em? What you'd want if you sat over a +machine fourteen hours a day would be tea like lye to put a back-bone in +you. That's why we have tea always in the pot, and it don't make much +odds what's with it. A slice of bread is about all. Once in a while you +get ragin', tearin' hungry. Seems as if you'd swallow teapot or anything +handy to fill up like, but that ain't often--lucky for us!" + +"If you all clubbed together, couldn't one cook for you,--make good soup +and oatmeal and things that are nourishing? You would be stronger then." + +"Stronger for what? More hours at the machine? More grinding your own +flesh and bones into flour for them that's over us? Ma'am, it's easy to +see you mean well, an' I won't say but what you know more than some that +comes around what you're talkin' about. Club we might. I'm not denying +it could be done, if there was time; but who of us has the time even if +she'd the will? I was never much hand for cookin'. We'd our tea an' +bread an' a good bit of fried beef or pork, maybe, when my husband was +alive an' at work. He cared naught for fancy things like beans an' such. +It's the tea that keeps you up, an' as long as I can get that I'll not +bother about beans." + +In the same house an old Swiss woman, who had fallen from her first +estate as lady's maid through one grade and another of service, was +ending her days on a wage of two dollars per week, earned in a suspender +factory, where she sewed on buckles. In her case marriage with a +drinking husband had eaten up both her savings and her earnings, and age +now prevented her taking up household service, which she ranked as most +comfortable and most profitable. But she had been taught while almost a +child to cook, and though her expenditure for food was a little below a +dollar per week, the savory smell from a saucepan on her tiny stove +showed that she had something more nearly like nourishment than her +neighbors. + +"I try sometimes to teach," she said. "I give some of my soup, and they +eat it and say it is good, but they not stop to do so much dat is fuss. +All this in the saucepan is seven cents,--three cents for bones and some +bits the kind butcher trow in, and the rest vegetable and barley. But it +makes me two days. I have lentils, too, yes, and beans, and plenty +things to flavor, and I buy rye bread and coffee to Sunday. Never tea, +oh, no! Tea is so vicket. It make hand shake and head fly all round. +Good soup is best, and more when one can. Vegetable is many and salad, +and when I make more dollar I buy some egg. But not tea; not big loaf of +white bread dot swell and swell inside and ven it is gone leave one all +so empty. I would teach many but they like it not. They want only de +tea; always de tea." + +"De tea" and the sewing-machine are naturally inseparable allies, and so +long as the sewing-women must work fourteen hours daily they will remain +so; the rank fluid retarding digestion and thus proving as friendly an +aid as the "bone" which the half-fed Irish peasant demands in his +potato. For the west side the story was quite plain, but for such +returns as the east side has to offer there is still room for further +detail. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVENTH. + +UNDER THE BRIDGE AND BEYOND. + + +Between east and west side poverty and its surroundings exists always +this difference, that the west is newer and thus escapes the inherited +miseries that hedge about life in such regions as the Fourth Ward. +There, where old New York once centred, and where Dutch gables and +dormer windows may still be seen, is not only the foulness of the +present, each nationality in the swarming tenements representing a +distinct type of dirt and a distinct method of dealing with it and in +it, but the foulness also of the past, in decay and mould and crumbling +wall and all silent forces of destruction at work here for a generation +and more. Those of us who have watched the evolution of the Fourth Ward +into some show of decency recognize many causes as having worked toward +the same end; yet even when one notes to-day the changes wrought, first +by business, the march of which has wiped out many former landmarks, +setting in their place great warehouses and factories, and then of +philanthropy, which, as in the case of Miss Collins's tenements, has +transformed dens into some semblance of homes, there remains the +conviction that dens are uppermost still. The business man hurrying down +Fulton or Beekman Street, the myriads who pass up and down in the +various east-side car lines, with those other myriads who cross the +great Bridge, have small conception what thousands are packed away in +the great tenements, and the rookeries even more crowded, or what depth +of vileness flaunts itself openly when day is done and the creatures of +shadow come out to the light that for many quarters is the only +sunshine. This ward has had minute and faithful description from one of +the most energetic of workers for better sanitary conditions among the +poor,--Mr. Charles Wingate, whose admirable papers on "Tenement House +Life," published by the "Tribune" in 1884-1885, must be regarded as +authority for the sanitary phases of the question. Little by little +these have bettered, till the death rate has come within normal limits +and the percentage of crime ceased to represent the largest portion of +the inhabitants. Yet here, on this familiar battle-ground, civilization +and something worse than mere barbarism still struggle. For which is the +victory? + +Under the great Bridge, whose piers have taken the place of much that +was foulest in the Fourth Ward, stands a tenement-house so shadowed by +the structure that, save at midday, natural light barely penetrates it. +The inhabitants are of all grades and all nationalities. The men are +chiefly 'longshoremen, working intermittently on the wharves, varying +this occupation by long seasons of drinking, during which every pawnable +article vanishes, to be gradually redeemed or altogether lost, according +to the energy with which work is resumed. The women scrub offices, +peddle fruit or small office necessities, take in washing, share, many +of them, in the drinking bouts, and are, as a whole, content with +brutishness, only vaguely conscious of a wretchedness that, so long as +it is intermittent, is no spur to reform of methods. The same roof +covers many who yield to none of these temptations, but are working +patiently; some of them widows with children that must be fed; a few +solitary, but banding with neighbors in cloak or pantaloon making, or +the many forms of slop-work in the hands of sweaters. Sunshine has no +place in these rooms which no enforced laws have made decent, and where +occasional individual effort has power against the unspeakable filth +ruling in tangible and intangible forms, sink and sewer and closet +uniting in a common and all-pervading stench. The chance visitor has +sometimes to rush to the outer air, deadly sick and faint at even a +breath of this noisomeness. The most determined one feels inclined to +burn every garment worn during such quest, and wonders if Abana or +Pharpar or even Jordan itself could carry healing and cleansing in their +floods. + +The dark halls have other uses than as receptacles for refuse or filth. +Hiding behind doors or in corners, or, grown bolder, seeking no +concealment, children hardly more than babies teach one another such new +facts of foulness as may so far have chanced to escape them,--baby +voices reciting a ritual of oaths and obscenity learned in this Inferno, +which, could it have place by Dante's, might be better known to a +cultured generation. Only a Zola could describe deliberately what any +eye may see, but any minute detail of which would excite an outburst of +popular indignation. Yet I am by no means certain that such detail has +not far more right to space than much that fills our morning papers, and +that the plain bald statement of facts, shorn of all flights of fancy or +play of facetiousness, might not rouse the public to some sense of what +lies below the surface of this fair-seeming civilization of to-day. Not +alone in the shadow of the great pier, but wherever men and women must +herd like brutes, these things exist and shape the little lives that +missions do not, and as yet cannot, reach, and that we prefer to deal +with later, when actual violation of laws has placed them in the hands +of the State. Work as she may, the woman who must find home for herself +and children in such surroundings is powerless to protect them from the +all-pervading foulness. They may escape a portion of the actual +degradation. They can never escape a knowledge the possibility of which +is unknown to what we call barbarism, but part and parcel of the daily +life of civilization. + +Granted instantly that only the lowest order of worker must submit to +such conditions, yet we have seen that this lowest order is legion; that +its numbers increase with every day; and that no Board of Health or of +Sanitary Inspectors has yet been able to alter, save here and there, the +facts that are a portion of the tenement-house system. + +It is chiefly with the house under the Bridge that we deal at present. +Its upper rooms hold many workers whose testimony has helped to make +plain how the east side lives. Little by little, as the blocks of +granite swung into place and the pier grew, the sunshine vanished, its +warmth and light replaced by the electric glow, cold and hard and +blinding. The day's work has ceased to be the day's work, and the women +who cannot afford the gas or oil that must burn if they work in the +daytime, sleep while day lasts, and when night comes and the electric +light penetrates every corner of the shadowy rooms, turn to the toil by +which their bread is won. Never was deeper satire upon the civilization +of which we boast. Natural law, natural living, abolished once for all, +and this light that blinds but holds no cheer shining upon the mass of +weary humanity who have forgotten what sunshine may mean and who know no +joy that life was meant to hold! + +In one of these rooms, clean, if cleanliness were possible where walls +and ceiling and every plank and beam reek with the foulness from sewer +and closet, three women were at work on overalls. Two machines were +placed directly under the windows to obtain every ray of light. The +room, ten by twelve feet, with a small one half the size opening from +it, held a small stove, the inevitable teapot steaming at the back; a +table with cups and saucers and a loaf of bread still uncut; and a small +dresser in one corner, in which a few dishes were ranged. A sickly +geranium grew in an old tomato-can, but save for this the room held no +faintest attempt at adornment of any sort. In many of them the cheapest +colored prints are pinned up, and in one, one side had been decorated +with all the trademarks peeled from the goods on which the family +worked. Here there was no time for even such attempts at betterment. The +machines rushed on as we talked, with only a momentary pause as interest +deepened, and one woman nodded confirmation to the statement of another. + +"We've clubbed, so's to get ahead a little," said the finisher, whose +fingers flew as she made buttonholes in the waistband and flap of the +overalls. "We were each in a room by ourselves, but after the fever, +when the children died and I hadn't but two left, it seemed as if we'd +be more sensible to all go in together and see if we couldn't be more +comfortable. We'd have left anyway, and tried for a better place, but +for one thing,--we hadn't time to move; and for another, queer as it +seems, you get used to even the worst places and feel as if you couldn't +change. We'll have to, if the landlord doesn't do something about the +closets. It's no good telling the agent, and I don't know as anybody in +the house knows just who the landlord is. Anyway, the smell's enough to +kill you sometimes, and it's a burning disgrace that human beings have +to live in such a pig-pen. It's cheap rent. We pay five dollars a month +for this place. When I came here it was from a neck-tie place over on +Allen Street, that's moved now, and my husband was mate on a tug and +earned well. But he took to drink and sold off everything I'd brought +with me, and at last he was hurt in a fight round the corner, and died +in hospital of gangrene. Mary's husband there was a bricklayer and had +big wages, but he drank them fast as he made them, and he was ugly when +the drink was in, which mine wasn't. But there's hardly one in this +house, man or woman, that don't take a drop to keep off the fever; and +even I, that hate the sight or smell of it, I wake up in the morning +with an awful kind o' goneness that seems as if a taste might help it. +The tea stops that, though. Tea's the best friend we've got. We'd never +stand it if it wasn't for tea." + +"Are overalls steady pay through the year?" + +"There's nothing that's steady, so far as I can find out, but want and +misery. Just now overalls are up; the Lord only knows why, for you never +can tell what'll be up and what down. They're up, and we're making a +dollar a dozen on these. I have done a dozen a day, but it's generally +ten. There's the long seams, and the two pockets, and the buckle strap +and the waistband and three buttonholes, and the stays and the +finishing. They're heavy machines too, and take the backbone right out +of you before night comes. But you sleep like the dead, that's one +comfort. It would be more if you didn't have to wake more than they do. +When the overall rush is over, it'll be back to pants again. That's my +trade. I learned it regular after I was married, when I saw Tim wasn't +going to be any dependence. There were the children then, and I thought +I'd send 'em to school and keep things decent maybe. I know all about +pants, the best and the worst, but it's mostly worse these days. First +the German women piled in ready to do your work for half your rates, and +when they'd got well started, in comes the Italians and cuts under, till +it's a wonder anybody keeps soul and body together." + +"We don't," one of the women said, turning suddenly. "I got rid o' my +soul long ago, such as 'twas. Who's got time to think about souls, +grinding away here fourteen hours a day to turn out contract goods? +'Tain't souls that count. It's bodies that can be driven, an' half +starved an' driven still, till they drop in their tracks. I'm driving +now to pay a doctor's bill for my three that went with the fever. Before +that I was driving to put food into their mouths. I never owed a cent to +no man. I've been honest and paid as I went and done a good turn when I +could. If I'd chosen the other thing while I'd a pretty face of my own +I'd a had ease and comfort and a quick death. Such life as this isn't +living." + +The machine whirled on as she ended, to make up the time lost in her +outburst. The finisher shook her head as she looked at her, then poured +a cup of tea and put it silently on the edge of the table where it could +be reached. + +"She's right enough," she said, "but there's no use thinking about it. I +try to sometimes, just to see if there's any way out, but there isn't. +I've even said I'd take a place; but I don't know anything about +housework, and who'd take one looking as I do, and not a rag that's fit +to be put on? I cover up in an old waterproof when I go for work. They +wouldn't give it to me if they saw my dress in rags below, and me with +no time to mend it. But we're doing better than some. We've had meat +twice this week, and we've kept warm. It's the coal that eats up your +money,--twelve cents a scuttle, and no place to keep more if ever we got +ahead enough to get more at a time. It's lucky that tea's so staying. +Give me plenty of tea, and the most I want generally besides is bread +and a scrape of butter. It's all figured out. It's long since I've +spent more than seventy-five cents a week for what I must eat. I've no +time to cook even if I had anything, so it's lucky I haven't. I suppose +there'd be plenty to eat if you once made up your mind to take a place." + +It was the second machine that stopped now, and the haggard woman +running it faced about suddenly. "Do you know what come to my girl," she +said,--"my girl that I brought up decent and that was a good girl? I +said to myself a trade was no good, for it was more an' more starvation +wages, and I'd put her with folks that would be good to her, even if the +other girls did look down on her for going into service. She was +fifteen, and a still little thing with soft eyes and a pretty, soft way, +if she did come of a drinking father. I put her with a lady that wanted +a waitress and said she'd train her well. She'd three boarders in the +house, and all gentlemen to look at, and one that's in a bank to-day he +did his best to turn her head on the sly, and when he found he couldn't, +one Sunday when she was alone in the house and none to hear or help, he +had his will. The mistress turned her off the hour she heard it, for +Nettie went to her when she come home. 'Such things don't happen unless +the girl is to blame,' she said. 'Never show your shameless face here +again.' Nettie came home to me kind of dazed, and she stayed dazed till +she went to a hospital and a baby was born dead, and she dead herself a +week after. An' it isn't one time alone or my girl alone. It's over an' +over an' over that that thing happens. There's plenty that go to the bad +of their own free will, but I know plenty more with the same chance that +doesn't, an' there's many a mother that's been in service herself that +says, 'Whatever the mistress may know about it she can't tell, but the +devil's let loose when the master or a son maybe is around, an' they'll +not have their girls standing what they had to stand and then turned off +without a character because they were found with the master talkin' to +'em.' It's women that keeps women down an' is hard on 'em. I'll take my +chances with any Jew you'll bring along before I'll put myself in the +power of women that calls themselves ladies an' hasn't as much heart as +a broomstick; an' I'll warn every girl to keep to herself an' learn a +trade, an' not run the risk she'll run if she goes out to service, +letting alone the way you're looked down on." + +There was no time for discussion. The machines must go on; but, as +usual, much more than the fact of which I was in search had come to me, +and, strangely enough, in this house and in others of its kind inspected +one after another, much the same story was told. In the "improved +tenements" close at hand, where comparative comfort reigned, more than +one woman gave willingly the detail of the weekly expenditure for food, +and added, as if the underlying question had made itself felt, "It's +betther to be a little short even an' your own misthress," with other +words that have their place elsewhere. On the upper floor of one of +these houses a pantaloon-maker sat in a fireless room, finishing the +last of a dozen which when taken back would give her money for coal and +food. She had been ill for three days, and on the bed,--an old mattress +on a dry-goods box in the corner. "Even that's more than I had for a +good while," she said. "I'd pawned everything before my husband died, +except the machine. I couldn't make but twenty-two cents a pair on the +pants, an' as long as he could hold up he did the pressing. With him to +help a little I made three a day. That seems little, but there was so +many pieces to each pair,--side and watch and pistol pockets, buckle +strap, waistband, and bottom facings and lap; six buttonholes and nine +buttons. We lived--I don't just know how we lived. He was going in +consumption an' very set about it. 'I'll have no medicine an' no doctor +to make me hang an' drag along,' he says. 'I've got to go, an' I know it, +an' I'll do it as fast as I can.' He was Scotch, an' took his porridge +to the last, but I came to loathe the sight of it. He could live on six +cents a day. I couldn't. 'I'm the kind for your contractors,' he'd say. +'It's a glorious country, and the rich'll be richer yet when there's +more like me.' He didn't mind what he said, an' when a Bible-reader put +her head in one day, 'Come in,' he says. 'My wife's working for a +Christian contractor at sixty-six cents a day, an' I'm what's left of +another Christian's dealings with me, keeping me as a packer in a damp +basement and no fire. Come in and let's see what more Christianity has +to say about it.' He scared her, his eyes was so shiny an' he most gone +then. But there's many a one that doesn't go over fifty cents a week for +what she'll eat. God help them that's starving us all by bits, if there +is a God, but I'm doubting it, else why don't things get better, an' not +always worse an' worse?" + +For east and west, however conditions might differ, the final word was +the same, and it stands as the summary of the life that is lived from +day to day by these workers,--"never better, always worse and worse." + + + + +CHAPTER TWELFTH. + +ONE OF THE FUR-SEWERS. + + +"I suppose if you'd been born on the top of a hill in New Hampshire with +the stones so thick ten miles of stone wall couldn't have used 'em up, +an' the steeple of the Methodist meetin'-house the only thing in sight, +maybe you'd have wanted to get where you could see folks too. It was +just Elkins luck to have another hill between us an' the village so't I +couldn't see beyond the woods between. If there was a contrary side to +anything it always fell to father, an' I'm some like him, though I've +got mother's way of never knowing when I'm knocked flat, though I've had +times enough to find out. But I said straight through, 'If ever there's +a chance of getting to New York I'll take it. Boston won't do. I want +the biggest an' the stirringest thing there is in the United States,' +an' Leander felt just as I did. + +"Leander lived down the valley a way, an' such cobble-stones as hadn't +come to our share had come to his. He'd laid wall from the time he was +ten years old, and he'd sat on the hay an' cried for pure lonesomeness. +His folks weren't any hands to talk, an' he couldn't even have the +satisfaction of meetin' Sundays, because they was Seventh Day Baptists, +an' so set a minister couldn't get near 'em. An' Leander was +conscientious an' thought he ought to stay by. I didn't. I told him from +the time we went to school together that I was bound to get to New York, +an' that sort of fired him up, an' we've talked hours to time about what +it was like, an' what we'd do if we ever got there. My folks were set +against the notion, an' so were his, but he went after a while, with +some man that was up in the summer an' that gave him a place in a store. +I couldn't go on account of father's dying sudden an' mother's holdin' +on harder'n ever to me, but she was took within the year, an' there I +was, free enough, an' not a soul in the world but Leander's folks that +seemed to think much one way or another how I was likely to come out. + +"There was a mortgage on the farm, an' Dr. Grayson foreclosed an' had +most of the money for his bill; an' when things were all settled I had +forty dollars in cash an' the old furniture. Leander's folks was +dreadful short for things, for they'd been burned out once, an' so I +just turned everything over to them but some small things I could pack +in my trunk, mother's teaspoons an' such, an' walked down to the village +an' took the stage for Portsmouth. I wasn't scared. I didn't care nor +think how I looked. It was heaven to think I was on the way to folks an' +the things folks do. I ain't given to crying, but that day I sat back in +the stage an' cried just for joy to think I was going to have something +different. + +"All this time I hadn't thought much what I'd do. Forty dollars seemed a +big lot, enough for weeks ahead. I'd done most everything about a house, +an' I could make everything I wore. I had only to look at a pattern an' +I could go home an' cut out one like it. The dress I had on was cheap +stuff, but when I looked at other folks's I saw it wasn't so much out o' +the way. So I said, most likely some dressmaker would take me, an' I'd +try my luck that way. This was before I got to Boston, an' I went round +there all the afternoon before it was time to take the train, for the +conductor told me just what to do, an' I hadn't a mite of trouble. I +never do going to a strange place. I was half a mind to stay in Boston +when I saw the Common an' the crowds of folks. I sat still there an' +just looked at 'em, an' cried again for joy to think I'd got where there +were so many. 