Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-02-19

tinual state of stoppage, and the oaths
and curses one hears from the pinched
and half frozen people, who wait for
hours for q boat tn get to Brooklyn or
Jersey CITY, are frightful to hear The
experience this winter Will do more to-
wards burrying the great bridge to com
pletion than all the newspapers could do
in century.
SORRY STORY.
Monday morning q young WOman-a
suPernumerRry in Booths Theaier, faint
enuuFlng the rehearsal of the play. Her
sister actress raised her and carried her
10 the green room, aud when she revived
toia her story as best she could She
nad not eaten morsel of food for three
days, and her fainiing was nothing bpt
the result of starvation. Her hnsSa,S
was q scene -shifter in the theatre. I'm, L.d
been down with consumption for neariT
year. She had mother, also an inya.
lid, and four children, all of whom She
had 10 support, and the pay on which all
this had to be done was six dollars per
week. Think of It: rent, food, fuel. med
icInes, clothing for seven people. two of
them invalids, TO be provided out Ofsix
dollars a week. and that pittance to be
earned by one little wOman-nOt twenty
one years of age, from one Of the most
| precariOus of professions. The family
were living in the top Of the house, in
one room, the house so badly built thai
the wind whistled through the cracks
| with about as much freedom as II would
on an Iowa prairie, and no fire.
/ The poor woman couldn't get fuel for
heat, and she never had food enough to
make il necessary for cooking. The sick
! =
pallets with scarcely any covering, and
another wreiched pallet suf1ced for the
younger mother and her four children.
All the day they lay in that horrible
| nest for warmth, and to that horrible
nest the oYerworked mother came at IL
at night, when her exhausting labors
were completed at the theater.
This is one case in twenty thousand,
only this poor woman had the good luck
to faint with her hunger at 8 time and
place where her distress excited pity and
brought her relief Had she tainted in
her garret. she would have died as hun
dreds do every day.
THE LABOR QUESTION.
The worst side of the. labor trouble is
shown IN the present strike of the hands
in stone cutting yard up town. The
men in the same business In Newark and
Philadelphia have but 81 so for days
work of ten hours, and the men employ
ed on the Capitol at Albany have not
more than So so for the same hours
The Journeymen Brown-Stone-C Cutters
Association prohibits its members from
working for less than 81 80 days work
of eight hours. The firm in question
have large contracts, and being able. to
| employ more hands Than they have al
present, engaged some men who applied
| for work at less rate. These mrn be-
came dissatisfied after working with the
other hands, and complained to the As
sociation, who fined the firm 500, with
| notice that in default of payment the
hands would be ordered on strike. This
was paid under protest, as work was
/ pushing but il was not long before au-
other fine of 800 was ordered, on com
plant of an employe, belonging to the
society, that he had been defraujed out
of days wages. The firm refused to
pay the fine, and their'men IS ordered by
the society, went on strike. The firm
soon had over twenty outside men al
work at the same hours and wages as be-
fore. but declare that under no circum-
stancrs they will again empl OY society
men. In consequence, the strikers have
sent threats to the firm Of burning Its
property, and went so far as to assault
one OF its ieamsters and knock him down.
II is a singular thing that men dependent
on their daily wages Tor bread, should
ATTEMPT to control their employers, with
the thermometer below Zero, and Win
thousands upon thousands of men out
ofemploy and eager for work. But it is
so.
EXPRESS VS.. Post.
The Express Companies are very much
stirred up about the new system OF Postal
Carriages, by which packages, not
over four p15ialHR Rass weight. can be sent by
mail, ct the rate of cent f6i FSf esse eas;h Two
ounces. A new system, l call it, but it
has been on trial for nearly two years,
and the public are just waking to sense
of its benefits, and the express mOnOpO
lies are trying to take it from them. 1t
would seem as If there was sufficient field
left for them in transporting large pack
ages, that they nigh: reasonably leave
thi convenient arrangement to profit
both Government and people. The con-
yenience OF this postal package system to
the public, needs but glance TO be seen
at its time value. Families can order
samples and have orders filed by mail
at the expense of only 8 cents a pound, to
any part of the country. That this is ap-
preciated, the books of New York mer-
chants tell. The packages sent from
single house, by this system, amounted to
hundreds of thousands of dollars in value,
the last year, and every dollars worth of
this paid its tributes to- the revenues of
the P. o. Department, which needs as
sistance to constantly establish new
routes, as fast as new settlements are
made, instead of gOrging the over rich
express companies. For these years com
panies have steadily fought down every
effort for cheap transportation, lest j.
should wrest from them part of their
enormous profits, and they are asking
the repeal of this pleasant kindly Post
Office law, which eXtends its good TO eY-
ery hamlet in the United States. II the
Post Office can afford to carry tons and
tons of newspapers, books and pamph-
lets, at the rate of cent for two ounces,
and finds prOfitin doing so, there IS no
reason why il should not extend this
work to any description Of dry goods,
and reap the benefit from it. L the ex-
celleucies of this law are once under
stood. people will no more hear OF its re-
peal than they will Of going back TO old
fashioned postage, at % cents letter.
I applied for some information on this
point. to a firm who were among the first
10 take pains to inform their customers
of the convenience of sending parcels by
mail. They say that they can send, with
IN the prescribed weight, in one package
90 wards of tafetta silk OfgOOdt quality,
and of the lower grades from 25 to 80
yards. Of gros. grain, at 50 to 50 80 per
ward, 20 yards. OF LOnsGale muslin, IA
wards of New York Mills, 1S yards, and
The same of Wamsutis. LOnsdale cam
brio being much lighter, 20 yards could
be sent through the mail If restricted to
four pounds, The number Of parcels thai
can be sent Is unlimited, so that any
number of yards OF any fabric can be sent
by post, by being cut intp lengths that
would suit the purchasers.
Every expr,ss company is a monopoly
in its own lOc Atty; and the enormous
charges on goods sent to distant States
and Territories, operate tO shut of those
people from any but local market, with
| all its disadvantages of high price, poor
quality, etc. There can be no reason
why the P. D. should not do the people
| service, that being precisely what gov
ernments and post Office departments are
for. 1t is all well enough To talk oil com
II Il