The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1870-12-03
Il Slavery Abolished?

" SAoNOAy AUOAAbuCu
Three Sundays ago went to Church
have thought OF the sermon | heard tha
day several times since. confess that
don't often remember a sermon thre
weeks Half the sermons one hears ar
not worth keeping in mind that long
They are somehow so severely sound OF
doctrine, and bring out always such be
WIldering pile Of arguments, that one get
confused, and can't for his life tell whethe
ne feels better after them or not. Or, wheI
not that, they are apt to be SO intensely ex
Plsnatory of the apostolic faith of the Chris
tian fathers, that they ostly lose sight 0
the Christian sons and daughters. So, tba
on the whole, there isn't much satisfaction
to be got out of them by an ordina sinner
But | remember the sermon Of that day
very well. 1t was about how all the peo
pie in the world we're created in the mag,
Of GOd,-the rich, the Ioor, the learned
the ignorant, the naughty ard the lowly
made all alike after the one divine pattern
How the very meanest and lowliest human
being on the face of the earth, the most de
graded of Gods creatures, had still in hi,
face and forms faint trace of his celestial
origin, still spark Of divine fire in bis ma
ture. That even Fisk, junior, was created
in the image Of bis Maker, in the frs
place How ? Because all the people in
the world are Gods children for that rea
son not one OF them has right to despist
the weakest and poorest of bis brothers and
sisters. For that reason, too, whatever Of
good fortune has fallen to our lot, we ought
to take it humbly and thankfully, comfort.
ing those not so fortunate, thinking kindly
Of all men, and when we Judge otbers-tht
sinner, the degraded one, the social outcast
remembering that if their temptations
bad beset US, there is that within our
hearts which would have carried US as low
as the lowest of them. You know it is not
often, now a-days, a fashionable preacher
tells his congregation that, given certain
social conditions, and every one Of them
would have been thieves, beggars and Jail
birds. | never heard a preacher say it
right out 50 plain as this preacher did and
bei closed BY bidding US remember al
ways the kinship of the whole human race
1" the fatberbood of God and the brother
hood of man" be called it,
That was three Sundays ago A little
while after that the same friend who went
to church with me visited one Of the large
establishments of which Gin
cinnati is 50 justly proud. He spent an
hour in the building, and came home con-
WINGED that the brotherhood of man dOesn t
count for much in a cotton factory, | hard
ly know how to begin to tell you about that
cotton factory, and this girl who worked
there for the hands, as they call them, are
nearly all girls and little boys. Iftbey have
hearts to suffer brains TO wonder what they
were born for, or even bodies to be FED, it is
nothing to their employers. They are hands;
nothing more Some of them are pretty
girls too, lady-like looking as the Eirest
daughter of wealth in CINCINNATI, with
hands as slender, eyes as bright, and faces
as refined as yours, my fine young lady.
And they work eleven hours and half in
that cotton factory, every day Of their lives
except Sundays, the year round. How would
you like that ?
But they are well paid for it ? will tell
you. The average wages paid girls in that
is four dollars and half per
week. A young lady stands on her feet
eleven hours aud half, doing work which
requires her whole attention every second,
and gets paid about six cents and half
an hour for it. Make a note of that, if you
please
NV friend asked one of these young ladies'
some questions, and obtained the informa-
ton that they went to work at in the
morning, worked till II o'clock, had half
an hour for dinner began again at half past
II, and worked till at night That is to
say, lust when you have finished your early
tea, and are putting on your opera cloak
and white gloves to 20 and hear that divine
Booth" as you call him, these poor, weary
creatures are plodding home through the cold
and darkness, some of them with their supper
yet to be prepared by their own hands
Don't forget that, ether.
In the spinning rooms frequently one girl
tends over four hundred spindles. The
spinners' pay range from three to five dol
lars week. In every room there were one
or two "bOsses" to superiDtend the work
and see that not moment was lost The
bosses went about from one girl to another,
hurryiDg up the work, in language more
expressive than elegant, some of them
splitting foul tobacco juice over the floor as
they went
81 should think you would make great
many mistakes in your work, with so many
spindles to see TO-" said my friend TO q
nice looking girl.
eve do set things wrong, now and then, .
was the answer.
''What 40 the bosses say to you then =
The girl glanced over her shoulder a mo
ment, then she replied:
''They swear at the girls awfully, some
times"
Nice place, that
The weavers are rather better paid thar
the splnners. They, the weavers, tend
about six looms each, and sometimes receive
as high as six or seven dollars week. The
prncely sum Of six dollars a week Five
dollars to put food into your stomach and Z
roof over your head, for it costs all thai
these times; then a dollar week left tC
warm you, to buy shoes. bonnets, dresses
gloves and other clothes, to pay for having
them made, and for washing them, for you
have no time to sew or wash any yourself
One dollar to pay for all that, and what il
left Of the dollar you can use to feed YOU
soul on.
Ny pretty young lady, you with tee hun
dfed dollar cloak and the forty dollar bon
net, stop a moment. Fancy your fathe
suddenly losing all bis money, and yol
forced to 90 10 work in that factory. | be-
your pardon, but some of the girls who d.