'But there'll be more in New York,' I said, 'an' there'll +be sure to be plenty ready to do a good turn.' I could have hugged 'em +all. I didn't think then the time would ever come that I'd hate the +sight of faces an' wish myself on top of the hill in the cobble-stones, +but it did, an' it does now sometimes. + +"I went on board the boat that night sort of crazy. I'd gone an' got +some sandwiches an' things at a place the conductor told me, an' I sat +on the deck in the moonlight an' ate my supper. I'd been too happy to +eat before, an' I was so happy then I could hardly keep still. There was +a girl not far off, a kind of nice-looking girl, an' she watched me, an' +at last she began to talk. In half an hour I knew all about her an' she +about me. She was a Rhode Island girl an' had worked in a mill near +Providence, an' gone to New York at last an' learned fur-sewing. She +said it was a good trade, an' she made ten an' twelve dollars a week +while the season lasted an' never less than five. This seemed a mint of +money, an' when she said one of their old hands had died, an' she could +take me right in as her friend an' teach me herself, I felt as if my +fortune was made. + +"Well, I went with her next day. She had a room in Spring Street, near +Hudson,--an old-fashioned house that belonged to two maiden sisters, an' +I went in with her the first night, an' afterward for a while had the +hall bedroom. It didn't take me long to learn. It was a Jew place an' +there were thirty girls, but he treated us well. For my part I've fared +just as well with Jews as ever I did with Christians, an' sometimes +better. I'd taken to Hattie so that I couldn't bear to think of leaving +her, an' so I let my dressmaking plan go. But I'll tell you what I found +out in time. These skins are all dressed with arsenic. The dealers say +there's nothing poisonous about them, but of course they lie. Every pelt +has more or less in it, an' the girls show it just as the +artificial-flower girls show it. Your eyelids get red an' the lids all +puffy, an' you're white as chalk. The dealers say the red eyes come from +the flying hairs. Perhaps they do, but the lids don't, an' every +fur-sewer is poisoned a little with every prick of her needle. What the +flying hair does is just to get into your throat an' nose and +everywhere, an' tickle till you cough all the time, an' a girl with weak +lungs hasn't a chance. The air is full of fur, an' then the work-room is +kept tight shut for fear of moths getting in. The work is easy enough. +It's just an everlasting patchwork, for you're always sewing together +little bits, hundreds of them, that you have to match. You sew over an' +over with linen thread, an' you're always piecing out an' altering +shapes. It's nothing to sew up a thing when you've once got it pieced +together. If it's beaver, all the long hairs must be picked out, an' +it's the same with sealskin. We made up everything; sable an' Siberian +squirrel, bear, fox, marten, mink, otter, an' all the rest. There were +some girls very slow in learning that only got a dollar a week, an' in +the end four, but most of them can average about five. I was seventeen +when I began, an' in a year I had caught all the knack there is to it, +an' was an expert, certain of ten dollars in the season an' about six in +between. It's generally piece-work, with five or six months when you can +earn ten or twelve dollars even, an' the rest of the time five or six +dollars. In the busiest times there'd be fifty girls perhaps, but this +was only for two or three months, an' then they discharged them. 'Tisn't +a trade I'd ever let a girl take up if I could help it; I suppose +somebody's got to do it, but there ought to be higher wages for those +that do. + +"This went on five years. I won't take time telling about Leander, but +he'd got to be a clerk at Ridley's an' had eight hundred dollars a year, +an' we'd been engaged for two years, an' just waiting to see if he +wouldn't get another rise. I knew we could manage on that. Leander was +more ambitious than me. He said we ought to live in a showy +boarding-house an' make our money tell that way, but I told him I was +used to the Spring Street house, an' we could have a whole floor an' be +snug as could be an' Hattie board with us. He gave in, an' it's well he +did; for we hadn't been married six months before he had a hemorrhage +an' just went into quick consumption. I'd kept right on with my trade, +but I was pulled down myself an' my eyelids so swollen sometimes I could +hardly see out of 'em. But I got a sewing-machine from money I'd saved, +an' I took in work from a place on Canal Street,--a good one, too, that +always paid fair. The trouble was my eyes. I'd used 'em up, an' they got +so I couldn't see the needle nor sew straight, an' had to give up the +sewing, an' then I didn't know which way to turn, for there was Leander. +The old folks were up there still, wrastling with the stones, but poorer +every year, an' I couldn't get him up there. Leander was patient as a +saint, but he fretted over me an' how I was to get along. + +"'You're not to worry,' says I. 'There's more ways than one of earning, +an' if my eyes is bad, I've got two hands an' know how to use 'em. I'll +take a place an' do housework if I can't do nothing else.' + +"You'd never believe how the thought o' that weighed on him. He'd wake +me up in the night to say, 'Now, Almiry, jest give up that thought an' +promise me you'll try something else. I think I'd turn in my grave if I +had to know you was slavin' in anybody's kitchen.' + +"'What's the odds?' I said. 'You have to be under orders whatever you +do. I think it won't be a bad change from the shop.' + +"He took on so, though, that to quiet him I promised him I wouldn't do +it unless I had to, an' 'twasn't long after that that he died. Between +the doctor's bill--an' he was a kind man, I will say, an' didn't charge +a tenth of what he had ought to--an' the funeral an' all, I was cleaned +out of everything. I'd had to pawn a month before he died, an' was just +stripped. Sewing was no good. My eyes went back on me like everything +else, an' in a fortnight I knew there wasn't anything for it but +getting a place. I left such things as I had in charge of the old ladies +an' answered an advertisement for 'a capable girl willing to work.' + +"Well, it was a handsome house an' elegant things in the parlors an' +bedrooms, but my heart sunk when she took me into the kitchen. The last +girl had gone off in a rage an' left everything, an' there was grease +and dirt from floor to ceiling. It was a deep basement, with one window +an' a door opening right into the area with glass set in it, an' iron +bars to both; but dirty to that degree you couldn't see three feet +beyond; cockroaches walking round at their ease an' water-bugs so thick +you didn't know where to lay anything. + +"'You'll have things quite your own way,' the lady said, 'for I never +come into the kitchen. Bridget attends to upstairs, but you attend to +fires and the meals and washing and ironing, and I expect punctuality +and everything well done.' + +"'At least it sounds independent,' I thought, and I made up my mind to +try it, for the wages were fifteen dollars a month, an' that with board +seemed doing well. Bridget came down presently. She was seventeen an' a +pretty girl rather, but she looked fit to drop, an' fell down in a +chair. + +"'It's the bell,' she said. 'The comin' an' goin' here niver ceases, an' +whin 'tisn't the front door it's her own bell, an' she'll jingle it or +holler up the tube in the middle o' the night if she takes a notion.' + +"I wouldn't ask questions, for I thought I should find out soon enough, +so I said I'd like to go up to my room a minute. + +"'It's our room you'll mane,' she said. 'There's but the one, an' it's +hard enough for two to be slapin' on a bed that's barely the width o' +one.' + +"My heart sank then, for I'd always had a place that was comfortable all +my life, but it sunk deeper when I went up there. A hall bedroom, with a +single bed an' a small table, with a washbowl an' small pitcher, one +chair an' some nails in the door for hanging things; that was all except +a torn shade at the window. I looked at the bed. The two ragged +comfortables were foul with long use. I thought of my nice bed down at +Spring Street, my own good sheets an' blankets an' all, an' I began to +cry. + +"'You don't look as if you was used to the likes of it,' Bridget said. +'There's another room the same as this but betther. Why not ax for it?' + +"I started down the stairs an' came right upon Mrs. Melrose, who smiled +as if she thought I had been enjoying myself. + +"'I'm perfectly willing to try an' do your work as well as I know how,' +I said, 'but I must have a place to myself an' clean things in it.' + +"'Highty-tighty!' says she. 'What impudence is this? You'll take what I +give you and be thankful to get it. Plenty as good as you have slept in +that room and never complained.' + +"'Then it's time some one did,' I said. 'I don't ask anything but +decency, an' if you can't give it I must try elsewhere.' + +"'Then you'd better set about it at once,' she says, an' with that I bid +her good-afternoon an' walked out. I had another number in my pocket, +an' I went straight there; an' this time I had sense enough to ask to +see my room. It was bare enough, but clean. There were only three in the +family, an' it was a little house on Perry Street. There I stayed two +years. They were strange years. The folks were set in their ways an' +they had some money. But every day of that time the lady cut off herself +from the meat what she thought I ought to have, an' ordered me to put +away the rest. She allowed no dessert except on Sunday, an' she kept +cake and preserves locked in an upstairs closet. I wouldn't have minded +that. What I did mind was that from the time I entered the house till I +left it there was never a word for me beyond an order, any more than if +I hadn't been a human being. She couldn't find fault. I was born clean, +an' that house shone from top to bottom; but a dog would have got far +more kindness than they gave me. At last I said I'd try a place where +there were children an' maybe they'd like me. Mrs. Smith was dumb with +surprise when I told her I must leave. 'Leave!' she says. 'We're +perfectly satisfied. You're a very good girl, Almira.' 'It's the first +time you've ever told me so,' I says, 'an' I think a change is best all +round.' She urged, but I was set, an' I went from there when the month +was up. + +"Well, my eyes stayed bad for sewing, an' I must keep on at housework. +I've been in seven places in six years. I could have stayed in every +one, an' about every one I could tell you things that make it plain +enough why a self-respecting girl would rather try something else. I +don't talk or think nonsense about wanting to be one of the family. I +don't. I'd much rather keep to myself. But out of these seven places +there was just one in which the mistress seemed to think I was a human +being with something in me the same as in her. I've been underfed an' +worked half to death in two of the houses. The mistress expected just so +much, an' if it failed she stormed an' went on an' said I was a shirk +an' good for nothing an' all that. There was only one of them that had a +decently comfortable room or that thought to give me a chance at a book +or paper now an' then. As long as I had a trade I was certain of my +evenings an' my Sundays. Now I'm never certain of anything. I'm not a +shirk. I'm quick an' smart, an' I know I turn off work. In ten hours I +earn more than I ever get. But I begin my day at six an' in summer at +five, an' it's never done before ten an' sometimes later. This place I'm +in now seems to have some kind of fairness about it, an' Mrs. Henshaw +said yesterday, 'You can't tell the comfort it is to me, Almira, to have +some one in the house I can trust. I hope you will be comfortable an' +happy enough to stay with us.' 'I'll stay till you tell me to go,' I +says, an' I meant it. My little room looks like home an' is warm and +comfortable. My kitchen is bright an' light, an' she's told me always to +use the dining-room in the evenings for myself an' for friends. She +tries to give me fair hours. If there were more like her there'd be more +willing for such work, but she's the first one I've heard of that tries +to be just. That's something that women don't know much about. When they +do there'll be better times all round." + +Here stands the record of a woman who has become invaluable to the +family she serves, but whose experiences before this harbor was reached +include every form of oppression and even privation. Many more of the +same nature are recorded and are arranging themselves under heads, the +whole forming an unexpected and formidable arraignment of household +service in its present phases. This arraignment bides its time, but +while it waits it might be well for the enthusiastic prescribers of +household service as the easy and delightful solution of the +working-woman's problem to ask how far it would be their own choice if +reduced to want, and what justice for both sides is included in their +personal theory of the matter. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. + +SOME DIFFICULTIES OF AN EMPLOYER WHO EXPERIMENTED. + + +The business face in the great cities is assimilating to such degree +that all men are brothers in a sense and to an extent unrealized by +themselves. Competition has deepened lines, till one type of the +employer in his first estate, while the struggle is still active and +success uncertain, loses not only youth and freshness, but with them, +too often, any token of owning a soul capable of looking beyond the +muckrake by which money is drawn in. If he acquires calm and +graciousness, it is the calmness of subtlety and the graciousness of the +determined schemer, who, finding every man's hand practically against +him, arranges his own life on the same basis, and wages war against the +small dealer or manufacturer below and the monopolist above, his one +passionate desire being to escape from the ranks of the first and find +his name enrolled among the last. He retains a number of negative +virtues. He is, as a rule, "an excellent provider" where his own family +is concerned, and he is kind beyond those limits if he has time for it. +He would not deliberately harm man or woman who serves him; but to keep +even with his competitors--if possible, to get beyond them--demands and +exhausts every energy, leaving none to spare for other purposes. Such +knowledge as comes from perpetual contact with the grasping, scheming +side of humanity is his in full. As the fortune grows and ease becomes +certain, a well-fed, well-groomed look replaces the eager sharpness of +the early days. He may at this stage turn to horses as the most positive +source of happiness. He is likely also, with or without this tendency, +to acquire a taste for art, measuring its value by what it costs, and to +plan for himself a house representing the utmost that money can buy. But +the house and its treasures is, after all, but a mausoleum, and the +grave it covers holds the man that might have been. Life in its larger +meanings has remained a sealed book, and the gold counted as chief good +becomes at last an impenetrable barrier between him and any knowledge of +what might have been his portion. He is content, and remains content +till the end, and that new beginning in which the starved soul comes to +the first consciousness of its own most desperate and pitiful poverty. + +This for one type, and a type more and more common with every year of +the system in which competition is king. But here and there one finds +another,--that of the man whose conscience remains sensitive, no matter +what familiarity with legalized knavery may come, and who ponders the +question of what he owes to those by whose aid his fortune is made. Nor +is he the employer who evades the real issue by a series of what he +calls benefactions, and who organizes colonies for his work-people, in +which may be found all the charm of the feudal system, and an underlying +despotism no less feudal. He would gladly make his workers copartners +with him were intelligence enough developed among them to admit such +action, and he experiments faithfully and patiently. + +It is such an employer whose own words best give the story he has to +tell. It is not an American that speaks but a German Jew,--a title often +the synonyme for depths of trickery, but more often than is known +meaning its opposite in all points. Keen sagacity rules, it is true, but +there is also a large and tender nature, sorrowing with the sorrow of +humanity and seeking anxiously some means by which that sorrow may +lessen. A small manufacturer, fighting his way against monopoly, he is +determinately honest in every thread put into his goods, in every method +of his trade; his face shrewd yet gentle and wise,--a face that child or +woman would trust, and the business man be certain he could impose upon +until some sudden turn brought out the shrewdness and the calm assurance +of absolute knowledge in his own lines. For thirty years and more his +work has held its own, and he has made for himself a place in the trade +that no crisis can affect. His own view of the situation is distinctly +serious, but even for him there was a flickering smile as he recalled +some passages of the experience given here in part. His English limps +slightly at moments of excitement, but his mastery of its shades of +meaning never, and this is his version of the present relation between +employer and employed:-- + +"In me always are two peoples,--one that loves work well, that must work +ever to be happy, and one that will think and think ever how hard is +life even with work that is good and with much to love. In village or in +city, for I begin with one and go on to the other, in both alike it is +work always that is too much; long hours when strength is gone and there +should be rest, but when always man and woman, yes, and child, must go +on for the little more that more hours will earn. For myself, I want not +what is called pleasure when the day is done. A book that is good +contents me, and is friend and amusement in one. But as I love a book +more and more, and desire more time to be with them, I begin first to +think, why should so many hours be given to work that there are none in +which men have strength or time or desire left for something that is +better? These things I think much of before I come to America. I have my +trade from my father and his father. We are silk-weavers from the time +silk is known, but for myself I have chosen ribbons, and it is ribbons I +make all my life and that my son will make after me. + +"At first when I come here to this country that for years I hope for and +must not reach, because I am held to my father who is old--at first I +have little money and can only be with another who manufactures. But +already some dishonesties have come in. The colors are not firm; the +silk has weight given it, so that more body than is belongs to the +ribbon; there is an inch, maybe, cut short in the lengths. There is +every way to make the most and give the least. And there is something +that from the days I begin to think at all, seems ever injustice and +wrong. Side by side it may be, men and women work together at the looms; +but for the women it is half, sometimes two thirds, what the man can +earn, yet the work the same. This is something to alter when time is +ripe, and at last it is come. I have saved as I earned and added to what +I bring with me, and I buy for myself the plant of a man who retires, +and get me a place, this place where I am, and that changes little. His +workers come with me,--a few, for I begin with four looms only, but soon +have seven, and so go on. At first I think only of how I may shorten +hours and make time for them to rest and learn what they will, but a +good friend of mine from the beginning is doctor, and as I go on he +speaks to me much of things I should do for health. And then I think of +them and study, and I see that there is much I have never learned and +that they must learn also with me. + +"There is one thing that Americans will, more than all peoples of the +earth. They will have a place so hot that breath is nowhere, and women +more even than men. I begin to think how I shall keep them warm yet give +them to breathe. The place is old, as you see. No builder thought ever +of air in such time as this was built, and if they think to-day, it is +chiefly wrong, for in all places I go one breathes the breath of all +others, never true air of heaven. At first I open windows from top and +before they come; but when they see it they cry out and say, 'O Mr. +B----! You want to freeze us!' 'Not so,' I say; 'I would make you +healthy.' And they say, 'We're healthy enough. We don't want draughts.' +It is true. There were draughts, and I begin to think how this shall be +changed, and try many things, and all of them they pull down or push out +or stop up tight, whichever way will most surely abolish air. At last I +bring up my doctor who is wise and can explain better than I, and I say +that work may stop and all listen and learn. They listen but they laugh, +all but one, and say, 'How funny! What is use of so much fuss?' + +"While I do these things which I keep on and will not stop, finding best +at last a shaft and a hole above, that they cannot pull out or reach to +fill, I think of other things. They eat at noon what they bring,--pie +that is dear to Americans, and small cakes, many of them; but good bread +that has nourishment, or good drink like soup or coffee, no. They stand +many hours and: faint and weak. So I say there must be good coffee for +them, and I tell them, 'Girls, I will buy a big urn and there shall be +coffee and milk, and for two cents you have a big cup so sweet as you +will, or if you like better it shall be hot soup.' Above in a room was a +a Swiss that knew good soup, and that would, if I pay her a little, buy +all that is wanted and a make a big pot, so that each could have a bowl. +This also I would have them pay for, three cents a bowl, and they like +this best, and it is done for three weeks. They go up there and have +full bowls, and I have a long table made before a bench where sometimes +they rest, with oil-cloth, and here they eat and are comfortable. Three +days soup, three days hot coffee; and I have place where the men can +heat what is in their pails. + +"But they do such things! They pick out vegetable from soup and throw on +the floor. They pour away coffee. They make the place like a home of +animals, and when I say, 'Girls, I want much that all should be clean +and nice, and that you never waste,' they laugh again. I find that +difficult, for what answer can be made to laugh? I go on, but they break +bowls and insult the Swiss that make the soup, and tell her I buy +dog-meat and such, and she say she will no more of it. Then I call the +doctor again and say to them, 'Listen while he tells you what is good to +eat.' They were not all so fools, but the fool ones rule, and they +listen, but they laugh always. That is American,--to laugh and think +everything joke and not see what earnest must be for any good living. I +give the coffee-urn to the best girl and tell her to have care of it, +but do what we will they think somehow I am silly, and like best to eat +their pie and then talk. A small pie at the corner is three cents, and +they buy one, sometimes two, and it is sweet and fills and they are +content. It is only men that think that will change a habit. I find for +the worker always till thought begins they are conservative, and an +experiment, a change, is distress to them. So I say, 'Let them do they +will. Air is here and that they cannot stop, but for food I will do no +more.' + +"These all were small things, and as I went on I said, as in the +beginning, that for those who did the same work must be the same wage. +My men had always ten dollars, and sometimes twelve or fifteen dollars a +week; but the best woman had ten dollars, and she had worked five years +and knew all. It is a law--unwritten, but still a law--that women shall +not have what men earn; and when I say one is good as another, the +brother of the woman I make equal with him said first this should never +be; and when I said 'It must,' he talk to all the men at noon, and +before the looms begin again they come and tell me that if I do so they +will work no more. I talk to them all: 'This is a country where men +boast always that woman has much honor, but I see not that she has more +justice than where there is less honor. Shame on men that will let women +work all the hours and as well as they,--yes, many times better,--and +then threaten strike if they are paid the same!' But it was all no good. +For that time I must yield, because I had much work that was promised; +but I said: 'For now I do as you will. With January, that is but a month +away, it shall be as I will.' + +"Well, I have tried. Many changes have been made, much time lost, much +money. I call them to my house in the evening. I talk with them and try +to teach them justice, and some are willing, but most not. New men spoil +my work, and I lose much profit and take the old ones again. But this, +too, is a small thing. My own mind goes on and I see that they should +share with me. I read of co-operation, and to me it is truer than +profit-sharing. I have seventy men and girls at work. I say they must +understand this business. I will try to teach them. Two evenings a week +I meet them all and talk and listen to them. One or two feel it plain. +For most they say, 'Old B---- wants to get a rise out of us somehow.' At +last I see that they are too foolish to understand co-operation, but it +may be they will let profit-sharing be a step. Over and over, many times +over and over, I tell it all, and in the end some agree, and for a year +it does well. But the next year was bad. Silk was high, and my ribbons +honest ribbons and profit small; and when they saw how small, they cried +that they were cheated and that I kept all for myself. I read them the +books. I said, 'Here, you may see with your eyes. This year I make not +enough to live if there were not other years in which I saved. I am +almost failed. The business might stop, but I will go on for our names' +sake.' 