Litchfield enquirer., 1845-08-28

No. U...sStFaW.BFaideFS, Artifcial.FlOW. CT Makers, GLc. NEc.
 The Amazone-braid Weavers, a large and ill., l paid class of working females, begin work at o. clock in the morning and continue until o'clock Tn the evening, with interTnssion save to swal low nasty morsel. They earn when in full en- ployment $S2 and $S2 50 per- week. Outof this they must pay their board. washing, Qor they have no time to wash their own clothes,) medical and oth CT incidental expenses and purchase their clothes ito say nothing of the absence ofall healthy recre ation and of all mental and moral culture, which such condition necessarily implies. They have, many of them, no rooms of thelr own, but board with some poor family, sleeping any how and any where. For these accommodations they pay $1 50 per week-some of the worst and 6lthiest boarding houses, however, charging as low as $1 per week. The living here must be imagined.
 TEe Arti6cial-Aower Makers present greater variety. The trade, will readily he perceived is one requiring great skill and delicacy in the finish ing part of the work Girls who have served five years apprenticeship at the business and are very expert, if they work constantly, can make $3 50 per week. The flowers and wreaths which under the name of French Flower-work sell so dear and so highly valued by our fashionable ladies, are mostly made here, although many of the materials are imported from France. The principal part of the work is done by young girls from eleven to thirteen years of age, apprentices as they are termed who receive 75 cents, and a few one dollar, per week. They of course live at home with their parents, for the most part, and have time to go to school, to grow or think These apprentices as soon as they are out of their time are told that there is more work for them, and their places supplied by fresh recruits who are taken and paid of course as apprentices Every few days you may notice in the papers advertisement some thing like this-t Wanted-Fifty young girls as ap- prentices to the Artifcial-hower Making business" These portend that number of girls have become journey women, and are consequently to be pushed Q fOrc iicaS yho1x | receive but 75 cents or $S1 per week. Many Five Dollar wreath and expensive flower purchased of the Misses Lawsons, Madame Deuel, or Madame Godefroy. has been wrought into beauty by these little fingers for perhaps two shillings, or half dollar!
 The Arti6cial-fower business is extensively car. ried on here, and the product is deemed quite equal in finish and grace to the best Parisian or German flowers We believe, from the most reliable data in possession, that there fifteen hundred or two thousand girls engaged in this department of labor in New York.
 | A great many women who make Match boxes re- ceive but iue cents per gross-or thirty boxes for single cent! We knew of a mother of family who supported her little children by this kind of work, who used to walk two miles to starch-fac- tory to obtain the refuse for pasting the boxcs-for which she paid penny pail. When she could succeed in procuring this she said she could make little profit but when she had to buy flour to make paste with-then, she said, it was losing business Her little children thought 30 too.
 | We have already mentioned the Cap Makers of which we suppose thele are between one or two thousand. They earn on the average about two shlllings per day, although there are many who do Su5t a 5 Hord k a aehssn J Second h fourth fifth story chamber thirty or forty togeth- | CT, and work from sunrise to sundown. There IS too often not human being in the world who has the slightest care responsibility over the morals manners or comforts of these unfortunate girls. If many of them become degraded and brutalized in taste, manners, habits and conversation, who can wonder!
 These facts and remarks apply with equal force | to the hundreds and thousands of Shoe e-binders Type-rubbers and other girls employed on labor of ths kind. In addition to the constant supply to the ranks of these classes furnished by the poor population of our City, poor girls continually flock to the City from every part of the country, either because their friends are dead and they have no home, or because they have certain vague dreams of the charms of City life. Arriving here, they soon find how bitterly they have deceived them selves, and how rashly they have entered a condi. ton where it is almost impossible for them to sub- sst, and where want and starvation are their only companions They have been educated and reared in such manner to render the idea of servitude quite uncomfortable, and their only resort is the nee- dle or some similar employment. Here they find the demand for work greatly over.supplied and competition so keen that they are at the mercy of employers. and are obliged to snatch at the privi lege Of working on any terms. They find that by working from fifteen to eighteen hours day they cannot possibly than one to three dollars week, and this, deducting the time they are out of employment every year, will barely serve to fur nsh them the scantiest and poorest food, which from its monotony and it's unhealthy quality indu- ces to disgust, loathing and disease. They have thus absolutely nothing left for clothes recreation sickness, books or intellectual improvement, and the buoyancy and exquisite animality of youth be- Slo forfu Eava frny ;~h too-welcome relief. Their frames are bent by n- cessant and stooning to, their health destroyed by want of rest and proper exerise, and their minds as effectually stunted, brutalzed and destroyed over their monotonous tasks as if they were doomed to count t'e bricks in prison wall for what is life to them but fearful and endless imprisonment, with all its horrors and privations:
 Beauties and advantages of Horse Racing.- Another race came off yesterday at the Beacon Course, and we are fully informed this morning as to the relative qualities of the horses their mas- ner of acting, which horse took the lead in the commencement of the race, and how some of them ' broke up," and had to be pulled in," and which horse 6nallj won the purse. These partic- ulars are fully placed before the public, but we hear nothing of the roulette table, the sweat board, the thimble-rggers and others of the like kidney, who were there for the purpose of robbng the uninitated. Neither are we told the number of persons who returned to their homes in state of drunkenness, or the numbers who returned to their families penniless, while they perhaps were wanting for the necessaries of life Nothing is said of the youth who were there being trained up to course of iniquity, and preparing for exalted stations among the vile and absolute. These things did not seem to cast gloom over the minds of the getters up of these horse races-it is some- thing with which they have nothing to do. The chroniclers of the horse race took no note of the things here referred to- as it didnot concern them they know their duty too well to interfere with