The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-08-11
The Wrongs of Sewing Women.

There are several organized agencies
IN New York designed for the protection
of Sewing girls from the Injustice
they have SO often experienced in their
dealings with heartless employers. BY
the employment of legal counsel. and
still more frequently by showing their
readiness and ability to defend those
who suffer, these associations have ac-
cOmplished much i'm this humane object
] The pulpit, too, sometimes is heard. One
OF our most eminent divines REV. DIR.
Talmadge) said:
tell you if God rises up TO redress
womans wrongs, many of our large es-
Establishments will be swallowed mn
quicker than a South American earth
quake ever took down city. God will
catch these oppressOrs between the two
millstones of his wrath, and grind them
to powder Why is it that a female
! principal in n school gets only eight
hundred and twenty-five dollars for do
ing work for which a male principal gets
sixteen hundred and fifty? :? hear, from
all this land, the wall of womanhooI.
Man has nothing to answer but fiatter-
les. lie says she is an angel. She is not.
she knows she is not. She is a human
being, who gets hungry when she has
no food, and cold when she has no fire
GIVE her no more batteries; give her
justice.
There are thirty-five thousand sewing
/ girls in New York and Brooklyn. Across
the darkness of this night hear their
death-groan. 1T is not such cry as
comes from those who are suddenly
hurled out of life, but a slow, grinding,
horrible wasting away. Gather them
before you and look into their faces.
pinched, ghastly, hunger struck! Look
at their fingers, needle pricked and
bloOd-tipped
Stand at the corner of a street i'm New
York az ha.f past five or six O'Clock in
the morning, as the women 90 to their
work. Many of then have had no break
fast except the crumbs that were left
over from the night before, or n crust
they chew on their way through the
street. Here they come, the working
! girls of New York and Brooklyn. These
engaged i'm bead-worls, these i'm flower
making, in millinery, enameling, cigar
making, bookbinding. labelling, feather
picking, print-cOlOring, paper boOk-mak-
ing, but most overworked of all, and
least compensated, the sewing women.
Why do they not take the city ears on
their way up? They cannot afford the
live cents. If concluding to deny herself
s"iAASthihS ciStf sHe get INTO q ear, give
her seat You want 20 see how Iati-
mer and Ridley appeared in the fire
/ look at that woman and behold a more
! horrible martyrdom-a hotter fire, a
more agOnizing DEATH Ask that wom-
an how much she gets for her work, and
she will tell you six cents for making
coarse shirts, aud find her own thread
! Last Sabbath night, in the vestibule
OF this church, after service, woman
! fell in commissions The doctor said she
needed medicine not so much as some
thing to eat. As she began To revive in
her delirium, she said gaspingly /:
Eight centsl Eight cents, Eight cents!
| wish | could get il dOneI Eight centsl
Eight cents ~ We found afterwards
that she was making garments for eight
cents apiece, and that she could make
but three of them in day. Hear it !
Three times eight are twenty-fourl Hear
it, men and women of New York and
Brooklyn
That one case was laid at the door OF
this church but there are thirty-five
thousand such cases laid at the doors of
our Christian churches, demanding your
prayers, your sympathies, and your
charitable effort. Some of the worst
villains of the city are the employers OF
these women.