'All a dodge,' they said. No words were plain enough to make them +know. They even called me cheat and liar, there in the place where I had +tried to work for them. + +"And so I share profits no more. I give large wage. I never cut down, do +the market what it will. But some things are plain. It is not alone +oppression and greed from above that do what you call grind the worker. +No, I am not alone. There are men like me with a wish for humanity and +wiser than I, and alike they are not heard when they speak; alike their +wish is naught and their effort vain. It is ignorance that rules. There +is no knowledge, no understanding. In my trade and in all trades I know +it is the same. A man will not believe a fact, and he will believe that +to cheat is all one over him can wish. Even my workers that care for me, +a few of them, they laugh no more to my face, but they say: 'Oh, he has +notions, that man! He will never get very rich, he has so many notions.' +They listen and they think a little. One man said yesterday: 'If this +had been put in my head when I was a growing lad it would have +straightened many a thing. Why ain't we taught?' And I said to him: +'Jacob, teachers are not taught. There is only one here, one there, that +thinks what only it is well to learn,--justice for all the world. I who +would do justice am made to wait, but the sin is with you, not with me.' + +"So to-day I wait for such time as wisdom may come. My son is one with +me in this. He has a plan and soon he will try, and where I failed his +more knowledge may do better. But for me, I think that this generation +must suffer much, and in pain and want learn, it may be, what is life. +To-day it knows not and cares not, save a few. How shall the many be +made to know?" + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. + +THE WIDOW MALONEY'S BOARDERS. + + +To the old New-Yorker taking his pensive way through streets where only +imagination can supply the old landmarks, long ago vanished, there is a +conviction that he knows the city foot by foot as it has crept +northward; and he repudiates the thought that its growth has ended such +possibility, and that many a dark corner is as remote from his or any +knowledge save that of its occupants as if in Caffre-land. The newest +New-Yorker has small interest in anything but the west side and the +space down-town occupied by his store or office. + +And so it chances that in spite of occasional series of descriptive +articles, in spite of an elaborately written local history and +unnumbered novels whose background is the city life and thought, there +is little real knowledge, and, save among charitable workers, the +police, and adventurous newspaper men, no thought of what life may be +lived not a stone's-throw from the great artery of New York, Broadway. + +On one point there can be no doubt. Not Africa in its most pestilential +and savage form holds surer disease or more determined barbarians than +nest together under many a roof within hearing of the rush and roar of +the busy streets where men come and go, eager for no knowledge or wisdom +under the sun save the knowledge that will make them better bargainers. +There comes even a certain impatient distrust of those who persist in +unsavory researches and more unsavory details of the results. If there +is not distrust; if the easy-going kindliness that is a portion of the +American temperament is stirred, it is but for the moment; and when the +hand that sought the pocket or the check-book instinctively has +presented its gift, interest is over. A fresh sensation wipes out all +trace of the transient feeling, and though it may again be roused by +judicious effort, how rarely is it that more than the automatic movement +toward the pocket results! What might come if for even one hour the +impatient giver walked through the dark passages, stood in the foul, +dimly lighted rooms and saw what manner of creature New York nourishes +in her slums, giving to every child in freest measure that training in +all foulness that eye or ear or mind can take in that will fit it in +time for the habitation in prison or reformatory on which money is never +spared,--who shall say? They are filled by free choice, these nests of +all evil. The men and women who herd in them know nothing better; +indeed, may have known something even worse. They are Polish Jews, +Bohemians, the lowest order of Italians, content with unending work, +the smallest wage, and an order of food that the American, no matter how +low he may be brought, can never stomach. Yet they assimilate in one +point, being as bent upon getting on as the most determined American, +and accepting to this end conditions that seem more those of an Inferno +than anything the upper world has known. It is among these people, +chiefly Polish Jews and Bohemians, with the inevitable commixture of +Irish, that one finds the worst forms of child-labor; children that in +happy homes are still counted babies here in these dens beginning at +four or five to sew on buttons or pick out threads. + +It is not of child-labor and the outrages involved in it that I speak +to-day, save indirectly, as it forms part of the mass of evil making up +the present industrial system and to be encountered at every turn by the +most superficial investigation. It is rather of certain specific +conditions, found at many points in tenement-house life, but never in +such accumulated degree of vileness at any point save one outside the +Fourth Ward. And if the reader, like various recent correspondents, is +disposed to believe that I am merely "making up a case," using a little +experience and a great deal of imagination, I refer him or her to the +forty-third annual report of the New York Association for the +Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. There, in detail to a degree +impossible here, will be found the official report of the inspector +appointed to examine the conditions of life in the building known as +"The Big Flat," in Mulberry Street. There are smaller houses that are +worse in construction and condition, but there is none controlled by one +management where so many are gathered under one roof. The first floor +has rooms for fourteen families, the remaining five for sixteen each; +and the census of 1880 gave the number of inhabitants as 478, a +sufficient number to make up the population of the average village. The +formal inspection and the report upon it were made in September, 1886, +and the report is now accessible to all who desire information on these +phases of city life. It is Mrs. Maloney herself whose methods best give +us the heart of the matter, and who, having several callings, is the +owner of an experience which appears to hold as much surprise for +herself as for the hearer. + +"Shure I foind things that interestin' that I'm in no haste to be +through wid 'em, an' on for me taste o' purgatory, not hintin' that +there mightn't be more 'n a taste," Mrs. Maloney said, on a day in which +she unfolded to me her views of life in general, her small gray eyes +twinkling, her arms akimbo on her mighty hips, and her cap-border +flapping about a face weather-beaten and high-colored to a degree not +warranted even by her present profession as apple-woman. Whether +whiskey or stale beer is more responsible is unknown. It is only +certain that, having submitted with the utmost cheerfulness to the +perennial beatings of a husband only half her size, she found +consolation in a glass now and then with a sympathizing neighbor and at +last in a daily resort to the same friend. There had been a gradual +descent from prosperity. Dennis, if small, was wiry and phenomenally +strong, and earned steady wages as porter during their first years in +the country. But the children, as they grew, went to the bad entirely, +living on the earnings of the mother, who washed and scrubbed and +slaved, with a heart always full of excuses for the hulking brutes, who +came naturally at last to the ends that might have been foretold. Their +education had been in the Fourth Ward; they were champion bullies and +ruffians of whom the ward still boasts, Mrs. Maloney herself acquiring a +certain distinction as the mother of the hardest cases yet sent up from +Cherry Street. But if she had no power to save her own, life became +easier for whomsoever she elected to guard. Wretched children crept +under her wing to escape the beating awaiting them when they had failed +to bring home the amount demanded of them. Women, beaten and turned out +into the night, fled to her for comfort, and the girl who had lost her +place, or to whom worse misfortune had come, told her story to the +big-hearted sinner, who nodded and cried and said, "It's the Widdy +Maloney that'll see you're not put upon more. Hold on an' be aisy, +honey, an' all'll come out the way you'd be havin' it, an' why not?" + +It was at this stage of experience that Mrs. Maloney decided to remove +to the Big Flat. The last raid of Dennis, the youngest and only boy not +housed at the expense of the State, had reduced her belongings to their +lowest terms, and she took possession of her new quarters, accompanied +only by a rickety table, three chairs, a bed with two old straw +mattresses, and some quilts too ragged to give any token of their +original characteristics, a stove which owned but one leg,--the rest +being supplied by bricks,--and such dishes and other small furniture as +could be carried in a basket. But there went with her a girl kicked out +by the last man who had temporarily called her his mistress,--a mere +child still, who at ten had begun work in a bag-factory passing through +various grades of slightly higher employment, till seduced by the +floor-walker of the store that it had been her highest ambition to +reach. Almost as much her fault as his undoubtedly, her silly head +holding but one desire, that for fine clothes and never to work any +more, but a woman's heart waking in her when the baby came, and +prompting her to harder work and better life than she had ever known. +There was no chance of either with the baby, and when at last she farmed +out the encumbrance to an old couple in a back building who made this +their business, and took a place again in the store, it was relief as +well as sorrow that came when the wretched little life was over. But the +descent had been a swift one. When what she had called life was quite +over, and she sat dumb and despairing in the doorway to which she had +been thrust, thinking of the river as the last refuge left, the widow +had pushed her before her up the stairs and said,-- + +"Poor sowl, if there's none to look out for ye, then who but me should +do it?" + +This was the companion who lay by her side under the ragged quilts, life +still refusing to give place to death, though every paroxysm of coughing +shortened the conflict. + +"She's that patient that the saints themselves--all glory to their +blessed names!--couldn't be more so; but I'd not know how to manage if +it wasn't for the foot-warmer I call her; that's Angela there, wid eyes +that go through you an' the life beaten out of her by the man that +called himself her father, an' wasn't at all, at all. It's she that does +the kaping of the house, an' sleeps across the foot, an' it's mine they +think the two av 'em, else they'd never a let me in, the rules bein', +'no lodgers.' It's not lodgers they are. It's me boarders, full fledged, +an' who's a better right than me, though I'd not be sayin' so to the +housekeeper that'd need forty pair o' eyes to her two to see what's +goin' on under her nose." + +The "foot-warmer's" office had ceased for one of them before the month +ended, and when the Potter's Field had received the pine coffin followed +only by the two watchers, the widow made haste to bring in another +candidate for the same position; one upon whom she had kept her eye for +a month, certain that worse trouble was on the way than loss of work. + +"There was the look on her that manes but the one thing," she said +afterward. "There's thim that sthand everything an' niver a word, an' +there's thim that turns disperate. She was a disperate wan." + +Never had a "disperate wan" better reason. A factory girl almost from +babyhood, her apprenticeship having begun at seven, she had left the +mill at fourteen, a tall girl older than her years in look and +experience. New York was her Mecca, and to New York she came, with a +week's wages in her pocket on which to live till work should be found, +and neither relative nor friend save a girl who had preceded her by a +few months and was now at work in a fringe and gimp factory, earning +seven dollars a week and promising the same to the child after a few +weeks' training. But seven years in a cotton-mill, if they had given +quickness in one direction, had blunted all power in others. The fingers +were unskilful and clumsy and her mind too wandering and inattentive to +master details, and the place was quickly lost. She entered her name as +candidate for the first vacancy in a Grand Street store, and in the mean +time went into a coffee and spice mill and became coffee-picker at +three dollars a week. This lasted a month or two, but even here there +was dissatisfaction with lack of thoroughness, and she was presently +discharged. The vacancy had come, and she went at once into the store, +her delicate face and pretty eyes commending her to the manager, who +lost no time in telling her what impression she could produce if she +were better dressed. Weak, irresponsible, hopelessly careless, and past +any power to undo these conditions, there was some instinct in the +untaught life that put her instantly on the defensive. + +"I'm not good for much," she said, "but I'm too good for that. There's +nothing you could promise would get you your will and there won't be." + +Naturally, as the siege declared itself a hopeless one, the manager +found it necessary to fill her place by some more competent hand. There +was an interval of waiting in which she pawned almost the last article +of clothing remaining that could be dispensed with, and then went into a +bakery, where the hours were from seven A. M. to ten P. M., sometimes +later. She was awkward at making change, but her gentle manners +attracted customers, and the baker himself soon cast a favorable eye +upon her, and speedily made the same proposition that had driven her +from her last employment. The baker's wife knew the symptoms, and on the +same day discharged the girl. + +"I don't say it's your fault," she said, "but he's started about you, +and it's for your own good I tell you to go. The best thing for you is +to go back to your mother, or else take a place with some nice woman +that'll keep an eye to you. You'll always be run after. I know your +kind, that no man looks at without wanting to fool with 'em. You take my +advice and go into a place." + +The chance came that night. The mistress of a cheap boarding-house in +East Broadway, her patrons chiefly young clerks from Grand and Division +Street stores, offered her home and eight dollars a month, and Lizzie, +who by this time was frightened and discouraged, accepted on the +instant. She was well accustomed to long hours, and she had never minded +standing as many of the girls did, her apprenticeship in the mill having +made it comparatively easy. + +But the drudgery undergone here was beyond anything her life had ever +known. Her day began at five and it never ended before eleven. She slept +on an old mattress on the kitchen floor, and as her strength failed from +the incessant labor, lost all power of protest and accepted each new +demand as something against which there could be no revolt. There was +abundance of coarse food and thus much advantage, but she had no +knowledge that taught her how to make work easier, nor had her mistress +any thought of training her. She was a dish-washing machine chiefly, and +broke and chipped even the rough ware that formed the table furniture, +till the exasperated mistress threatened to turn her off if another +piece were destroyed. It was a case of hopeless inaptitude; and when in +early spring she sickened, and the physician grudgingly called in +declared it a case of typhus brought on by the conditions in which she +had lived, she was sent at once to the hospital and left to such fate as +might come. + +A clean bed, rest, and attendance seemed a heaven to the girl when +consciousness came back, and she shrank from any thought of going out +again to the fight for existence. + +"I don't know what the matter is," she said to the doctor as she mended, +"but somehow I ain't fit to make a living. I shall have to go back to +the mill, but I said I never would do that." + +"You shall go to some training-school and be taught," said the doctor, +who had stood looking at her speculatively yet pitifully. + +"Ah, but I couldn't learn. Somehow things don't stick to me. I'm not fit +to earn a living." + +"You're of the same stuff as a good many thousand of your kind," the +doctor said under his breath, and turned away with a sigh. + +Lizzie went out convalescent, but still weak and uncertain, and took +refuge with one of the bakery girls who had half of a dark bedroom in a +tenement house near the Big Flat. She looked for work. She answered +advertisements, and at last began upon the simplest form of necktie, and +in her slow, bungling fashion began to earn again. But she had no +strength. She sat at the window and looked over to the Big Flat and +watched the swarm that came and went; five hundred people in it, they +told her, and half of them drunk at once. It was certain that there were +always men lying drunk in the hallways in the midst of ashes and filth +that accumulated there almost unchecked. The saloon below was always +full; the stale beer dives all along the street full also, above all, at +night, when the flaunting street-walkers came out, and fiddles squeaked, +and cheap pianos rattled, and songs and shouts were over-topped at +moments by the shrieks of beaten women or the oaths and cries of a +sudden fight. Slowly it was coming to the girl that this was all the +life New York had for her; that if she failed to meet the demand +employer after employer had made upon her, she would die in this hole, +where neither joy nor hope had any place. Her clothes were in rags. She +went hungry and cold, and had grown too stupefied with trouble to plan +anything better. At last it was plain to her that death must be best. +She said to herself that the river could never tell, and that there +would be rest and no more cold or hunger, and it was to the river that +she went at night as the Widow Maloney rose before her and said,-- + +"You'll come home wid me, me dear, an' no wurruds about it." + +Lizzie looked at her stupidly. "You'd better not stop me," she said. +"I'm no good. I can't earn my living anywhere any more. I don't know +how. I'd better be out of the way." + +"Shure you'll be enough out o' the way whin you're in the top o' the Big +Flat," said Mrs. Maloney. "An' once there we'll see." + +Lizzie followed her without a word, but when the stairs were climbed and +she sunk panting and ghastly on one of the three chairs, it was quite +plain to the widow that more work had begun. That it will very soon end +is also quite plain to whoever dares the terrors of the Big Flat, and +climbs to the wretched room, which in spite of dirt and foulness within +and without is a truer sanctuary than many a better place. The army of +incompetents will very shortly be the less by one, but more recruits are +in training and New York guarantees an unending supply. + +"Shure if there's naught they know how to do," says the widow, "why +should one be lookin' to have thim do what they can't. It's one thing +I've come to, what with seein' the goings on all me life, but chiefly in +the Big Flat, that if childers be not made to learn, whither they like +it or not, somethin' that'll keep hands an' head from mischief, there's +shmall use in laws an' less in muddlin' about 'em when they're most done +with livin' at all, at all. But that's a thing that's beyond me or the +likes o' me, an' I'm only wonderin' a thrifle like an' puttin' the +question to meself a bit, 'What would you be doin', Widdy Maloney, if +the doin' risted on you an' no other?'" + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. + +AMONG THE SHOP-GIRLS. + + +Why this army of women, many thousand strong, is standing behind +counters, over-worked and underpaid, the average duration of life among +them as a class lessening every year, is a question with which we can at +present deal only indirectly. It is sufficient to state that the retail +stores of wellnigh every order, though chiefly the dry-goods retail +trade, have found their quickness and aptness to learn, the honesty and +general faithfulness of women, and their cheapness essentials in their +work; and that this combination of qualities--cheapness dominating +all--has given them permanent place in the modern system of trade. A +tour among many of the larger establishments confirmed the statement +made by employers in smaller ones, the summary being given in the words +of a manager of one of the largest retail houses to be found in the +United States. + +"We don't want men," he said. "We wouldn't have them even if they came +at the same price. Of course cheapness has something to do with it, and +will have, but for my part give me a woman to deal with every time. Now +there's an illustration over at that hat-counter. We were short of hands +to-day, and I had to send for three girls that had applied for places, +but were green--didn't know the business. It didn't take them ten +minutes to get the hang of doing things, and there they are, and you'd +never know which was old and which was new hand. Of course they don't +know all about qualities and so on, but the head of the department looks +out for that. No, give me women every time. I've been a manager thirteen +years, and we never had but four dishonest girls, and we've had to +discharge over forty boys in the same time. Boys smoke and lose at +cards, and do a hundred things that women don't, and they get worse +instead of better. I go in for women." + +"How good is their chance of promotion?" + +"We never lose sight of a woman that shows any business capacity, but of +course that's only as a rule in heads of departments. A saleswoman gets +about the same right along. Two thirds of the girls here are +public-school girls and live at home. You see that makes things pretty +easy, for the family pool their earnings and they dress well and live +well. We don't take from the poorer class at all. These girls earn from +four and a half to eight dollars a week. A few get ten dollars, and +they're not likely to do better than that. Forty dollars a month is a +fortune to a woman. A man must have his little fling, you know. Women +manage better." + +"If they are really worth so much to you, why can't you give better pay? +What chance has a girl to save anything, unless she lives at home?" + +"We give as high pay as anybody, and we don't give more because for +every girl here there are a dozen waiting to take her place. As to +saving, she doesn't want to save. There isn't a girl here that doesn't +expect to marry before long, and she puts what she makes on her back, +because a fellow naturally goes for the best-looking and the +best-dressed girl. That's the woman question as I've figured it out, and +you'll find it the same everywhere." + +Practically he was right, for the report, though varying slightly, +summed up as substantially the same. Descending a grade, it was found +that even in the second and third rate stores the system of fines for +any damage soon taught the girls carefulness, and that while a few were +discharged for hopeless incompetency, the majority served faithfully and +well. + +"I dare say they're put upon," said the manager of one of the cheaper +establishments. "They're sassy enough, a good many of them, and some of +the better ones suffer for their goings-on. But they ain't a bad +set--not half; and these women that come in complaining that they ain't +well-treated, nine times out of ten it's their own airs that brought it +on. It's a shop-girl's interest to behave herself and satisfy customers, +and she's more apt to do it than not, according to my experience." + +"They'd drive a man clean out of his mind," said another. "The tricks of +girls are beyond telling. If it wasn't for fines there wouldn't one in +twenty be here on time, and the same way with a dozen other things. But +they learn quick, and they turn in anywhere where they're wanted. They +make the best kind of clerks, after all." + +"Do you give them extra pay for over-hours during the busy season?" + +"Not much! We keep them on, most of them, right through the dull one. +Why shouldn't they balance things for us when the busy time comes? Turn +about's fair play." + +A girl who had been sent into the office for some purpose shook her head +slightly as she heard the words, and it was this girl who, a day or two +later, gave her view of the situation. The talk went on in the pretty, +home-like parlors of a small "Home" on the west side, where rules are +few and the atmosphere of the place so cheery that while it is intended +only for those out of work, it is constantly besieged with requests to +enlarge its borders and make room for more. Half a dozen other girls +were near: three from other stores, one from a shirt factory, one an +artificial-flower-maker who had been a shop-girl. + +"When I began," said the first, "father was alive, and I used what I +earned just for dressing myself. We were up at Morrisania, and I came +down every day. I was in the worsted and fancy department at D----'s, +and I had such a good eye for matching and choosing that they seemed to +think everything of me. But then father fell sick. He was a painter, and +had painter's colic awfully and at last paralysis. Then he died finally +and left mother and me, and she's in slow consumption and can't do much. +I earned seven dollars a week because I'd learned fancy work and did +some things evenings for the store, and we should have got along very +well. We'd had to move out a little farther, to the place mother was +born in, because rent was cheaper and she could never stand the city. +But this is the way it worked. I have to be at the store at eight +o'clock. The train that leaves home at seven gets me to the store two +minutes after eight, but though I've explained this to the manager he +says I've got to be at the store at eight, and so, summer and winter, I +have to take the train at half-past six and wait till doors are open. +It's the same way at night. The store closes at six, and if I could +leave then I could catch an express train that would get me home at +seven. The rules are that I must stop five minutes to help the girls +cover up the goods, and that just hinders my getting the train till +after seven, so that I am not home till eight." + +I looked at the girl more attentively. She was colorless and emaciated, +and, when not excited by speaking, languid and heavy. + +"Are you sure that you have explained the thing clearly so that the +manager understands?" I asked. + +"More than once," the girl answered, "but he said I should be fined if I +were not there at eight. Then I told him that the girls at my counter +would be glad to cover up my goods, and if he would only let me go at +six it would give me a little more time for mother. I sit up late anyway +to do things she can't, for we live in two rooms and I sew and do a good +many things after I go home." + +Inquiry a day or two later showed that her story was true in every +detail and also that she was a valuable assistant, one of the best among +a hundred or so employed. The firm gives largely to charitable objects, +and pays promptly, and at rates which, if low, are no lower than usual; +but they continue to exact this seven minutes' service from one whose +faithfulness might seem to have earned exemption from a purely arbitrary +rule--in such a case mere tyranny. The girl had offered to give up her +lunch hour, but the manager refused; and she dared not speak again for +fear of losing her place. + +"After all, she's better off than I am or lots of others," said one who +sat near her. "I'm down in the basement at M----'s, and forty others +like me, and about forty little girls. There's gas and electric light +both, but there isn't a breath of air, and it's so hot that after an +hour or two your head feels baked and your eyes as if they would fall +out. The dull season--that's from spring to fall--lasts six months, and +then we work nine and a half hours and Saturdays thirteen. The other six +months we work eleven hours, and holiday time till ten and eleven. I'm +strong. I'm an old hand and somehow stand things, but I've a cousin at +the ribbon counter, the very best girl in the world, I do believe. She +always makes the best of things, but this year it did seem as if the +whole town was at that counter. They stood four and five deep. She was +penned in with the other girls, a dozen or two, with drawers and cases +behind and counter in front, and there she stood from eight in the +morning till ten at night, with half an hour off for dinner and for +supper. She could have got through even that, but you see there has to +be steady passing in that narrow space, and she was knocked and pushed, +first by one and then by another, till she was sore all over; and at +last down she dropped right there, not fainting, but sort of gone, and +the doctor says she's most dead and can't go back, he doesn't know when. +Down there in the basement the girls have to put on blue glasses, the +glare is so dreadful, but they don't like to have us. The only comfort +is you're with a lot and don't feel lonesome. I can't bear to do +anything alone, no matter what it is." + +A girl with clear dark eyes and a face that might have been almost +beautiful but for its haggard, worn-out expression, turned from the +table where she had been writing and smiled as she looked at the last +speaker. + +"That is because you happen to be made that way," she said. "I am always +happier when I can be alone a good deal, but of course that's never +possible, or almost never. I shall want the first thousand years of my +heaven quite to myself, just for pure rest and a chance to think." + +"I don't know anything about heaven," the last speaker said hastily, +"but I'm sure I hope there's purgatory at least for some of the people +I've had to submit to. I think a woman manager is worse than a man. I've +never had trouble anywhere and always stay right on, but I've wanted to +knock some of the managers down, and it ought to have been done. Just +take the new superintendent. We loved the old one, but this one came in +when she died, and one of the first things she did was to discharge one +of the old girls because she didn't smile enough. Good reason why. She'd +lost her mother the week before and wasn't likely to feel much like +smiling. And then she went inside the counters and pitched out all the +old shoes the girls had there to make it easier to stand. It 'most kills +you to stand all day in new shoes, but Miss T---- pitched them all out +and said she wasn't going to have the store turned into an old-clothes +shop." + +"Well, it's better than lots of them, no matter what she does," said +another. "I was at H----'s for six months, and there you have to ask a +man for leave every time it is necessary to go upstairs, and half the +time he would look and laugh with the other clerks. I'd rather be where +there are all women. They're hard on you sometimes, but they don't use +foul language and insult you when you can't help yourself." + +This last complaint has proved for many stores a perfectly well-founded +one. Wash-rooms and other conveniences have been for common use, and +many sensitive and shrinking girls have brought on severe illnesses +arising solely from dread of running this gantlet. + +Here and there the conditions of this form of labor are of the best, but +as a whole the saleswoman suffers not only from long-continued standing, +but from bad air, ventilation having no place in the construction of the +ordinary store. Separate dressing-rooms are a necessity, yet are only +occasionally found, the system demanding that no outlay shall be made +when it is possible to avoid it. Overheating and overcrowding, hastily +eaten and improper food, are all causes of the weakness and anæmic +condition so perceptible among shop and factory workers, these being +divided into many classes. For a large proportion it can be said that +they are tolerably educated, so far as our public-school system can be +said to educate, and are hard-working, self-sacrificing, patient girls +who have the American knack of dressing well on small outlay, and who +have tastes and aspirations far beyond any means of gratifying them. For +such girls the working-women's guilds and the Friendly societies--these +last of English origin--have proved of inestimable service, giving them +the opportunities long denied. In such guilds many of them receive the +first real training of eye and hand and mind, learn what they can best +do, and often develop a practical ability for larger and better work. +Even in the lowest order filling the cheaper stores there is always a +proportion eager to learn. But here, as in all ordinary methods of +learning, the market is overstocked, and even the best-trained girl may +sometimes fail of employment. Now and then one turns toward household +service, but the mass prefer any cut in wages and any form of privation +to what they regard as almost a final degradation. A multitude of their +views on this point are recorded and will in time find place. + +In the mean time a minute examination of the causes that determine their +choice and of the conditions surrounding it as a whole go to prove the +justice of the conviction that penetrates the student of social +problems. Again, the shop-girl as a class demonstrates the fact that not +with her but with the class above her, through accident of birth or +fortune, lies the real responsibility for the follies over which we make +moan. The cheaper daily papers record in fullest detail the doings of +that fashionable world toward which many a weak girl or woman looks +with unspeakable longing; and the weekly "story papers" feed the flame +with unending details of the rich marriage that lifted the poor girl +into the luxury which stands to her empty mind as the sole thing to be +desired in earth or heaven. She knows far better what constitutes the +life of the rich than the rich ever know of the life of the poor. From +her post behind the counter the shop-girl examines every detail of +costume, every air and grace of these women whom she despises, even when +longing most to be one of them. She imitates where she can, and her +cheap shoe has its French heel, her neck its tin dog-collar. Gilt rings +and bracelets and bangles, frizzes and bangs and cheap trimmings of +every order, swallow up her earnings. The imitation is often more +effective than the real, and the girl knows it. She aspires to a +"manicure" set, to an opera-glass, to anything that will simulate the +life daily more passionately desired; and it is small wonder that when +sudden temptation comes and the door opens into that land where luxury +is at least nearer, she falls an easy victim. The class in which she +finally takes rank is seldom recruited from sources that would seem most +fruitful. The sewing-woman, the average factory worker, is devitalized +to such an extent that even ambition dies and the brain barely responds +to even the allurements of the weekly story paper. It is the class but a +grade removed, to whom no training has come from which strength or +simplicity or any virtue of honest living could grow, that makes the +army of women who have chosen degradation. + +A woman, herself a worker, but large-brained and large-hearted beyond +the common endowment, wrote recently of the dangers put in the way of +the average shop or factory girl, imploring happy women living at ease +to adopt simpler forms, or at least to ask what form of living went on +below them. She wrote:-- + + "It may be urged that ignorant and inexperienced as these workers + are, they see only the bubbles and the froth, the superficial + glitter and exuberant overflow of passing styles and social + pleasures, and miss much, if not all, of the earnestness, the + virtue, the charity, and the refinement which may belong to those + they imitate, but with whom they seldom come in contact. This is + the very point and purpose of this paper, to remonstrate against + the injustice done to the women of wealth and leisure by their own + carelessness and indifference, and to urge them to come down to + those who cannot come up to them, to study them with as keen an + interest as they themselves are studied,--to know how that other + half lives." + +"To know how that other half lives." That is the demand made upon woman +and man alike. Once at least put yourselves in the worker's place, if it +be but for half an hour, and think her thought and live her starved and +dreary life. Then ask what work must be done to alter conditions, to +kill false ideals, and vow that no day on earth shall pass that has not +held some effort, in word or deed, to make true living more possible for +every child of man. No mission, no guild, no sermon, has or can have +power alone. Only in the determined effort of the individual, in +individual understanding and renunciation forever of what has been +selfish and mean and base, can humanity know redemption and walk at last +side by side in that path where he who journeys alone finds no entrance, +nor can win it till self has dropped away, and knowledge come that +forever we are our brothers' keepers. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. + +TWO HOSPITAL BEDS. + + +Why and how the money-getting spirit has become the ruler of American +life and thought no analyzer of social conditions has yet made plain. +That New York might be monopolist in this respect could well be +conceived, for the Dutch were traders by birthright and New Amsterdam +arose to this one end. But why the Puritan colony, whose first act +before even the tree stumps were brown in their corn-fields was the +founding of a college, and whose corner-stone rested on a book,--why +these people should have come to represent a spirit of bargaining and an +aptitude for getting on unmatched by the keenest-witted Dutchman hath no +man yet told us. + +The sharpest business men of the present are chiefly "Yankees;" and if +"Jew" and "a hard bargain" are counted synonymes, "New-Englander" has +equal claim to the place. The birthplace and home of all reform, New +England is the home also of a greed born of hard conditions and +developing a keenness unequalled by that of any other bargainer on +earth. The Italian, the Greek, the Turk, find a certain æsthetic +satisfaction in bargaining and do it methodically, but always +picturesquely and with a relish unaffected by defeat; but with the +Yankee it is a passionate, absorbing desire, sharpening every line of +the face and felt even in the turn of the head or shoulders, and in +every line of the eager, restless figure. Success assured softens and +modifies these tendencies. Defeat aggravates them. One meets many a man +for whom it is plain that the beginning of life held unlimited faith +that the great city meant a fortune, the sanguine conviction passing +gradually into the interrogative form. The fortune is still there. Thus +far the conviction holds good, but his share in it has become more and +more problematical. The flying and elusive shadow still holds for him +the only real substance, but his hands have had no power to grasp or +detain, and the most dogged determination gives way at last to the sense +of hopeless failure. For this type may be the ending as cheap clerk or +bookkeeper, with furtive attempts at speculation when a few dollars have +been saved, or a retreat toward that remote West which has hidden +effectually so many baffled and defeated lives. There may also come +another ending, and the feverish, scheming soul lose its hold on the +body, which has meant to it merely a means of getting and increasing +money. + +It is this latter fate that came to a man who would have no place in +this record save for the fact that his last querulous and +still-questioning days were lived side by side with a man who had also +sought money, and having found it had chosen for it certain experimental +uses by means of which siphon he was presently drained dry. For him also +had been many defeats. A hospital ward held them both, and the two beds +were side by side, the one representing a patience that never failed, +yet something more than patience. For the face of this man bore no token +of defeat. It was rather triumph that looked at moments from the clear +eyes that had also an almost divine pity as they turned toward the +neighbor who poured out his story between paroxysms of coughing, and +having told it once, proceeded to tell it again, his sole and final +satisfaction in life being the arraignment of all living. The visitor +who came into the ward was pinned on the instant, the fiery eyes +demanding the hearing which was the last gift time held for him. It was +a common story often told, this slow, inevitable descent into poverty. +Its force lay in the condensed fury of the speaker, who looked on the +men he had known as sworn conspirators against him, and cursed them in +their going out and coming in with a relish that no argument could +affect. What his neighbor might have to tell was a matter of the purest +indifference. It was impossible even to ask his story; and it remained +impossible until a day when arraignment was cut short and the +disappointed, bitter soul passed on to such conditions as it had made +for itself. + +"You've got the best of me. They all do," he said in dying, with a last +turn of the sombre eyes toward his neighbor. "You ought to have gone +first by a week, and there you are. But this time I guess it's just as +well. I don't seem to want to fight any longer, and I'm glad I'm done. +It's your turn next. Good--" + +The words had come with gasps between and long pauses. Here they stopped +once for all. Good had found him; the only good for the child of earth, +who, having failed to learn his lesson here, must try a larger school +with a different system of training. The empty bed was not filled at +once. A screen shut it off. There was time now to hear other words than +the passionate railings that had monopolized all time. The sick man +mended a little, and in one of the days in which speech was easier gave +this record of his forty years:-- + +"It's a fact, I believe, that the sons of reformers seldom walk in the +same track. My father was one of the old Abolitionists, and an honest +one, ready to give money when he could and any kind of work when he +couldn't. It was a great cause. I cried over the negroes down South and +went without sugar a year or so, and learned to knit so that I could +knit some stockings for the small slaves my own size. But by the time I +was eight years old it was plain enough to me that there were other +kinds of slavery quite as bad, and that my own mother wore as heavy +bonds as any of them. She was a farmer's wife, and from year's end to +year's end she toiled and worked. She never had a cent of her own, for +the butter money was consecrated to the cause, and she gave it gladly. +My father had no particular intention to be unkind. He was simply like a +good two-thirds of the farmers I have known,--much more careful of his +animals than of his wife. A woman was so much cooking and cleaning and +butter-making force, and child-bearing an incident demanding as little +notice as possible. It is because of that theory that I am five inches +shorter than any of our tribe. My mother was a tall, slender woman, with +a springy step and eyes as clear as a brook. I see them sometimes as I +lie here at night. + +"I said to myself when I was ten that I'd have things easier for her +before she died. I said it straight ahead while I was working my way up +in the village store, for I would not farm, and when she died I said it +to her in the last hour I ever heard her voice: 'What I couldn't do for +you, mother, I'll do for all women as long as I am on the earth.' + +"I was eighteen then, and whichever way I turned some woman was having a +hard time, and some brute was making it for her. I knew it was partly +their own fault for not teaching their boys how to be unselfish and +decent, but custom and tradition, the law and the prophets, were all +against them. I watched it all I could, but I was deep in trying to get +ahead and I did. Somehow, in spite of my dreams and my fancies, there +was a money-making streak in me. It's a lost vein. You may search as you +will and find no trace, but it was there once and gave good returns. I +left the village at twenty-one and went to Philadelphia, and the small +savings I took with me from my clerking soon began to roll up. I had the +chance to go into a soap-factory; a queer change, but the old Quaker who +owned it knew my father and wanted to do me a good turn, and by the time +I had got the hang of it all I was junior partner and settled for life +if I liked. + +"Well, here it was again. This man was honest and clean. He meant to do +fairly by all mankind, and he tried to. He had some secrets in his +methods that made his soap the best in the market. The chief secret was +honest ingredients, but it was famous. If you've ever been in a +soap-factory you know what it is like. Every pound of it was wrapped in +paper as fast as it cooled, and the cooling and cutting room was filled +with girls who did the work. They were not the best order of girls. The +wages a week were from three to five dollars, and they were at it from +seven A. M. to six P. M. There was a good woman in the office,--a woman +with a head as well as a heart,--and she did the directing and +disciplining. It was no joke to keep peace if the cooling delayed and +the creatures began squabbling together, but she managed it, and by +night they were always meek enough. You're likely to be meek when you've +carried soap ten pounds at a time ten hours a day, from the cutting +table to the cooling table, across floors as slippery as glass or glare +ice. They picked it up as it cooled, wrapped it in paper, and had it in +boxes, five pounds to the minute, three hundred pounds an hour. The +caustic soda in it first turned their nails orange-color and then it ate +off their finger tips till they bled. They could not wear gloves, for +that would have interfered with the packing. + +"Now and then one cried, but only seldom. They were big, hearty girls. +They had to be to do that work, but my heart ached for them as they +filed out at night, so worn that there was no life left for anything but +to get home and into bed. Very few stayed on. The smart ones graduated +into something better. The stupid ones fell back and tried something +easier. But as I watched them and it came over me how untrained and +helpless they were, and how every chance of learning was cut off by the +long labor and the dead weariness, I said to myself that we owed them +something: shorter hours; better wages; some sort of share in the money +we were making. Friend Peter shook his head when I began to hint these +things. 'They fare well enough,' he said. 'Thee must not get socialistic +notions in thy head.' 'I know nothing about socialism,' I said. 'All I +want is justice, and thee wants it too. Thee has cried out for it for +the black brother and sister; why not for the white?' + +"'Thee is talking folly,' he said and would make no other answer. + +"It all weighed on me. Here was the money rolling in, or so it seemed to +me. We did make it in a sure, comfortable fashion. I was well off at +twenty-five, and better off every month; and I said to myself, the money +would have a curse on it if those who helped to earn it had no share. I +talked to the men in the boiling department. It takes brains to be a +good soap-maker. We kept to the old ways, simply because what they call +improvement in soap-making, like many another improvement, has been the +cheapening the product by the addition of various articles that lower +the quality. Experience has to teach. Theoretical knowledge isn't much +use save as foundation. A man must use eyes and tongue, and watch for +the critical moment in the finishing like a lynx. + +"Well, I beat my head against that wall of obstinacy till head and heart +were sore. It was enough to the old Quaker that he paid promptly and did +honest work; and when I told him at last that his gains were as +fraudulent as if he cheated deliberately, he said, 'Then thee need share +them no longer. Go thy way for a hot-headed fool.' + +"I went. There was an opening in New York, and I had every detail at my +fingers' ends. I went in with a man a little older, who seemed to think +as I did, and who did, till I made practical application of my theories. +I had studied everything to be had on the subject. I had mastered a +language or two in my evenings, for I lived like a hermit; but now I +began to talk with every business man, and try to understand why +competition was inevitable. I was in no haste. I admitted that men must +be trained to co-operate, but I said, 'We shall never learn by waiting. +We must learn by trying.' I tried to bring in other soap-makers, and one +or two listened; but most of them were using the cheap methods,--increasing +the quantity and lowering the quality. Some of the men had come on to me +from Philadelphia, and were bound to stay, but it was hard on them. They +had to go into tenement-houses, for there were no homes for them such as +building associations in Philadelphia make possible for every workman. +But I took a house and divided it up and made it comfortable, and I +lived on the lower floor myself, so that kept them contented. I fitted +up a room for a reading-room, and twice a week had talks; not lectures, +but talks where every man had a chance to speak five minutes if he +would, and to ask questions. I coaxed the women to come. I wanted them +to understand, and two or three took hold. I made a decent place for +them to eat their dinners, and put these women in charge. I put in an +oil-stove and a table and seats, and gave them coffee and tea at two +cents a cup, and tried to have them care for the place. That has been +done over and over by many an employer who pities his workers; and nine +times out of ten the same result follows. The animal crops out. They +were rough girls at any time, yet, taken one by one, behaved well +enough. But I've seen boys and girls at a donation party throw cheese +and what not on the carpet and rub it in deliberately, and I don't know +that one need wonder that lunch-rooms in store or factory turn into +pig-pens, and the few decent ones can make no headway. + +"I spoke out to them all, but it was no more than the wind blowing, and +at last even I gave it up. There was no conscience in them to touch. +They wanted shorter hours and more money, when they had got to the point +of seeing that I was trying to help, but they had no notion of helping +back. With my men it worked, and they talked down the women sometimes. +But when a bad year came,--for soap has its ups and downs like +everything else,--most of them struck, and the wise ones could make no +headway. 'It's a losing game,' my partner said; 'if you want to go on +you must go on alone.' + +"I did go on alone. He left and took his capital with him. The best men +stayed with me and swore to take their chances. The soap was good, and I +made a hit in one or two fancy kinds, but I could not compete with men +who used mean material and turned out something that looked as well at +half the price. My money melted away, and a fire--set, they told me, by +a man I had discharged for long-continued dishonesty--finished me. I had +the name of stirring up strife for the manufacturers, because I tried to +teach my workers the principle of co-operation, and begged for it where +I could. It hurt my business standing. Men felt that I must be a fool. I +had worked for it with such absorption that I had had little time for +any joy of life. I had neither wife nor child, though I longed for both. +I would not have ease and happiness alone. I wanted it for my fellows. +To-day it might be. Ten years ago it only the thought of a dreamer, and +I made no headway. + +"The fire left me stranded. I went in as superintendent of some new +works, but went out in a month, for I could not consent to cheat, and +fraud was in every pound sent out. I tried one place and another with +the same result. Competition makes honesty impossible. A man would admit +it to me without hesitation, but would end: 'There's no other way. Don't +be a fool. You can't stand out against a system.' + +"'I will stand out if it starves me,' I said. 'I will not sell my soul +for any man's hire. The time is coming when this rottenness must end. +Make one more to fight it now.' + +"Men looked at me pitifully. 'I was throwing away chances,' they said. +'Why wouldn't I hear reason? We were in the world, not in Utopia.' + +"'We are in the hell we have made for all mankind,' I said. 