Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-11-21
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
One Sweet Charity, With a Sugge stiOn
The Mail Package Business
StrIkes-ReaI Estate-The Weather
Business.
ONE SWEET CHARITY

AO VI bAS pISdSdul6Sb SlSulS IL
the city, to an eye which looks beyond
the surface of things, is the meeting tc
sew for the poor, held every Thursday at
the rooms OF St. Johns Guild, which
have before mentioned as one of the
kindliest, most active, and truly Chris tian
charities in the city. At these rooms.
once week, ladies of every circle in So
ciety meet to make up clothes for winter
which the poorest of the poor are no
able to make for themselves. For in
stance, there are many women who sup
port small children by going out at days
work, and who can barely pull together
enough to keep a roof over their heads
and coarse food in their mouths by slav-
ing early and late, and how can such find
time to make up such clothes as they
could not afford to buy without literally
going sleepless Careworn mothers who
find the sewing and providing for thelr
families an overtask for hand and brain,
may consider what they would do, if in
addition to this, they were obliged TO
earn all their groceries, the house rent,
and candle ends from week to week.
They will know what blessed help is
deyised for the poor, when the Roosvelts
and the Livingstons come down with
their gold thimbles, IN company with
other unoccupied young ladies under
sixty, of different parishes, who, half out
of novelty and half from thorough good
will, desert the park and promenade to
sew on gray flannel and red, "un bleach
ed" and calico, in true Dorcas fashion.
done by such careful hands, the sewing
is of the neatest order, assure you, and
young ladies who scorn plain sewing for
their practising" and German lessons,
might be put TO blush by the exquisite
neatness of the commonest work done by
women whose wealth and position are
such as never require them to touch q
needle for themselves. If there are wo-
men of leisure, who, reading this, would
like to help in such work, would re-
mind them that there may be cases
close aboutthem where such skill would
not be unvaIued. But if the sister -in-law
with poor health, and the minister's
wife and the neuralgia neighbor across
the way are provided for in this respect,
nothing is easier than TO make up plain
substantial clothing for children of diff
ferent ages and send each garment, close
ly tied in paper through the mail, at an
expense of not over twenty cents pack
age. to any relief society in New York.
THE MAIL PACKAGE BUSINESS.
By the way, this business of sending
packages by mail instead of express IS
coming rapidly into favor. The dealers
in this city pay special attention to send
ing orders IN this way, and A. T. Stew
art s. Co. tell NE this branch of their b u
siness sprang IN one month TO $4,000, and
goes on with rapidity which is surpas-
sing and delightful A silk dress pattern
was sent from this city to San Francisco,
by mail, for fifty cents, which would
have cost five dollars by express. FamI-
lies out West who long to avail them
selves of the advantages of the city in
shopping, should bear this in mind The
rate for sending packages exacted by our
paternal government is only one cent for
each two ounces, and the firm above
named say they have never yet lost any
thing sent in this way. 1 know of lady
who proposes to keep her friends out
West supplied with fresh oranges and
the best of coffee by mail.
There is something in this, as all who
have tried to fnd their groceries in
small country places will bear witness.
A great deal of fun has been made of Mr..
John Ruskin, the celebrated English
writer on Art, for setting up pen
sioner of his in a sh op, and sending out
advertisements of it with copies of his
last new book to let the poor know
where they can get pure tea and coffee.
wish some of our reformers and visiona-
ries had the sense to undertake anything
as practically good.
STRIKES.
1t is curious thing that plain labor is
the scarcest, and when most men are
out of employment that laborers should
undertake to force the question of wages,
but SO it is. With 10000 able bod
led men out of employment in this
city, with an ugly winter before them,
during which the stoppage of labor
from natural causes will swell this army
to $4,000, are pushing strikes. No less
than FIVE are being organized at this
time, which if carried out will make bad
work this winter. The 'lougsh oremen
are organizing strike ag ainst the reduc-
ton of wages, which the steamship and
other companies insist; while the coop
ers are about to turn QUIT oppose an
edict of their bosses, that no man in their
employ shall belong to Union. The
others are of less importance, be cause
there are less men engaged in them but
every strike, however small, must result
badly. The employers are not maxim G
money and to most of them an excuse
to shut down is relief, rather than dam
age. Therefore they will not oppose strikes
to any extent, but permit me to go on.
The number of people out of work makes
it easy to get labor enough to do all
they want to keep up a show of bust
ness, and to be ready for operations
when business resumes. There will be
intense suffering in the city this winter.
TRADE.
Very few men are making money at
all, in New York, especially those in le-
gitimate merchandise. The daily sales
of merchandise in the city foots $15,OOO,-
900 and one would suppose there ought
to be some money made out of this sum
total of trade, but there is not. The ex-
penses of running a jobbing trade are
enormous and it takes an immense trade
to keep it going. In respectable store,
the item OF gas alone, amounts to 5000
per annum. Then the cost of keeping
men on the road, of book keepers, cash
iers, buyers, statesmen, and the enormous
item of rent, which is never less than five
thousand dollars, and more frequently
fifteen thousand, absorbs profits terribly.