New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-08-22
TIE Truth ABOUT THE SHOP- GIRLS.

| well afford to he peculiar In minor respects.
TIE Truth ABOUT THE SHOP- GIRLS
! AS fair an example of how not to do 1t as
ever delighted the soul of a Dogberry was
offered in the report last week of the effort
made by the Board of Health to discover the
effect upon the health of shop-girls of the
standing position for ten or twelve hours a
day enforced by the rules of many retail
houses.
| A worthy physician was appointed three
years ago to get at the truth of the mat
ter, and set about the business by going
from shop to shop, and asking ques-
| tons of each saleswoman which no
modest young girl would answer, unless to
her mother or her own physician. He was very
properly met by evasOns and embarrassment,
and from the yOun ger and sillier of the girls
by iests not quite so proper Then he left
circulars with the employers which they were
to hand to their saleswomen to fill up with
statements as to whether their tthe en-
ployersD rules werc injurious to health and
life. With touching faith in the candor of
human nature, the good old doctor
waited for these girls to send in COM
plants against the men from whom
they were earning their living, through
the hands of these men, and mildly expresses
his surprise that. the answers when received
were totally irrelevant" Next he proceeds
to inquire. with the same guileess confidence,
of the employers themselves, whether their
rule which forbade any seats behind the
counter, and obliged delicate women to stand
all day, was injurious to these women, and is
,1Io hot fba LOT irn how,
healthful than otherwise. The women who
stand sometimes handling heavy pieces Of
sheetings or fannels, for ten hours, grow strong
and vigorous under the athlenc training. 1t is
the cashiers who sit comfortably at desk who
break down, probably from excess Of ldleness
In fact, this regiment of shop women under
going a discipline which the principal physi-
clans in London have pronounced murderous
are, according to the statements of their
employers, pretty much in the condition of
MacArone's Brigade, "who came out of the
battle of Bull Run without the loss of single
"man, and every case of measles in it cured by
going under fire." The employers accounted
for the pale and haggard faces of the
rows of shop girls behind their coun-
tiers by their habits of luxurious iv-
ing. These pampered creatures, 1t appears,
are fed as a rule upon "rlch confectionery,
"cakes, tarts," ETC.. and spend their nights at
balls and the theatre. Here's richness for
"you |" quoth Sdueers. No wonder they look
haggard and pinched, and go Off IN cOnsump-
ton No wonder the managers Of shops feel
moral scrupes about granting to these jaded
votaries of fashion the additional luxury of
wooden stool behind the counter.
tfar Ia FOR r
concerns the health. even life, of large class
of hard working, estimable women, for whom
the employment given In the shops is the only
chance open to earn living. 1t was quite within |
the province of the Board of Health to make |
an inquiry into this rule in the shops and its |
results, and only little practical common |
sense was needed to make the in |
uury effective. The Investigation should |
have been put into the hands Of one or |
two women of position and character, such |
as those who are among the most active and |
useful members of our State Board of Chair |
ties. The poor shOp-girls would not have con-
cealed the truth from one of their own
SEX Or a still simpler method would have
been to summon three or four eminent |
physicians before the Board, and take
their opinion as TO the effect upon the |
health of young giils of from fourteen
to twenty of rule which forbids them to sit
down during n period of from six to eleven
hours daily. What condition would n woman
be in after daily torture for several years of
this kind TO take charge of a household or
rear family That, after ALL is the real
business of woman IN life, and the man who
makes rule which physically incapacitates
her for it is either wilfully brutal or mex
cusably ignorant.
AS for the statements concerning balls, rich
iict, etc., habiuaIly INDUCED in By shopwomen,
/ few facts are sufficient. When gili wishes
o learn the trade she is taken Of she can
get admission at alD in the crowded leading
etai shops OF Ncw-Y ork and Philadelphia as a
iovice, and paid either wages. or 81 per
week for six months. After she has learned
he business and is an expert saleswoman,
he is paid in the inferior giade of establish
ncnts such as the large auction shops, from
y to So weekly. In the higher class of dry
FOODS retail houses the wages average from
20 to 81. In very few cases. where years
II experience have made women experts
n sOsc particular line or goods millinery,
ilk or lace, for example, they receive what are
,nown rs fincy prices" Bu; The great mass
# shop girls IN tuesc two cltles receive from