'The only +real world is the world which is founded on truth and justice. +Everything else falls away.' + +"Everything else has fallen away. I was never strong, and a year ago I +was knocked down in a scrimmage. Some bullies from one of the factories +set on my men--mine no longer, but still preaching my doctrine. Somehow +I was kicked in the chest and a rib broken, and this saved me probably +from being sent up as a disturber of the peace. The right lung was +wounded, and consumption came naturally. They nursed me--Tom's wife and +sister, good souls--till I refused to burden them any longer and came +here in spite of them. It has been a sharp fight. I seem to have failed; +yet the way is easier for the next. Co-operation will come. It must +come. It is the law of life. It is the only path out of this jungle in +which we wander and struggle and die. But there must be training. There +must be better understanding. I would give a thousand lives joyfully if +only I could make men and women who sit at ease know the sorrow of the +poor. It is their ignorance that is their curse. Teach them; study them. +Care as much for the outcast at home as for the heathen abroad. And, oh, +if you can make anybody listen, beg them for Christ's sake, for their +own sake, to hearken and to help! Beg them to study; not to say with no +knowledge that help is impossible, but to study, to think, and then to +work with their might. It is my last word,--a poor word that can reach +none, it may be, any more, and yet, who knows what wind of the Lord may +bear it on, what ground may be waiting for the seed? I shall see it, but +not now. I shall behold it, and it will be nigh, in that place to which +I go. Work for it; die for it if need be; for man's hope, man's life, if +ever he knows true life, has no other foundation." + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. + +CHILD-WORKERS IN NEW YORK. + + +Political economists in general, with the additional number of those who +for one purpose and another turn over statistics of labor, nodded +approvingly as they gazed upon the figures of the last general census +for the State of New York, which showed that among the myriad of workers +in factory and other occupations, but twenty-four thousand children were +included. + + "Fifty-six million and more inhabitants, and all faring so well + that only one fortieth part of one of these millions is employed + too early in this Empire State. Civilization could hardly do more. + See how America leads among all civilized countries as the + protector of the feeble, the guarantee of strength for the weakest. + No other country guards its children so well. There have been + errors, of course; such enlightenment is not reached at a bound; + but the last Legislature made further ones impossible, for it fixed + the minimum limit at which a child may be employed in factories at + thirteen years of age. By thirteen a child isn't likely to be + stunted or hurt by overwork. We protect all classes and the weakest + most." + +Thus the political economist who stops at figures and considers any +further dealing with the question unnecessary. And if the law were of +stringent application; if parents told the truth as to age, and if the +two inspectors who are supposed to suffice for the thousands of +factories in the State of New York were multiplied by fifty, there might +be some chance of carrying out the provisions of this law. As it is, it +is a mere form of words, evaded daily; a bit of legislation which, like +much else bearing with it apparent benefit, proves when analyzed to be +not much more than sham. The law applies to factories only. It does not +touch mercantile establishments or trades that are carried on in +tenement-houses, and it is with these two latter forms of labor that we +deal to-day. In factory labor in the city of New York nine thousand +children under twelve years of age are doing their part toward swelling +the accumulation of wealth, each adding their tiny contribution to the +great stream of what we call the prosperity of the nineteenth century. +Thus far their share in the trades we have considered has been ignored. +Let us see in what fashion they make part of the system. + +For a large proportion of the women visited, among whom all forms of the +clothing industry were the occupation, children under ten, and more +often from four to eight, were valuable assistants. In a small room on +Hester Street, a woman on work on overalls--for the making of which she +received one dollar a dozen--said:-- + +"I couldn't do as well if it wasn't for Jinny and Mame there. Mame has +learned to sew on buttons first-rate, and Jinny is doing almost as well. +I'm alone to-day, but most days three of us sew together here, and Jinny +keeps right along. We'll do better yet when Mame gets a bit older." + +As she spoke the door opened and a woman with an enormous bundle of +overalls entered and sat down on the nearest chair with a gasp. + +"Them stairs is killin'," she said. "It's lucky I've not to climb 'em +often." + +Something crept forward as the bundle slid to the floor, and busied +itself with the string that bound it. + +"Here you, Jinny," said the woman, "don't you be foolin'. What do you +want anyhow?" + +The something shook back a mat of thick hair and rose to its feet,--a +tiny child who in size seemed no more than three, but whose countenance +indicated the experience of three hundred. + +"It's the string I want," the small voice said. "Me an' Mame was goin' +to play with it." + +"There's small time for play," said the mother; "there'll be two pair +more in a minute or two, an' you're to see how Mame does one an' do it +good too, or I'll find out why not." + +Mame had come forward and stood holding to the one thin garment which +but partly covered Jinny's little bones. She too looked out from a wild +thatch of black hair, and with the same expression of deep experience, +the pallid, hungry little faces lighting suddenly as some cheap cakes +were produced. Both of them sat down on the floor and ate their portion +silently. + +"Mame's seven and Jinny's going on six," said the mother, "but Jinny's +the smartest. She could sew on buttons when she wasn't but much over +four. I had five then, but the Lord's took 'em all but these two. I +couldn't get on if it wasn't for Mame." + +Mame looked up but said no word, and as I left the room settled herself +with her back against the wall, Jinny at her side, laying the coveted +string near at hand for use if any minute for play arrived. In the next +room, half-lighted like the last, and if possible even dirtier, a Jewish +tailor sat at work on a coat, and by him on the floor a child of five +picking threads from another. + +"Netta is good help," he said after a word or two. "So fast as I finish, +she pick all the threads. She care not to go away--she stay by me always +to help." + +"Is she the only one?" + +"But one that sells papers. Last year is five, but mother and dree are +gone with fever. It is many that die. What will you? It is the will of +God." + +On the floor below two children of seven and eight were found also +sewing on buttons--in this case for four women who had their machines in +one room and were making the cheapest order of corset-cover, for which +they received fifty cents a dozen, each one having five buttons. It +could not be called oppressive work, yet the children were held there to +be ready for each one completed, and sat as such children most often do, +silent and half asleep waiting for the next demand. + +"It's hard on 'em," one of the women said. "We work till ten and +sometimes later, but then they sleep between and we can't; and they get +the change of running out for a loaf of bread or whatever's wanted, and +we don't stir from the machine from morning till night. I've got two o' +me own, but they're out peddling matches." + +On the lower floor back of the small grocery in which the people of the +house bought their food supply,--wilted or half-decayed vegetables, meat +of the cheapest order, broken eggs and stale fish,--a tailor and two +helpers were at work. A girl of nine or ten sat among them and picked +threads or sewed on buttons as needed; a haggard, wretched-looking child +who did not look up as the door opened. A woman who had come down the +stairs behind me stopped a moment, and as I passed out said:-- + +"If there was a law for him I'd have him up. It's his own sister's +child, and he workin' her ten hours a day an' many a day into the night, +an' she with an open sore on her neck, an' crying out many's the time +when she draws out a long needleful an' so gives it a jerk. She's sewed +on millions of buttons, that child has, an' she but a little past ten. +May there be a hot place waitin' for him!" + +A block or two beyond, the house entered proved to be given over chiefly +to cigar-making. It is to this trade that women and girls turn during +the dull season, and one finds in it representatives from every trade in +which women are engaged. The sewing-women employed in suit and clothing +manufactories during the busy season have no resource save this, and +thus prices are kept down and the regular cigar-makers constantly +reinforced by the irregular. In the present case it was chiefly with +regular makers that the house was filled, one room a little less than +twelve by fourteen feet holding a family of seven persons, three of them +children under ten, all girls. Tobacco lay in piles on the floor and +under the long table at one end where the cigars were rolled, its rank +smell dominating that from the sinks and from the general filth, not +only of this room but of the house as a whole. Two of the children sat +on the floor stripping the leaves, and another on a small stool. A girl +of twenty sat near them, and all alike had sores on lips and cheeks and +on the hands. Children from five or six years up can be taught to strip +and thus add to the week's income, which is far less for the +tenement-house manufacture than for regular factory work, the latter +averaging from eight to twelve dollars a week. But the work if done at +home can be made to include the entire family, and some four thousand +women are engaged in it, an almost equal but unregistered number of +young children sharing it with them. As in sewing, a number of women +often club together, using one room, and in such case their babies crawl +about in the filth on the wet floors, playing with the damp tobacco and +breathing the poison with which the room is saturated. + +Here, as in tobacco factories, women and girls of every age become +speedily the victims of nervous and hysterical complaints, the direct +result of nicotine poisoning; while succeeding these come consumption +and throat diseases resulting from the dust. Canker is one of the most +frequent difficulties, and sores of many orders, the trade involving +more dangers than any that can be chosen. Yet because an entire family +can find occupation in it, with no necessity for leaving home, it is +often preferred to easier employment. It is the children who suffer +most, growth being stunted, nervous disease developed and ending often +in St. Vitus's dance, and skin diseases of every order being the rule, +the causes being not only tobacco, but the filth in which they live. + +It is doubtful if the most inveterate smoker would feel much relish for +the cigar manufactured under such conditions; yet hundreds of thousands +go out yearly from these houses, bearing in every leaf the poison of +their preparation. In this one house nearly thirty children of all ages +and sizes, babies predominating, rolled in the tobacco which covered the +floor and was piled in every direction; and of these children under ten +thirteen were strippers and did their day's work of ten hours and more. +Physical degeneration in its worst forms becomes inevitable. Even the +factory child-worker fares better, for in the factory there is exercise +and the going to and from work, while in the tenement-house cigar-making +the worn-out little creatures crawl to the bed, often only a pile of +rags in the corner, or lie down on a heap of the tobacco itself, +breathing this poison day and night uninterruptedly. Vices of every +order flourish in such air, and morality in this trade is at lowest ebb. +Nervous excitement is so intense that necessarily nothing but immorality +can result, and the child of eight or ten is as gross and confirmed an +offender as the full-grown man or woman. Diligent search discovers few +exceptions to this rule, and the whole matter has reached a stage where +legislative interference is absolutely indispensable. Only in forbidding +tenement-house manufacture absolutely can there be any safety for either +consumer or producer. + +Following in the same line of inquiry I take here the facts furnished to +Professor Adler by a lady physician whose work has long lain among the +poor. During the eighteen months prior to February 1, 1886, she found +among the people with whom she came in contact five hundred and +thirty-five children under twelve years old,--most of them between ten +and twelve,--who either worked in shops or stores or helped their +mothers in some kind of work at home. Of these five hundred and +thirty-five children but sixty were healthy. In one family a child at +three years old had infantile paralysis, easily curable. The mother had +no time to attend to it. At five years old the child was taught to sew +buttons on trousers. She is now at thirteen a hopeless cripple; but she +finishes a dozen pair of trousers a day, and her family are thus twenty +cents the richer. In another family she found twin girls four and a half +years old sewing on buttons from six in the morning till ten at night; +and near them was a family of three,--a woman who did the same work and +whose old father of eighty and little girl of six were her co-workers. + +There is a compulsory education law, but it demands only fourteen weeks +of the year, and the poorer class work from early morning till eight +A. M. and after school hours from four till late in the night. With such +energy as is left they take their fourteen weeks of education, but even +in these many methods of evasion are practised. It is easy to swear that +the child is over fourteen, but small of its age, and this is constantly +done. It is sometimes done deliberately by thinking workmen, who deny +that the common school as it at present exists can give any training +that they desire for their children, or that it will ever do so till +manual training forms part of the course. But for most it is not +intelligent dissatisfaction, but the absorbing press of getting a living +that compels the employment of child-labor, and thus brings physical and +moral degeneration, not only for this generation but for many to come. +It is not alone the nine thousand in factories that we must deal with, +but many hundred thousands uncounted and unrecognized, the same spirit +dominating all. + +In one of the better class of tenement-houses a woman, a polisher in a +jewelry manufactory, said the other day:-- + +"I'm willing to work hard, I don't care how hard; but it's awful to me +to see my little boy and the way he goes on. He's a cash-boy at D----'s, +and they don't pay by the week, they pay by checks, so every cash-boy is +on the keen jump after a call. They're so worried and anxious and afraid +they won't get enough; and Johnny cries and says, 'O mamma, I do try, +but there's one boy that always gets ahead of me.' I think it's an awful +system, even if it does make them smart." + +An awful system, yet in its ranks march more and more thousands every +year. It would seem as if every force in modern civilization bent toward +this one end of money-getting, and the child of days and the old man of +years alike shared the passion and ran the same mad race. It is the +passion itself that has outgrown all bounds and that faces us +to-day,--the modern Medusa on which he who looks has no more heart of +flesh and blood but forever heart of stone, insensible to any sorrow, +unmoved by any cry of child or woman. It is with this shape that the +battle must be, and no man has yet told us its issue. Nay, save here and +there one, who counts that battle is needed, or sees the shadow of the +terror walking not only in darkness but before all men's eyes, who is +there that has not chosen blindness and will not hear the voice that +pleads: "Let my people go free"? + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. + +STEADY TRADES AND THEIR OUTLOOK. + + +"I used to think there were steady trades; but somehow now everything +gets mixed, and you can't tell what's steady and what isn't." + +"What makes the mix?" + +"The Lord only knows! I've studied over it till I'm dazed, and sometimes +I've wondered if my mind was weakening." + +The speaker, a middle-aged Scotchwoman, whose tongue still held a little +of the burr that thirty years of American life had not been able to +extract, put her hand to her head as if the fault must concentrate +there. + +"If it was my trade alone," she said, "I might think I was to blame for +not learning new ways, but it's the same in all. Now, take +mattress-making. I learned that because I could help my father best that +way. He was an upholsterer in Aberdeen, and came over to better himself, +and he did if he hadn't signed notes for a friend and ruined himself. He +upholstered in the big families for thirty years, and everybody knew +his little place on Hudson Street. People then bought furniture to last, +and had it covered with the best of stuff, and so with curtains and +hangings. Damask was damask, I can tell you, and velvet lambrequins +meant money. No cotton-back stuff. They got shaken and brushed and done +up from moths. People had some respect for good material. Nobody +respects anything now. I saw a rich woman the other day let her boy six +years old empty a box of candy on a pale-blue satin couch, and then sit +down on it and rub his shoes up and down on the edge. I say that when +there's no respect left for anything it's no wonder decent work comes to +an end. I make a mattress and there isn't an inch of it that isn't sewed +to last and that isn't an honest piece of work, but you can go into any +house-furnishing department and buy one that looks just as well for a +third less money. Everything's so cheap that people don't care whether +anything lasts or not, and so there's no decent work done; and people +pretend to have learned trades when really they just botch things +together. I just go round in houses and make over,--places that I've had +for years; and I've been forewoman in a big factory, but somehow a +factory mattress never seems to me as springy and good as the old kind. +Upholsterers make pretty good wages, but it can't be called steady any +more, though it used to be. I've thought many a time of going into +business for myself, but competition's awful, and I'm afraid to try. I +won't cheat, and there's no getting ahead unless you do." + +"What are the wages?" + +"A picker gets about three dollars a week. She just picks over the hair, +and most any kind of girl seems to do now that everything is steamed or +done by machinery. The highest wages now are nine dollars a week, though +I used to earn fifteen and eighteen sometimes, and the dull season makes +the average about six dollars. I earn nine or ten because I do a good +deal of private work, but a woman that can make forty dollars a month +straight ahead is lucky." + +Several women of much the same order of intelligence, two of them +forewomen for years in prosperous establishments, added their testimony +as to the shifting character of wages and of employments. One had +watched the course of neckties for seventeen years,--a keen-eyed little +widow who had fought hard to educate her two children and preserve some +portion of the respectability she loved. + +"You'd never dream how many kinds there have been, or, for that matter, +how many kinds there are. We even make stocks for a few old-fashioned +gentlemen that will have them. It's a business that a lady turns to +first thing almost if she wants to earn, and we give out hundreds on +hundreds to such, besides sending loads into the country. I often think +our house turns out enough for the whole United States, but we're only +a beginning. We pay well,--well as any, and better. Twenty-five cents a +dozen is good pay now, and we see that our cutter leaves margin enough +to keep the women from being cheated. That's a great trick with some. +Sometimes the cutter is paid by the number he can get out of a piece of +goods; sometimes he screws just because he's made so. But they cut by +measure, and they allow so little to turn in that the thing frays in +your hand, and no mortal could help it, and if one is frayed the foreman +just throws out the dozen. Then lots of them advertise for girls to +learn, and say they must give the first week or fortnight free; and when +that is over they say work is slack or some other excuse, and take in a +lot more that have been waiting. We've taken many a girl that came +crying and told how she'd been kept on and cheated. There's one man on +Third Avenue that runs his place on this plan, and has got rich. But I +say to every girl: 'You'd better have something more than the last shape +in neckties between you and starvation. You'll never get beyond five or +six dollars a week at most, and generally not that.' It don't make any +difference. There are dozens waiting for the chance to starve genteelly. +It's a genteel trade and a pretty steady one, but if a dull time comes +the girls go into cigar-making and manage along somehow. I've coaxed a +good many into service, but it isn't one in a hundred will try that." + +The third woman represented a hat-pressing factory in which she had been +eleven years, and in which the wages had fallen year by year, till at +present women, even when most expert, can earn not over six dollars per +week as against from eight to twelve in previous years. The trade is +regarded as a steady one, for spring and summer straws give place to +felt, and a certain number of hands are sure of employment. In direct +association with this trade must be considered that of artificial +flowers and feathers, in which there is perpetual see-saw. If feathers +are in vogue flowers are down, and _vice versa_. Five thousand women are +employed on feathers, and the establishments, which in 1871 numbered but +twelve, now number over fifty; but those for flowers far exceed them. +Learners work for three dollars or less per week, the highest wages +attainable in either being fifteen dollars, the average being about +nine. The demand for one or the other is continuous, but when fashion in +1886 called for scarfs and flowers, four thousand feather-workers were +thrown out and lived as they could till another turn in the wheel +restored their occupation. + +"One or the other of 'em is always steady" said a woman who had learned +both trades, and thus stood prepared to circumvent fate. "The trouble +is, you never know a week ahead which will be up and which down. Lots of +us have learned both, and when I see the firm putting their heads +together I know what it means and just go across the way to +Pillsbury's, and the same with them. It's good pay and one or the other +steady, but the Lord only knows which." + +"If you want steadiness you've got to take to jute," said a girl who +with her sister lived in one of the upper rooms. "There ain't many +jute-mills in the country, and you go straight ahead. We two began in a +cotton-mill, but there's this queer thing about it. Breathe cotton-fluff +all day and you're just sure to have consumption; but breathe a peck of +jute-fluff a day and it didn't seem to make any difference. That isn't +my notion. Our doctor said he'd noticed it, and he took home some of the +fibre to examine it. For my part we're called a rough lot, but I'd +rather take that discredit and keep on in the mill. You can stir round +and don't have to double up over sewing or that kind of thing. I can +earn seven dollars a week, and I'd rather earn it that way than any +other." + +An hour or two in the mill, which included every form of manufacture +that jute has yet taken, from seamless bags of all sizes and grades up +to carpets, convinced one that if nerves were hardened to the incessant +noise of machinery, there were distinct advantages associated with it. +The few Scotch in the mill, men and women who had been brought over from +Dundee, the headquarters of the jute industry abroad, insisted that jute +was healthy, and long life for all who handled it a forgone conclusion. +A tour among the workers seemed to confirm this impression, though here +and there one found the factory face, with its dead paleness and +dark-ringed eyes. Children as small as can be held to be consistent with +the assumption of their thirteen years are preferred, their work as +"doffers" or spool-changers requiring small quick hands. So, too, in +fixing the pattern for carpets, where the threads must be manipulated +with speed and light touch. It is preferred that children should grow up +in the mill, passing from one room to another as they master processes, +and the employees thus stay on and regard themselves as portions of the +business. Some three or four thousand women and girls find occupation +here. The waste from the carding-rooms is sent to the paper-mills and +enters into manila paper and pasteboard, and this brings one to the +paper-box makers, of whom there are several thousand at work. + +This trade, while nominally one of the steadiest, has its short periods +of depression. Competition is also as severe here as in every other +present form of industry, and thus prices are kept down, the highest +rate of wages earned being nine dollars, while seven dollars is +considered fair. There must be a certain apprenticeship, not less than +six months being required to master details and understand each stage of +the work. In one of the best of these establishments, where space was +plenty and ventilation and other conditions all good, one woman had +been in the firm's employ for eighteen years and was practically +forewoman, though no such office is recognized. Beginners were placed in +her hands and did not leave her till a perfect box could be turned off. +Cutting is all done by special machines, and the paper for covering is +prepared in the same way, glue or paste being used according to the +degree of strength desired in the box. The work is all piece-work, from +fifty to seventy cents a hundred being paid; a fair worker making two +hundred a day and an expert nearly or quite three hundred. But +competition governs the price and cuts are often made. A firm will +underbid and an order be transferred to it, unless the girls will +consent to do the work five or, it may be, ten cents less on the +hundred, and thus wages can seldom pass beyond nine dollars a week, dull +seasons and cuts reducing the average to seven and a half. Many even +good workers fall far below this, as they prefer to come late and go +early, piece-work admitting of this arrangement. The woman who takes up +this trade may be confident of earning from twenty-five to thirty-five +dollars a month, but she never exceeds this amount; nor is there +promotion beyond a certain point. In paper hangings wages do not rise +above twenty-five dollars at most, and in paper collars and cuffs, as in +everything connected with clothing, the rate is much less. Rags are the +foundation industry in all these forms of paper manufacture, but the +two thousand women who work at sorting these seldom pass beyond five +dollars, and more often receive but two and a half or three dollars per +week. + +Under much the same head must come the preparation of sample cards, +playing cards, and various forms of stationers' work. The latter has +short dull seasons when girls may, for two or three weeks, have no work; +but it is otherwise a steady trade, the wages running from three and a +half to seven dollars per week. They stamp initials and crests with +large hand presses, and stamp also the cheaper order of lithographs; +they run envelope machines, color mourning paper, apply mucilage to +envelopes, and pack small boxes of paper and envelopes. In all of the +last mentioned trades hours are from eight A. M. to half-past five P. M., +with half an hour for lunch, and a girl of fifteen can earn the same +wages as the woman of fifty, a light, quick touch and care being the +only essentials. + +The trades mentioned here and in preceding papers form but a portion of +the ninety and more open to women. Thirty-eight of these are directly +connected with clothing, and include every phase of ornament or use in +braid, gimp, button, clasp, lining, or other article employed in its +manufacture. In every one of these competition keeps wages at the lowest +possible figure. Outside of the army here employed come the washers and +ironers who laundry shirts and underwear, whose work is of the most +exhausting order, who "lean hard" on the iron, and in time become the +victims of diseases resulting from ten hours a day of this "leaning +hard," and who complain bitterly that prisons and reformatories underbid +them and keep wages down. It is quite true. Convict labor here as +elsewhere is the foe of the honest worker, and complicates a problem +already sufficiently complicated. These ironers can make from ten to +twelve dollars per week, but soon fail in health and turn to lighter +work, many of them taking up cigar-making, which soon finishes the work +of demoralization. + +Fringes, gimps, plush, and bonnet ornaments are overcrowded with +workers, for here, as in flowers and feathers, fashion determines the +season's work, and the fringe-maker has for a year or so had small call +for her knowledge save in some forms of upholstery. One and all are so +hedged in by competition that to pass beyond a certain limit is +impossible, and all wages are kept at the lowest point, not only by this +fact, but by the fact that many women who had learned the trade continue +it after marriage as a means of adding a trifle to the family income. An +expert in any one of them is tolerably certain of steady employment, but +wages have reached the lowest point and it does not appear that any rise +is probable. Sharp competition rules and will rule till the working +class themselves recognize the necessity of an education that will make +them something more than adjuncts to machinery, and of an organization +in which co-operation will take the place of competition. That both must +come is as certain as that evolution is upward and not downward, but it +is still a distant day, and neither employer nor employed have yet +learned the possibilities of either. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEENTH. + +DOMESTIC SERVICE AND ITS PROBLEMS. + + +At last we have come to the problem to which there has necessarily been +incidental reference here and there, but which has otherwise bided its +time. That these pages or any pages written by mortal hand in this +generation can solve it, the writer doubts, its solution being +inextricably involved with that of other social problems for which time +is the chief key. State the question as we may, there is always a fresh +presentation to be made, and replies are as various as the minds of the +staters. It is the mistress with whom such presentation has thus far +rested,--a mistress thorned beyond endurance by incompetence, dirt, +waste, insubordination,--all the evils known to ignorant and +presumptuous service. For such mistress, smarting from a sense of wrong, +and hopeless and faithless as to remedies, the outlook is necessarily +bounded by her own horizon. She listens with indignant contempt to the +story of the thousands who choose their garrets and semi-starvation with +independence, to the shelter and abundance of the homes in which they +might be made welcome. She may even aver that any statement of their +suffering is stupid sentimentality; the gush and maudlin melancholy of +"humanitarian clergymen and newspaper reformers." + +For her, as for most of her order, in whom as yet no faculty for seeing +both sides of a question has developed, there can be no reply save in +words already spoken. "These women, working for wages that keep them +always just above starvation point, have no power left to think beyond +the need of the hour. They cannot stop, they dare not stop, to think of +other methods of earning. They have no clothing in which they could +obtain even entrance to an intelligence office. They have no knowledge +that could make them servants even of the meanest order. They are what +is left of untrained and hopelessly ignorant lives," given over to +suffering born in part from their ignorance; and for a large proportion +of such cases there can be merely alleviation, and such slight bettering +of conditions as would come from a system into which justice entered +more fully. + +With this army of incompetents we have at present nothing to do. Our +interest lies in discovering what is at the bottom of the objection to +domestic service; how far these objections are rational and to be +treated with respect, and how they may be obviated. The mistress's point +of view we all know. We know, too, her presentation of objections as she +fancies she has discovered them. What we do not know is the ground +taken by sensible, self-respecting girls, who have chosen trades in +preference, and from whom full detail has been obtained as to the +reasons for such choice. In listening to the countless stories of +experiment in earning a living, the passage from one industry to +another, and the uncertainties and despairs before the right thing had +shown itself, the question has always been asked, "How did it happen +that you did not try to get a place in some good family?" + +The answers were as various as the characters of those who replied; some +with indignation that they should be supposed capable of this +degradation, but most of them thoughtfully and reasonably. In time they +arranged themselves under heads, the occupations represented by the +various respondents being over seventy. They were chiefly above the +ordinary domestic in intelligence and education, their employments being +of every order, from paper-box making to type-writing and stenography; +but the trades predominated,--American being the nationality most +largely represented, Irish born in this country ranking next, and German +and a sprinkling of other nationalities following. These replies are +precisely of the same nature as those given some time ago in +Philadelphia during an investigation made by the head of one of the +first guilds for working-women established in this country, objections +being practically the same at whatever point they may be given. They +were arranged under different heads and numbered in order. + +In the present case it seems well to take the individual testimony, each +girl whose verdict is chosen representing a class, and being really its +mouthpiece. + +First on the list stands Margaret M----, an American, twenty-three years +old, and for five years in a paper-box factory. Seven others nodded +their assent, or added a word here and there as she gave her view, two +of them Irish-Americans who had had some years in the public schools. + +"It's freedom that we want when the day's work is done. I know some nice +girls, Bridget's cousins, that make more money and dress better and +everything for being in service. They're waitresses, and have Thursday +afternoon out and part of every other Sunday. But they're never sure of +one minute that's their own when they're in the house. Our day is ten +hours long, but when it's done it's done, and we can do what we like +with the evenings. That's what I've heard from every nice girl that ever +tried service. You're never sure that your soul's your own except when +you are out of the house, and I couldn't stand that a day. Women care +just as much for freedom as men do. Of course they don't get so much, +but I know I'd fight for mine." + +"Women are always harder on women than men are," said a fur-sewer, an +intelligent American about thirty. "I got tired of always sitting, and +took a place as chambermaid. The work was all right and the wages good, +but I'll tell you what I couldn't stand. The cook and the waitress were +just common, uneducated Irish, and I had to room with one and stand the +personal habits of both, and the way they did at table took all my +appetite. I couldn't eat, and began to run down; and at last I gave +notice, and told the truth when I was asked why. The lady just looked at +me astonished: 'If you take a servant's place, you can't expect to be +one of the family,' she said. 'I never asked it,' I said; 'all I ask is +a chance at common decency.' 'It will be difficult to find an easier +place than this,' she said, and I knew it; but ease one way was hardness +another, and she couldn't see that I had any right to complain. That's +one trouble in the way. It's the mixing up of things, and mistresses +don't think how they would feel in the same place." + +Third came an Irish-American whose mother had been cook for years in one +family, but who had, after a few months of service, gone into a +jute-mill, followed gradually by five sisters. + +"I hate the very words 'service' and 'servant,'" she said. "We came to +this country to better ourselves, and it's not bettering to have anybody +ordering you round." + +"But you are ordered in the mill." + +"That's different. A man knows what he wants, and doesn't go beyond it; +but a woman never knows what she wants, and sort of bosses you +everlastingly. If there was such a thing as fixed hours it might be +different, but I tell every girl I know, 'Whatever you do, don't go into +service. You'll always be prisoners and always looked down on.' You can +do things at home for them as belongs to you that somehow it seems +different to do for strangers. Anyway, I hate it, and there's plenty +like me." + +"What I minded," said a gentle, quiet girl, who worked at a stationer's, +and who had tried household service for a year,--"what I minded was the +awful lonesomeness. I went for general housework, because I knew all +about it, and there were only three in the family. I never minded being +alone evenings in my own room, for I'm always reading or something, and +I don't go out hardly at all, but then I always know I can, and that +there is somebody to talk to if I like. But there, except to give +orders, they had nothing to do with me. It got to feel sort of crushing +at last. I cried myself sick, and at last I gave it up, though I don't +mind the work at all. I know there are good places, but the two I tried +happened to be about alike, and I sha'n't try again. There are a good +many would feel just the same." + +"Oh, nobody need to tell me about poor servants," said an energetic +woman of forty, Irish-American, and for years in a shirt factory. "Don't +I know the way the hussies'll do, comin' out of a bog maybe, an' not +knowing the names even, let alone the use, of half the things in the +kitchen, and asking their twelve and fourteen dollars a month? Don't I +know it well, an' the shame it is to 'em! but I know plenty o' decent, +hard-workin' girls too, that give good satisfaction, an' this is what +they say. They say the main trouble is, the mistresses don't know, no +more than babies, what a day's work really is. A smart girl keeps on her +feet all the time to prove she isn't lazy, for if the mistress finds her +sitting down, she thinks there can't be much to do and that she doesn't +earn her wages. Then if a girl tries to save herself or is deliberate, +they call her slow. They want girls on tap from six in the morning till +ten and eleven at night. 'Tisn't fair. And then, if there's a let-up in +the work, maybe they give you the baby to see to. I like a nice baby, +but I don't like having one turned over to me when I'm fit to drop +scrabbling to get through and sit down a bit. I've naught to say for the +girls that's breaking things and half doing the work. They're a shameful +set, and ought to be put down somehow; but it's a fact that the most +I've known in service have been another sort that stayed long in places +and hated change. There's many a good place too, but the bad ones +outnumber 'em. Women make hard mistresses, and I say again, I'd rather +be under a man, that knows what he wants. That's the way with most." + +"I don't see why people are surprised that we don't rush into places," +said a shop-girl. "Our world may be a very narrow world, and I know it +is; but for all that, it's the only one we've got, and right or wrong, +we're out of it if we go into service. A teacher or cashier or anybody +in a store, no matter if they have got common-sense, doesn't want to +associate with servants. Somehow you get a sort of smooch. Young men +think and say, for I have heard lots of them, 'Oh, she can't amount to +much if she hasn't brains enough to make a living outside of a kitchen!' +You're just down once for all if you go into one." + +"I don't agree with you at all," said a young teacher who had come with +her. "The people that hire you go into kitchens and are not disgraced. +What I felt was, for you see I tried it, that they oughtn't to make me +go into livery. I was worn out with teaching, and so I concluded to try +being a nurse for a while. I found two hard things: one, that I was +never free for an hour from the children, for I took meals and all with +them, and any mother knows what a rest it is to go quite away from them, +even for an hour; and the other was that she wanted me to wear the +nurse's cap and apron. She was real good and kind; but when I said, +'Would you like your sister, Miss Louise, to put on cap and apron when +she goes out with them?' she got very red, and straightened up. 'It's a +very different matter,' she said; 'you must not forget that in accepting +a servant's place you accept a servant's limitations.' That finished me. +I loved the children, but I said, 'If you have no other thought of what +I am to the children than that, I had better go.' I went, and she put a +common, uneducated Irish girl in my place. I know a good many who would +take nurse's places, and who are sensible enough not to want to push +into the family life. But the trouble is that almost every one wants to +make a show, and it is more stylish to have the nurse in a cap and +apron, and so she is ordered into them." + +"I've tried it," said one who had been a dressmaker and found her health +going from long sitting. "My trouble was, no conscience as to hours; and +I believe you'll find that is, at the bottom, one of the chief +objections. My first employer was a smart, energetic woman, who had done +her own work when she was first married and knew what it meant, or you'd +think she might have known. But she had no more thought for me than if I +had been a machine. She'd sit in her sitting-room on the second floor +and ring for me twenty times a day to do little things, and she wanted +me up till eleven to answer the bell, for she had a great deal of +company. I had a good room and everything nice, and she gave me a great +many things, but I'd have spared them all if only I could have had a +little time to myself. I was all worn out, and at last I had to go. +There was another reason. I had no place but the kitchen to see my +friends. I was thirty years old and as well born and well educated as +she, and it didn't seem right. The mistresses think it's all the girls' +fault, but I've seen enough to know that women haven't found out what +justice means, and that a girl knows it, many a time, better than her +employer. Anyway, you couldn't make me try it again." + +"My trouble was," said another, who had been in a cotton-mill and gone +into the home of one of the mill-owners as chambermaid, "I hadn't any +place that I could be alone a minute. We were poor at home, and four of +us worked in the mill, but I had a little room all my own, even if it +didn't hold much. In that splendid big house the servants' room was over +the kitchen,--hot and close in summer, and cold in winter, and four beds +in it. We five had to live there together, with only two bureaus and a +bit of a closet, and one washstand for all. There was no chance to keep +clean or your things in nice order, or anything by yourself, and I gave +up. Then I went into a little family and tried general housework, and +the mistress taught me a great deal, and was good and kind, only there +the kitchen was a dark little place and my room like it, and I hadn't an +hour in anything that was pleasant and warm. A mistress might see, you'd +think, when a girl was quiet and fond of her home, and treat her +different from the kind that destroy everything; but I suppose the truth +is, they're worn out with that kind and don't make any difference. It's +hard to give up your whole life to somebody else's orders, and always +feel as if you was looked at over a wall like; but so it is, and you +won't get girls to try it, till somehow or other things are different." + +Last on the record came a young woman born in Pennsylvania in a fairly +well-to-do farmer's house. + +"I like house-work," she said. "There's nothing suits me so well. We +girls never had any money, nor mother either, and so I went into a +water-cure near the Gap and stayed awhile. Now the man that run it +believed in all being one family. He called the girls helpers, and he +fixed things so't each one had some time to herself every day, and he +tried to teach 'em all sorts of things. The patients were cranky to wait +on, but you felt as if you was a human being, anyhow, and had a chance. +Well, I watched things, and I said it was discouraging, sure enough. I +tried to do a square day's work, but two-thirds of 'em there shirked +whenever they could; half did things and then lied to cover their +tracks. I was there nine months, and I learned better'n ever I knew +before how folks ought to live on this earth. And I said to myself the +fault wasn't so much in the girls that hadn't ever been taught; it was +in them that didn't know enough to teach 'em. A girl thought it was +rather pretty and independent, and showed she was somebody, to sling +dishes on the table, and never say 'ma'am' nor 'sir,' and dress up +afternoons and make believe they hadn't a responsibility on earth. They +hadn't sense enough to do anything first-rate, for nobody had ever put +any decent ambition into 'em. It isn't to do work well; it's to get +somehow to a place where there won't be any more work. So I say that +it's the way of living and thinking that's all wrong; and that as soon +as you get it ciphered out and plain before you that any woman, high or +low, is a mean sneak that doesn't do everything in the best way she can +possibly learn, and that doesn't try to help everybody to feel just so, +why, things would stop being crooked and folks would get along well +enough. Don't you think so?" + +How far the energetic speaker had solved the problem must be left to the +reader, for whom there still certain unconsidered phases, all making +part of the arraignment, scouted by those who are served, but more and +more distinct and formidable in the mind of the server. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTIETH. + +MORE PROBLEMS OF DOMESTIC SERVICE. + + +Though the testimony given in the preceding chapter on this topic +includes the chief objection to be made by the class of workers who +would seem to be most benefited by accepting household service, there +remain still one or two phases seldom mentioned, but forming an +essential portion of the argument against it. They belong, not to the +order we have had under consideration, but to that below it from which +the mass of domestic servants is recruited, and with which the +housekeeper must most often deal. + +The phases encountered here are born of the conditions of life in the +cities and large towns; and denied as they may be by quiet householders +whose knowledge of life is bounded by their own walls, or walls +enclosing neighbors of like mind, they exist and face at once all who +look below the surface. The testimony of the class itself might be open +to doubt. The testimony of the physicians whose work lies among them, or +in the infirmaries to which they come, cannot be impugned. Shirk or deny +facts as we may, it is certain that in the great cities, save for the +comparatively small proportion of quiet homes where old methods still +prevail, household service has become synonymous with the worst +degradation that comes to woman. Women who have been in service, and +remained in it contentedly until marriage, unite in saying that things +have so changed that only here and there is a young girl safe, and that +domestic service is the cover for more licentiousness than can be found +in any other trade in which women are at work. + +Incredible as this statement at first appears, the statistics of +hospitals and in infirmaries confirm it, and the causes are not far to +seek. Household service has passed from the hands of Americans into +those of the Irish first, and then a proportion of every European +nation. So long as the supply came to us entirely from abroad we were +comparatively safe. If the experience of the new arrival had been solely +under thatched roof and on clay floors, at least sun could visit them +and great chimneys gave currents of pure air, while simple food kept +blood pure and gave small chance for unruly impulses to govern. But once +with us demoralization began, and the tenement-house guaranteed sure +corruption for every tenant. Even for the most decent there was small +escape. To the children born in these quarters every inmost fact of +human life was from the beginning a familiar story. Overcrowding, the +impossibility of slightest privacy, the constant contact with the +grossest side of life, soon deaden any susceptibility and destroy every +gleam of modesty or decency. In the lowest order of all rules an +absolute shamelessness which conceals itself in the grade above, yet has +no less firm hold of those who have come up in such conditions. + +There are many exceptions, many well-fought battles against their power, +but our concern at present is not with these but with facts as they +stand recorded. Physician after physician has given in her testimony and +one and all agree in the statement that open prostitution is for many +merely the final step,--a mere setting the seal to the story of ruin and +licentiousness that has always existed. The women who adopt this mode of +life because of want of work or low wages are the smallest of +minorities. The illegitimate children for whom the city must care are +not from this source. Often the mother is a mere child who has been +deceived and outraged, but far more often she has entered a family +prepared to meet any advances, and often directly the tempter. + +It is this state of things which makes many mothers say: "My girl shall +never run such risks. I'll keep her from them as long as I can;" and +unsavory as the details will seem, their knowledge is an essential +factor in the problem. The tenement-house stands to-day not only as the +breeder of disease and physical degeneration for every inmate, but as +equally potent in social demoralization for the class who ignore its +existence. Out of these houses come hundreds upon hundreds of our +domestic servants, whose influence is upon our children at the most +impressible age, and who bring inherited and acquired foulness into our +homes and lives. And if such make but the smallest proportion of those +who serve, they are none the less powerful and most formidable agents in +that blunting of moral perception which is a more and more apparent fact +in the life of the day. The records from which such knowledge is gleaned +are not accessible to the general public. They are formulated only by +the physician, whose business is silence, and who gives only an +occasional summary of what may be found in the sewer underlying the +social life of great cities. Decorously hidden from view the foul stream +flows on, rising here and there to the surface, but instantly covered by +popular opinion, which pronounces such revelations disgusting and +considers suppression synonymous with extermination. + +Naturally this phase of things is confined chiefly to the great cities, +but the virus is portable and its taint may be discovered even in the +remote country. It is one of the many causes that have worked toward the +degradation of this form of service, but it is so interwoven and +integral a part of the present social structure that temporary +destruction would seem the inevitable result of change. Yet change must +come before the only class who have legitimate place in our homes will +or can take such place. If different ideals had ruled among us; if ease +and freedom from obligation and "a good time" had not come to be the +chief end of man to-day; if our schools gave any training from which boy +or girl could go out into life with the best in them developed and ready +for actual practical use,--this mass of undisciplined, conscienceless, +reckless force would have been reduced to its lowest terms, and to +dispose of the residuum would be an easy problem. As it is, we are at +the mercy of the spirits we have raised, and no one word holds power to +lay them. No axioms or theories of the past have any present +application. It is because we cling to the old theories while diligently +practising methods in absolute opposition to them, that the question has +so complicated itself. We cannot go backward, but we can stop short and +discover in what direction our path is tending and whether we are not +wandering blindly in by-ways, when the public road is clear to see. + +It is certain that many among the most intelligent working-women look +longingly toward domestic service as something that might offer much +more individual possibility of comfort and contentment than the trades +afford. But save for one here and there who has chanced to find an +employer who knows the meaning of justice as well as of human sympathy, +the mass turn away hopeless of any change in methods. Yet reform +among intelligent employers could easily be brought about were the +question treated from the standpoint of justice, and the demand made +an equally imperative and binding one for each side. The mistresses +who command the best service are those who make rigorous demands, but +keep their own side of the bargain as rigorously. They are few, for +the American temperament is one of submission, varied by sudden bursts +of revolt, and despairing return to a worse state than the first. A +training-school for mistresses is as much an essential as one for the +servants. The conditions of modern life come more complicated with +every year; and as simplification becomes for the many less and less +possible, it is all the more vitally necessary to study the subject +from the new standpoint, settle once for all how and why we have +failed, and begin again on the new foundation. + +Here then stands the arraignment of domestic service under its present +conditions, given point by point as it has formulated itself to those +who urged to turn to it. The mistresses' side defines itself as sharply; +but when all is said the two are one, the demand one and the same for +both. Men who work for wages work a specified number of hours, and if +they shirk or half fulfil their contract, find work taken from them. +Were the same arrangement understood as equally binding in domestic +service, thousands of self-respecting women would not hesitate to enter +it. Family life cannot always move in fixed lines, and hours must often +vary; but conscientious tally could be kept, and over-hours receive the +pay they have earned. A conscience on both sides would be the first +necessity; and it is quite certain that the master of the house would +require education as decidedly as the mistress, woman's work within home +walls being regarded as something continuous, indefinable, and not worth +formal estimate. + +In spite of the enormous increase of wealth, the mass are happily what, +for want of a better word, must be called middle class. But one servant +or helper can usually be kept, and most often she is one who has used +our kitchens as kindergartens, adding fragments of training as she +passed from one to the other, ending often as fairly serviceable and +competent. Sure of her place she becomes tyrant, and nothing can alter +this relation but the appearance upon the scene of organized trained +labor, making a demand for absolute fairness of treatment and giving it +in return. Once certain that the reign of incompetence was over, the +present order of servers would make haste to seek training-schools, or +accept the low wages which would include personal training from the +mistress, promotion being conditioned upon faithful obedience to the new +order. + +What are the stipulations which every self-respecting girl or woman has +the right to make? They are short and simple. They are absolutely +reasonable, and their adoption would be an education to every household +which accepted them:-- + +1. A definition of what a day's work means, and payment for all +over-time required, or certain hours of absolute freedom guaranteed, +especially where the position is that of child's nurse. + +2. A comfortably warmed and decently furnished room, with separate beds +if two occupy it, and both decent place and appointments for meals. + +3. The heaviest work, such as carrying coal, scrubbing pavements, +washing, etc., to be arranged for if this is asked, with a consequent +deduction in the wages. + +4. No livery if there is feeling against it. + +5. The privilege of seeing friends in a better part of the house than +the kitchen, and security from any espionage during such time, whether +the visitors are male or female. This to be accompanied by reasonable +restrictions as to hours, and with the condition that work is not to be +neglected. + +6. Such a manner of speaking to and of the server as shall show that +there is no contempt for housework, and that it is actually as +respectable as other occupations. + +Were such a schedule as this printed, framed, and hung in every kitchen +in the land, and its provisions honestly met, household revolution and +anarchy would cease, and the whole question settle itself quietly and +once for all. And this in spite of a thousand inherent difficulties +known to every housekeeper, but which would prove self-adjusting so soon +as it was learned that service had found a rational basis. At present, +with the majority of mistresses, it is simply unending struggle to get +the most out of the unwilling and grudging server, hopelessly +unreasonable and giving warning on faintest provocation. Yet these very +women, turning to factory life, where fixed and inexorable law rules +with no appeal, submit at once and become often skilled and capable +workers. It is certain that domestic service must learn organization as +every other form of industry has learned it, and that mistresses must +submit to something of the same training that is needed by the maid. Nor +need it be feared that putting such service on a strictly business basis +will destroy such kindliness as now helps to make the relation less +intolerable. On the contrary, with justice the foundation and a rigorous +fulfilment of duty on both sides will come a far closer tie than exists +save in rarest instances, and homes will regain a quality long ago +vanished from our midst. Such training will be the first step toward the +co-operation which must be the ultimate solution of many social +problems. + +It has failed in many earlier attempts because personal justice was +lacking; but even one generation of sustained effort to simplify +conditions would insure not only a different ideal for those who think +at all, but the birth of something better for every child of the +Republic. + +For the individual standing alone, hampered by many cares and distracted +over the whole household problem, action may seem impossible. But if +the most rational members of a community would band together, send +prejudice and tradition to the winds, and make a new declaration of +independence for the worker, it is certain that the tide would turn and +a new order begin. Till such united, concerted action can be brought +about there is small hope of reform, and it can come only through women. +Dismiss sentiment. Learn to look at the thing as a trade in which each +seeks her own advantage, and in which each gains the more clearly these +advantages are defined. It is a hard relation. It demands every power +that woman can bring to bear upon it. It is an education of the highest +faculties she owns. It means a double battle, for it is with ourselves +that the fight begins. Liberty can only come through personal struggle. +It is easy to die for it, but to live for it, to deserve it, to defend +it forever is another and a harder matter. Still harder is it to know +its full meaning and what it is that makes the battle worth fighting. +Union to such ends will be slow, but it must come:-- + + "Freedom is growth and not creation: + One man suffers, one man is free. + One brain forges a constitution, + But how shall the million souls be won? + Freedom is more than a revolution-- + He is not free who is free alone." + +Is this the word of a dreamer whose imagination holds the only work of +reconstruction, and whose hands are powerless to make the dream +reality? On the contrary, many years of experience in which few of the +usual troubles were encountered, added to that of others who had thought +out the problem for themselves, have demonstrated that reform is +possible. Precisely such conditions as are here specified have been in +practical operation for many years. The homes in which they have ruled +have had the unfailing devotion of those who served, and the experiment +has ceased to come under that head, and demonstrated that order and +peace and quiet mastery of the day's work may still be American +possessions. Count this imperfect presentation then as established fact +for a few, and ask why it is not possible to make it so for the many. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. + +END AND BEGINNING. + + +The long quest is over. It ends; and I turn at last from those women, +whose eyes still follow me, filled with mute question of what good may +come. Of all ages and nations and creeds, all degrees of ignorance and +prejudice and stupidity; hampered by every condition of birth and +training; powerless to rise beyond them till obstacles are removed,--the +great city holds them all, and in pain and want and sorrow they are one. +The best things of life are impossible to them. What is worse, they are +unknown as well as unattainable. If the real good of life must be +measured by the final worth of the thing we make or get by it, what +worth is there for or in them? The city holds them all,--"the great foul +city,--rattling, growling, smoking, stinking,--a ghastly heap of +fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every pore." + +The prosperous have no such definition, nor do they admit that it can be +true. For the poor, it is the only one that can have place. We pack them +away in tenements crowded and foul beyond anything known even to +London, whose "Bitter Cry" had less reason than ours; and we have taken +excellent care that no foot of ground shall remain that might mean +breathing-space, or free sport of child, or any green growing thing. +Grass pushes its way here and there, but for this army it is only +something that at last they may lie under, never upon. There is no pause +in the march, where as one and another drops out the gap fills +instantly, every alley and by-way holding unending substitutes. It is +not labor that profiteth, for body and soul are alike starved. It is +labor in its basest, most degrading form; labor that is curse and never +blessing, as true work may be and is. It blinds the eyes. It steals away +joy. It blunts all power whether of hope or faith. It wrecks the body +and it starves the soul. It is waste and only waste; nor can it, below +ground or above, hold fructifying power for any human soul. + +Here then we face them,--ignorant, blind, stupid, incompetent in every +fibre,--and yet no count of such indictment alters our responsibility +toward them. Rather it multiplies it in always increasing ratio. For it +is our own system that has made these lives worthless, and sooner or +later we must answer how it came, that living in a civilized land they +had less chance than the heathen to whom we send our missionaries, and +upon whose occasional conversions we plume ourselves as if thus the +Kingdom of Heaven were made wider. If it is true that for many only a +little alleviation is possible, a little more justice, a little better +apportionment of such good as they can comprehend, it is also true that +something better is within the reach of all. + +How then shall we define it, and what possibility of alteration for +either lives or conditions lies before us? Nothing that can be of +instant growth; and here lies the chief discouragement, since as a +people we demand instantaneousness, and would have seed, flower, and +fruit at the same moment. Admit patience, capacity to wait, and to work +while waiting, as the first term of the equation, and the rest arrange +themselves. + +For the greater part of social reformers, co-operation has stood as the +initial and most essential step, as the fruit that could be plucked +full-grown; and experience in England would seem to have demonstrated +the belief as true. It is the American inability to wait that has proved +it untrue for us, and until very lately made failure our only record; +but there is a deeper reason than a merely temperamental one. The +abolition of the apprentice system, brought about by the greed of master +and men alike, has abolished training and slow, steady preparation for +any trade. An American has been regarded as quick enough and keen enough +to take in the essential features of a calling, as it were, at a glance, +and apprenticeship has been taken as practically an insult to national +intelligence. Law has kept pace with such conviction, and thus the door +has been shut in the face of all learners, and foreigners have supplied +our skilled workmen and work-women. The groundwork of any better order +lies, if not in a return to the apprentice system, then in a training +from the beginning, which will give to eye and hand the utmost power of +which they are capable. Industrial education is the foundation, and +until it has in its broadest and deepest sense become the portion of +every child born on American soil, that child has missed its birthright. + +With the many who accept it, it stands merely as an added capacity to +make money, and if taken in its narrowest application this is all that +it can do. Were this all, it would be simply an added injustice toward +the degeneration that money-making for the mere sake of money inevitably +brings. But at its best, perfected as it has been by patient effort on +the part of a few believers, it is far more than this. Added power to +earn comes with it, but there comes also a love of the work itself, such +as has had no place since the days when the great guilds gave joyfully +their few hours daily to the cathedrals, whose stones were laid and +cemented in love and hope, and a knowledge of the beauty to come, that +long ago died out of any work the present knows. The builders had small +book knowledge. They could be talked down by any public-school child in +its second or third year. But they knew the meaning of beauty and order +and law; and this trinity stands to-day, and will stand for many a +generation to come, as an ideal to which we must return till like causes +work again to like ends. The child who could barely read saw beauty on +every side, and took in the store of ballad and tradition that gave life +to labor. We have parted with all this wilfully. To the Puritan all +beauty that hand of man could create was of the devil, and thus we +represent a consecrated ugliness, any departure from which is even now, +by some conscientious souls, regarded with suspicion. + +The child, then, who can be made to understand that beauty and order and +law are one, has a new sense born in him. Life takes on a new aspect, +and work a new meaning. But the fourteen weeks per year of education, at +present required by our law as it stands in its application to children +who must work, has no power to bring such result. It begins in the +kindergarten, from which the poorest child takes home, even to the +tenement-house, something strong enough, when growth has come, to +abolish the tenement-house forever. No man who works to these ends has +gauged possibilities more wisely than Felix Adler, whose school shows us +something not yet attained by the many who, partially accepting his +methods, pronounce his theories dangerous and destructive to what must +be held sacred. However this may be, he and his band of co-workers have +proved, in seven years of unceasing struggle against heavy odds, that a +development is possible even for the tenement-house child, that +reconstructs the entire view of life and makes possible the end for +which all industrial training is but the preparation. It is in such +training that children, rich or poor, best learn the demand bound up in +living and working together, and find in the end that co-operation is +its natural out-growth. There is no renunciation of the home or +destruction of the truest home life. There is simply the abolition of +competition as any necessary factor in human progress, and the placing +of the worker beyond its power to harm. + +Thus far we have left the bettering of social conditions chiefly to the +individual, and any hint of State interference carries with it the +opprobrium of socialism. Yet more and more for those who are unterrified +by names, the best in socialism offers itself as the sole way of escape +from monopolies and the stupidities and outrages of the present system. +No one panacea of any reformer fits the case or can alter existing +conditions. Only what man's own soul sees as good, and wills to possess, +is of faintest value to him. No attempt at co-operation can help till +the worker sees its power and use, and is willing to sacrifice where +sacrifice is necessary, to work and to wait in patience. Such power is +born in the industrial school in its largest sense,--the school that +trains heart and mind as well eye and hand, and makes the child ready +for the best work its measure of power can know. This we can give by +State or by individual aid, as the case may be, and every ward in the +city should own a sufficient number to include every child within it. A +check upon emigration would seem an imperative demand,--not prevention, +but some clause which might act to lessen the garbage-heaps dumped upon +our shores. Pauperism and disease have no rights as emigrants, and +eliminating these would make dealing with mere poverty a much more +manageable matter. + +The schools exist, and, while painfully inadequate in number, +demonstrate what may be done in the future. Co-operation even for this +hasty people is almost equally demonstrated, as will be plain to those +who read two recent publications of the American Economic Association: +"Co-operation in a Western City," by Albert Shaw, and "Co-operation in +New England," by Edward W. Bemis. Minneapolis is the centre of the facts +given in the first-mentioned pamphlet, which is also the more valuable +of the two, not in execution but merely because it records a movement +which has ceased to be experimental; as the little history includes +every failure as well as the final success, and thus stands as the best +argument yet made for the cause. + +Industrial education for the child of to-day; co-operation as the end to +be attained by the worker into which the child will grow,--in these two +factors is bound up much of the problem. They will not touch many whose +miserable lives are recorded in these pages, but they will forever end +any chance of another generation in like case. There are workers who +think, who are being educated by sharp conflict with circumstances, and +who look beyond their own present need to the future. These men and +women, crowded to the wall by the present system, are searching eagerly, +not as mere anarchists and destroyers, but as those who believe that +something better than destruction is possible. + +It is these workers for whom the path must be made plain, and to whom we +are most heavily responsible. And this brings me to the final point +bound up indissolubly with the two already defined,--a change in our own +ideals. Such change must come before any school can accomplish its best +work, and till it has at least begun neither school nor system has +lasting power. In these months of search in which women of all ages and +grades have given in their testimony,--from the girl of fourteen earning +her two or three dollars a week in the bag-factory or as cash-girl, to +the woman stitching her remnant of life into the garments that by and by +her more fortunate sisters will find on the bargain counter,--I discover +not alone their ignorance and stupidity and grossness and wilful +blindness, but behind it an ignorance and stupidity no less dense upon +which theirs is founded,--our own. The visible wretchedness is so +appalling, the need for instant relief so pressing, that it is small +wonder that no power remains to look beyond the moment, or to +disentangle one's self from the myriad conflicting claims, and ask the +real meaning of the demand. Mile after mile of the fair islands once the +charm of the East River and the great Sound beyond are covered by +lazar-houses,--the visible signs in this great equation that fills the +page of to-day; the problem of human crime and disease and wretchedness +complicating itself with every addition, and no nearer solution than +when the city was but a handful of houses and poverty yet unknown. + +We have made attempts here and there to limit the breeding ground; to +offer less fruitful soil to the spawn increasing with such frightful +rapidity, and demanding with every year fresh reformatories, larger +asylums and hospitals, more and more machinery of alleviation. Yet the +conviction strengthens that even when the tenement-house of to-day is +swept aside, and improved homes with decent sanitary conditions have +taken their place, that the root of the evil is even then untouched, and +that it lies not alone in their lives, but in our own. And so, as final +word, I say to-day to all women who give their lives to beneficence, and +plan ceaselessly and untiringly for better days, that no beneficence can +alter, no work of our hands or desire of our hearts bring the better day +we desire, till the foundations have been laid in something less +shifting than the sands on which we build. + +The mission of alleviation, of protection, of care for the foulest and +lowest of lives, has had its day. It is time that this mass of effort +stirred against its perpetual reproduction, its existence, its ever more +and more shameless demands. An improved home goes far toward making +these tendencies less strong; it may even diminish the number of actual +transgressors; but what home, no matter how well kept, has or will have +power to alter the fact that in them thousands of women must still slave +for a pittance that borders always on that life limit fixed by the +political economists as the vanishing point in the picture of modern +life? Sunlight and air may take the place of the foulness now reigning +in the dens that many of them know as homes; but will either sun or air +shorten hours or raise wages, or alter the fact that not one in a +thousand of these women but has grounded her whole pitiful life on a +delusion,--a delusion for which we are responsible? + +Year by year in the story of the Republic, labor has taken lower and +lower place. The passion for getting on, latent in every drop of +American blood, has made money the sole symbol of success, and freedom +from hand-labor the synonyme of happiness. The mass of illiterate, +unenlightened emigrants pouring in a steady stream through Castle Garden +have become our hands, and, as hands dependent on the heads of others, +have fallen into the same category as the slaves, whose possession +brought infinitely more degradation to owners than to owned. It is the +story of every civilized nation before its fall,--this exploitation of +labor, this degradation of the worker; and the story of hopeless decay +and collapse must be ours also, if different ideals do not rise to fill +the place of this Golden Calf to which all have bent the knee. There is +not a girl old enough to work at all who does not dream of a possible +future in which work will cease and ease and luxury take its place. The +boy content with a trade, the man or woman accepting simple living and +its limitations contentedly, is counted fool. To get money, and always +more and more money, is the one ambition; and in this mad rush toward +the golden fountain, gentle virtues are trampled under foot, and men +count no armor of honest thought worth wearing unless it be fringed with +bullion. The shop-girl must have her cotton velvet and her glass +substitutes for diamonds. The lines of caste are drawn as sharply with +her as in the ascending grades through which she hopes to pass. Labor is +curse; never the blessing that it may bear when accepted man's chief +good, and used as developing, not as destroying power. + +Never till men see and believe that the fortune made by mere sharpness +and unscrupulousness, the fruit not of honest labor but of pure +speculation, is a burning disgrace to its owner, a plague-spot in +civilization, shall we be able to convince girl or woman that labor is +honorable, and better gains possible than any involved in merely getting +on. Never till this furious fight for success, this system of +competition which kills all regard for the individual, demanding only a +machine capable of so much net product,--never till these and all +methods of like nature have ceased to have place, or right to existence, +can we count ourselves civilized or hope to better the conditions that +now baffle us. No church, no mission, no improved home, no guild or any +other form of mitigation means anything till the whole system of thought +is reconstructed, and we come to some sense of what the eternal verities +really are. + +It is easy for a woman to be kind and long-suffering, but the women who +can be just to themselves, as well as to others, we can count on our +fingers. Yet justice is the one demand in this life of to-day, and not +one of us who shrinks and shudders at the thought of what women-workers +are enduring but has it in her power to lessen the great sum of +wretchedness; to begin for some one the work of education into just +thinking and just living. Sweeping changes may not be possible. But +beginning is always possible; and not a woman capable of thinking but +has power by the simple force of example to lay the corner-stone of the +new temple, fairer than any yet known to mortal eyes. If there is doubt +for this generation of working-women toiling in blindest ignorance, it +rests with us to lessen the doubt for the next, and to make it +impossible in that better day for which we labor. Not one of us but can +ask, "What is the source of the income which gives me ease? Is it +possible for me to reconstruct my own life in such fashion that it shall +mean more direct and personal relation to the worker? How can I bring +more simplicity, less conventionality, more truth and right living into +home and every relation of life?" + +I write these final words with all deference to the noble women whose +lives have been given to good work, and many of whom long ago settled +these questions practically for themselves. But for many of us there has +been simply passive acceptance of all present conditions, without a +question as to how or why they have come. It is because I believe that +with us is the power to remedy every one if we will, that I appeal to +women to-day. I write not as anarchist; not as declaimer against the +rights of property, but as believer in the full right to ownership of +all legitimately acquired property. I believe it the order of life, of +any life that would hold good work of whatever nature, that enough +should be acquired to make sharp want or eating care and perplexity +impossible. But it is certain that even for the most unselfish of us +there is an exaggerated estimate of the value of money,--an involuntary +and inevitable truckling to the one who has most,--and that, no matter +what our teaching may be, the force of every act and tendency makes +against it. And there can be no retracing of steps that have for +generations turned in the wrong direction. The very breath we draw on +this American soil is poisoned by the foulness about us, and about us by +our own act and choice. We have degraded labor till there is no lower +depth, and not one but many generations must pass before these masses +over whose condition we puzzle can find their feet in the path that +means any real progress. + +Ask first, then, not what shall we do for these women, but what shall we +do for ourselves? How shall we learn to know what are the real things? +How shall we come to love them and cleave to them, and hold no life +worth living that admits sham or compromise, or believes the mad luxury +of this generation anything but blighting curse and surest destruction? +Till we know this we have learned nothing, and are forever not helpers, +but hinderers, in the great march that our blunders and stupidities only +check for the time. For the word is forever onward, and even the +blindest soul must one day see that if he will not walk by free choice +in the path of God, he will be driven into it with whips of scorpions, +made thus to know what part was given him to fill, and what judgment +waits him who has chosen blindness. + + +University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. + + + + +MRS. CAMPBELL'S BOOKS. + + +THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. A Story for Girls. 16mo. $1.50. + +MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME. A Novel. 16mo. $1.50. + +MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY. A Story for Girls. 16mo. $1.00. (Paper, 50 +cents.) + +PRISONERS OF POVERTY. Women Wage-workers, their Trades and their Lives. +12mo. $1.00. (Paper, 50 cents.) + +PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD. 16mo. $1.00. (Paper, 50 cents.) + +ROGER BERKELEY'S PROBATION. A Story. 12mo. $1.00. (Paper, 50 cents.) + +WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS. Their Past, their Present, and their Future. 16mo. +$1.00. + +THE EASIEST WAY IN HOUSEKEEPING AND COOKING. Adapted to Domestic Use or +Study in Classes. A new revised edition. 16mo. $1.00. + +IN FOREIGN KITCHENS. With Choice Recipes from England, France, Germany, +Italy, and the North. 50 cents. + +SOME PASSAGES IN THE PRACTICE OF DR. MARTHA SCARBOROUGH. 16mo. $1.00. + + +_These books will be mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price by the +Publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, + +254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass. + +_Terms for quantities, or for class use, will be sent on application._ + + + + +MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME. A NOVEL. + +BY HELEN CAMPBELL. AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB." + +One volume. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50. + +"Confirmed novel-readers who have regarded fiction as created for +amusement and luxury alone, lay down this book with a new and serious +purpose in life. The social scientist reads it, and finds the solution +of many a tangled problem; the philanthropist finds in it direction and +counsel. A novel written with a purpose, of which never for an instant +does the author lose sight, it is yet absorbing in its interest. It +reveals the narrow motives and the intrinsic selfishness of certain +grades of social life; the corruption of business methods; the 'false, +fairy gold,' of fashionable charities, and 'advanced' thought. Margaret +Wentworth is a typical New England girl, reflective, absorbed, full of +passionate and repressed intensity under a quiet and apparently cold +exterior. The events that group themselves about her life are the +natural result of such a character brought into contact with real life. +The book cannot be too widely read."--_Boston Traveller._ + +"If the 'What-to-do Club' was clever, this is decidedly more so. It is a +powerful story, and is evidently written in some degree, we cannot quite +say how great a degree, from fact. The personages of the story are very +well drawn,--indeed, 'Amanda Briggs' is as good as anything American +fiction has produced. We fancy we could pencil on the margin the real +names of at least half the characters. It is a book for the wealthy to +read that they may know something that is required of them, because it +does not ignore the difficulties in their way, and especially does not +overlook the differences which social standing puts between class and +class. It is a deeply interesting story considered as mere fiction, one +of the best which has lately appeared. We hope the authoress will go on +in a path where she has shown herself so capable."--_The Churchman._ + +"In Mrs. Campbell's novel we have a work that is not to be judged by +ordinary standards. The story holds the reader's interest by its +realistic pictures of the local life around us, by its constant and +progressive action, and by the striking dramatic quality of scenes and +incidents, described in a style clear, connected, and harmonious. The +novel-reader who is not taken up and made to share the author's +enthusiasm before getting half-way through the book must possess a taste +satiated and depraved by indulgence in exciting and sensational fiction. +The earnestness of the author's presentation of essentially great +purposes lends intensity to her narrative. Succeeding as she does in +impressing us strongly with her convictions, there is nothing of +dogmatism in their preaching. But the suggestiveness of every chapter is +backed by pictures of real life."--_New York World._ + + +_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the +publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY. + +A STORY. + +BY HELEN CAMPBELL, + +AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB," "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME," "PRISONERS OF +POVERTY." + +16mo. Cloth, price, $1.00; paper covers, 50 cents. + +"Mrs. Helen Campbell has written 'Miss Melinda's Opportunity' with a +definite purpose in view, and this purpose will reveal itself to the +eyes of all of its philanthropic readers. The true aim of the story is +to make life more real and pleasant to the young girls who spend the +greater part of the day toiling in the busy stores of New York. Just as +in the 'What-to-do Club' the social level of village life was lifted +several grades higher, so are the little friendly circles of shop-girls +made to enlarge and form clubs in 'Miss Melinda's +Opportunity.'"--_Boston Herald._ + +"'Miss Melinda's Opportunity,' a story by Helen Campbell, is in a +somewhat lighter vein than are the earlier books of this clever author; +but it is none the less interesting and none the less realistic. The +plot is unpretentious, and deals with the simplest and most conventional +of themes: but the character-drawing is uncommonly strong, especially +that of Miss Melinda, which is a remarkably vigorous and interesting +transcript from real life, and highly finished to the slightest details. +There is much quiet humor in the book, and it is handled with skill and +reserve. Those who have been attracted to Mrs. Campbell's other works +will welcome the latest of them with pleasure and +satisfaction."--_Saturday Gazette._ + +"The best book that Helen Campbell has yet produced is her latest story, +'Miss Melinda's Opportunity,' which is especially strong in +character-drawing, and its life sketches are realistic and full of +vigor, with a rich vein of humor running through them. Miss Melinda is a +dear lady of middle life, who has finally found her opportunity to do a +great amount of good with her ample pecuniary means by helping those who +have the disposition to help themselves. The story of how some bright +and energetic girls who had gone to New York to earn their living put a +portion of their earnings into a common treasury, and provided +themselves with a comfortable home and good fare for a very small sum +per week, is not only of lively interest, but furnishes hints for other +girls in similar circumstances that may prove of great value. An +unpretentious but well-sustained plot runs through the book, with a +happy ending, in which Miss Melinda figures as the angel that she +is."--_Home Journal._ + + +_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the +publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. + +A STORY FOR GIRLS. + +BY HELEN CAMPBELL. + +16mo. Cloth. Price $1.50. + +"'The What-to-do Club' is an unpretending story. It introduces us to a +dozen or more village girls of varying ranks. One has had superior +opportunities; another exceptional training; two or three have been +'away to school;' some are farmers' daughters; there is a teacher, two +or three poor self-supporters,--in fact, about such an assemblage as any +town between New York and Chicago might give us. But while there is a +large enough company to furnish a delightful coterie, there is +absolutely no social life among them.... Town and country need more +improving, enthusiastic work to redeem them from barrenness and +indolence. Our girls need a chance to do independent work, to study +practical business, to fill their minds with other thoughts than the +petty doings of neighbors. A What-to-do Club is one step toward higher +village life. It is one step toward disinfecting a neighborhood of the +poisonous gossip which floats like a pestilence around localities which +ought to furnish the most desirable homes in our country."--_The +Chautauquan._ + +"'The What-to-do Club' is a delightful story for girls, especially for +New England girls, by Helen Campbell. The heroine of the story is Sybil +Waite, the beautiful, resolute, and devoted daughter of a broken-down +but highly educated Vermont lawyer. The story shows how much it is +possible for a well-trained and determined young woman to accomplish +when she sets out to earn her own living, or help others. Sybil begins +with odd jobs of carpentering, and becomes an artist in woodwork. She is +first jeered at, then admired, and finally loved by a worthy man. The +book closes pleasantly with John claiming Sybil as his own. The labors +of Sybil and her friends and of the New Jersey 'Busy Bodies,' which are +said to be actual facts, ought to encourage many young women to more +successful competition in the battles of life."--_Golden Rule._ + +"In the form of a story, this book suggests ways in which young women +may make money at home, with practical directions for so doing. Stories +with a moral are not usually interesting, but this one is an exception +to the rule. The narrative is lively, the incidents probable and +amusing, the characters well-drawn, and the dialects various and +characteristic. Mrs. Campbell is a natural story-teller, and has the +gift of making a tale interesting. Even the recipes for pickles and +preserves, evaporating fruits, raising poultry, and keeping bees, are +made poetic and invested with a certain ideal glamour, and we are +thrilled and absorbed by an array of figures of receipts and +expenditures, equally with the changeful incidents of flirtation, +courtship, and matrimony. Fun and pathos, sense and sentiment, are +mingled throughout, and the combination has resulted in one of the +brightest stories of the season."--_Woman's Journal._ + + +_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +SOME PASSAGES IN THE PRACTICE OF DR. MARTHA SCARBOROUGH. + +BY HELEN CAMPBELL. + +_16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._ + +Besides being equal to Mrs. Campbell's best work in the past, it is +strikingly original in presenting the ethics of the body as imperiously +claiming recognition in the radical cure of inebriety. It forces +attention to the physical and spiritual value of foods, and weaves +precedent and precept into one of the most beguiling stories of recent +date. + +It is the gospel of good food, with the added influence of fresh air, +sunlight, cleanliness, and physical exercise that occupy profitably the +attention of Helen Campbell. Martha is a baby when the story begins, +and a child not yet in her teens when the narrative comes to an end, +but she has a salutary power over many lives. Her father is a wise +country physician, who makes his chaise, in his daily progress about +the hills, serve as his little daughter's cradle and kindergarten. +When she gets old enough to understand he expounds to her his views +of the sins committed against hygiene, and his lessons sink into an +appreciative mind. When he encounters particularly hard cases she +applies his principles with unfailing logic, and is able to suggest +helpful means of cure. The old doctor is delightfully sagacious in +demonstrating how the confirmed pie-eater marries the tea inebriate, +with the result in doughnut-devouring, dyspeptic, and consumptive +offspring. "What did they die of?" asked little Martha, in the village +graveyard; and her father answers solemnly, "Intemperance." So Martha +declares that she will be a "food doctor," and later on she helps her +father in saving several victims of strong drink. The book is one that +should find hosts of earnest readers, for its admonitions are sadly +needed, not in the country alone, but in the city, where, if better +ideas of diet prevail, people have yet as a rule a long way to go +before they attain the path of wisdom. Meanwhile it remains true, as +Mrs. Campbell makes Dr. Scarborough declare, that the cabbage soup and +black bread of the poorest French peasants are really better suited to +the sustenance of healthy life than the "messes" that pass for food in +many parts of rural New England.--_The Beacon._ + + +_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the +publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +ROGER BERKELEY'S PROBATION. + +A Story. + +BY HELEN CAMPBELL, + +_Author of "Prisoners of Poverty," "Mrs. Herndon's Income," "Miss +Melinda's Opportunity," "The What-to-do Club," etc._ + +16mo, cloth, price, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. + +This story is on the scale of a cabinet picture. It presents interesting +figures, natural situations, and warm colors. Written in a quiet key, it +is yet moving, and the letter from Bolton describing the fortunate sale +of Roger's painting of "The Factory Bell" sends a tear of sympathetic +joy to the reader's eye. Roger Berkeley was a young American art student +in Paris, called home by the mortal sickness of his mother, and detained +at home by the spendthriftness of his father and the embarrassment that +had overtaken the family affairs through the latter cause. A concealed +mortgage on the old homestead, the mysterious disappearance of a package +of bonds intended for Roger's student use, and the paralytic incapacity +of the father to give the information which his conscience prompted him +to give, have a share in the development of the story. Roger is obliged +for the time to abandon his art work, and takes a situation in a mill; +and this trying diversion from his purpose is his "probation." How he +profits by this loss is shown in the result. The mill-life gives Mrs. +Campbell opportunity to express herself characteristically in behalf of +down-trodden "labor." The whole story is simple, natural, sweet, and +tender; and the figures of Connie, poor little cripple, and Miss Medora +Flint, angular and snappish domestic, lend picturesqueness to its group +of characters.--_Literary World._ + + +_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the +Publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD + +By HELEN CAMPBELL, + +AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO-CLUB," "PRISONERS OF POVERTY," "ROGER +BERKELEY'S PROBATION," ETC. + +_16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00; paper, 50 cents._ + +Mrs. Helen Campbell, an occasional and valued contributor to this +journal, and the author of "Prisoners of Poverty," and other studies of +social questions in this country, has offered in this book conclusions +drawn from investigations on the same themes made abroad, principally in +England or France. She has devoted personal attention and labor to the +work, and, although much of what she describes has been depicted before +by others, she tells her story with a freshness and an earnestness which +give it exceptional interest and value. Her volume is one of testimony. +She does not often attempt to philosophize, but to state facts as they +are, so that they may plead their own cause. She puts before the reader +a series of pictures, vividly drawn, but carefully guarded from +exaggeration or distortion, that he may form his own +opinions.--_Congregationalist._ + +Can life be worth living to the hordes of miserable women who have to +work from fifteen to eighteen hours a day for a wage of from twenty-five +to thirty-five or forty cents? And what have all the study of political +economy, all the writing of treatises about labor, all the Parliamentary +debates, all the blue books, all the philanthropic organizations, all +the appeals to a common humanity, done, in half a century, for these +victims of what is called modern civilization? Mrs. Campbell is by no +means a sentimentalist. We know of no one who examines facts more coolly +and practically, or who labors more earnestly to find the real causes +for the continued depression of the labor market, as this horrible state +of things is euphemistically termed. The conclusions she reaches are +therefore sober and trustworthy.--_New York Tribune._ + +No work of fiction, however imaginative, could present more startling +pictures than does this little book, which is sympathetic, but not +sentimental, the result of personal investigation, and a most valuable +contribution to the literature of the labor question.--_Philadelphia +Record._ + +Mrs. Helen Campbell's "Prisoners of Poverty," a study of the condition +of some of the lower strata of the laboring classes, particularly the +working-women in the great cities of the United States, is supplemented +with another volume, "Prisoners of Poverty Abroad," in which the life of +working-women of European cities, chiefly London and Paris, is depicted +with equally graphic and terrible truthfulness. + +They are the result of fifteen months of travel and study, and are +examples of Mrs. Campbell's well-known methods of examination and +description. They paint a horrible picture, but a truthful one, and no +person of even ordinary sensibilities can read these books without +experiencing a strong desire to do something to abate the monstrous +injustice which they describe.--_Good Housekeeping._ + + +_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by +the Publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +_In Foreign Kitchens._ + + +WITH CHOICE RECIPES FROM ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY, AND THE NORTH. + +By HELEN CAMPBELL, + +_Author of "The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking," "Prisoners of +Poverty," "The What-To-Do Club," etc._ + +16MO. CLOTH. PRICE, 50 CENTS. + +While foreign cookbooks are accessible to all readers of foreign +languages, and American ones have borrowed from them for what we know as +"French cookery," it is difficult often to judge the real value of a +dish, or decide if experiment in new directions is worth while. The +recipes in the following chapters, prepared originally for _The +Epicure_, of Boston, were gathered slowly, as the author found them in +use, and are most of them taken from family recipe-books, as valued +abroad as at home. So many requests have come for them in some more +convenient form than that offered in the magazine, that the present +shape has been determined upon; and it is hoped they may be a welcome +addition to the housekeeper's private store of rules for varying the +monotony of the ordinary menu. + + +_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of the price by +the Publishers_, + +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY, BOSTON. + + + + +Women Wage-Earners. Their Past, their Present, and their Future. By +HELEN CAMPBELL. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. + +The writer describes employments in the factory and home, compares the +condition of women workers here and abroad, dwells upon the evils and +abuses in factory life and in general trades, and points out remedies +and gives suggestions. The book is an expansion of a prize monograph for +the American Economic Association, for which a reward was given in 1891, +expanded to nearly double its original size. An introduction to it is +contributed by Prof. Richard T. Ely. Nowhere else could one get so much +information on this subject in so small a space as in this book.--_The +School Journal._ + +It includes such topics as factory labor, rise and growth of trades, +labor bureaus, wage rates, and general conditions for women workers in +England, on the Continent, and in the United States. + +The importance of this subject with which Mrs. Campbell deals is not +easily overestimated. The present age is the era of woman, since +whatever affects her receives a consideration never before given. For a +long time the agitation in favor of woman was to remove barriers and +open the way for her. The way has been opened and woman has entered +scores of fields previously closed to her. The questions which now arise +are as to her remuneration for her work in these fields, and the +influence of women wage-earning on the family, the home, and society. +These are questions not yet settled. Mrs. Campbell approaches their +discussion in a spirit of fairness, and what she says is suggestive and +helpful, if not conclusive. Her volume is a valuable contribution to the +literature of social science.--_Boston Advertiser._ + +Such a work could never have been compiled for women except by a woman. +It is itself a demonstration of the fact that women can handle the woman +question as men alone cannot do, and that women can be raised and +elevated from their present depressed condition only by organizations +and trades unions of their own. Every woman should read this book +carefully. She will gain from its perusal a breadth and depth of +knowledge which will be of lasting value to her, and it will show her +how great a work exists for women to do, in order to "make the world +better."--_Woman's Journal._ + +It is a sober statement of facts by a thoughtful woman who has made a +life-study of economic questions, both through the medium of books, and +by personal investigation into the modern conditions of labor. The book +covers the history of the wage question as affecting women, its present +status, and its prospect for the future.--_Worcester Spy._ + +Her style is robust, orderly, precise, every page carrying the evidence +of trained thought and of careful, conscientious research.--_Public +Opinion._ + + +LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers, + +254 Washington Street, Boston. + + + + +_No woman can give herself to a more noble occupation than the making of +the ideal home.--The Beacon._ + +The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking. Adapted to Domestic Use or +Study in Classes. By HELEN CAMPBELL. A new revised edition. 16mo. Cloth. +Price, $1.00. + +The work grew out of Mrs. Campbell's experiences as a teacher of +cookery, more especially at the South, but its principles are applicable +anywhere, and as a manual for inexperienced housewives or as a +class-room text-book it will be found of decided value.... No woman can +give herself to a more noble occupation than the making of the ideal +home, and Mrs. Campbell, by showing women how to do this, accomplished a +great and important task. The book she has written tells about the +requirements of a healthful home, explains how the routine of daily +housekeeping may be most economically and effectually conducted, sets +forth the chemistry of food and the relations of food to health, and in +the second part gives special instructions on the preparation of +different sorts of food, with many carefully tested recipes.--_The +Beacon._ + +It is not a cook-book pure and simple. It is more. It covers a large +range, such as the situation and arrangement of the house, drainage and +water supply, the day's work and how to plan it, fires, lights, and +things to work with, washing-day and cleaning in general, the body and +its composition, food and its laws, the relations of food to health, the +chemistry of animal food, the chemistry of vegetable food, condiments, +and beverages. The book is interestingly written, as is everything that +comes from Mrs. Campbell's pen. It certainly will prove a great benefit +to housewives and would-be housewives who read it; besides, the ample +recipes it contains make it a book of reference of constant +value.--_Cleveland World._ + +In the midst of always increasing cookery books, it has had a firm +constituency of friends, especially in the South, where its necessity +was first made plain. There is something here for the tyro and the +adept, and whether used at home with growing girls, in cooking clubs, in +schools, or in private classes, the system outlined has proven itself +admirable, and the theory and practice of Miss Campbell's book are +almost beyond criticism.--_Oregonian._ + +It is not merely a cook-book, but is a text-book of about everything +that is of special interest to the housekeeper, and is adapted either +for domestic use or study in classes. It is in fact a housekeeper's most +valuable encyclopædia, written by a lady who by education and thoroughly +practical knowledge was rendered singularly competent for the important +work here undertaken and so successfully carried out.... It is a book +that intelligent young housekeepers especially will come to regard as an +indispensable companion.--_Boston Home Journal._ + +It really is one of the most admirable of manuals for the usual young +housekeeper.--_Providence Journal._ + + +LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, + +254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 34060 *** |