The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-05-21
June Magazines
Excerpts from their Pages.
THE woMEN's PROTECTIVE UNION.

THE woMENs PROTECTIVE UNION.
This society was established some sixteen
years ago, to promote the interests Of women
who obtain livelihood by other employments
than household service, and especially to pro-
vide them with legal protection from the
frauds and impositons of unscrupulous en-
ployers. In making shirts at fifty cents a
dozen, there may not seem to be scope for
fraud; but little as some working women are
paid, it is diminished by a variety of tricks of
the trade, and sometimes it is withheld alto
gether. There are employers who are never
able to make the exact amount tf change on
payday, and who deduct few cents from
week to week, until the total loss to the un-
fortunate employees is many dollars There
are other employers, who find no little profit
in exacting deposit from the women to whom
they give work, ostensibly as security but
practically as premium, the depositor never
obtaining her money again. and another way
of still further impoverishing the tagged out
women is to deduct something on the ground
that their work is not as good as the sample
or that it is delayed in delivery.
The sewing machine frauds are pretty famil-
lar Every woman who lives by sewing must
have machine, and a machine is costly ar
ticle. But there are hosts of accommodating
agents who supply the desideratum ON easy,
even generous terms.
"Here is silent, lock-stitch fully improved
article. Take it home, madam, and pay for it
in installments of five dollars a week; in nine
weeks it will be yours More than this, will
give you work to the amount of five dollars a
week. and you need not put your hand in your
pocket once"
Who can say that it is a bleak, faithless and
merciless world when such men as these
abound? The woman signs paper almost
invariably without reading it, as, the greater
part OF it being. printed, it has every appear
ance of authenticity; and the machine, with
all its improvements is delivered to her. Not
unlikely unless she is shrewd a worn-out ar
ticle, regilt and reburnished, has been foisted
upon her; and in this case she will be allowed to
hold it when the instaments are complete.
But if it is a valuable machine, the intention
of the agent is to eventually deprive her of it.
Perhaps he assures her that he has the fullest
confidence in her, that she need not be over
punctual with her installments. and she, per-
haps, believing him, delays payment for two or
three weeks, when she is within few dollars
of her last installment On the pretext that
she has not fulfilled her part of the contract,
she is dispossessed of the machine; and when
the document that she has unwittingly signed,
is examined it is found to be so constructed
that the seizure is legalized. In nearly all
cases the price put upon the machine is more
than its value, and the sum is increased if the
woman pays for it by her own work, the en-
ployer deducting various amounts on the plea
before mentioned, that her work is not up to
the standard.
1t is against such mean swindles as these
that the Protective Union exerts itself, and to
prevent which it was founded. Left to them
selves, the women imposed upon are often too
ignorant to know how to seek the recovery of
their machines, or too poor to prosecute. They
appeal in vain for consideration scold the
agent, and then subside in the sympathy of
their neighbors, unless they find the Union,
which is an implacabe litigant for them, car
rying their cases from court to court, and en-
ploying the most capable counsel, if necessary,
to secure justice. The mere face of its exist
ence represesss much wrong, and it has con-
tested its cases with such persistence that few
defaulting employers are willing to defend
suit brought by it; but at the same time it
should be said that it does not proceed to law
until it is convinced of the validity of its cause
and it does not Immediately take for granted
all the ee parte testimony brought to it.
Once week a lawyer attends the rooms of
the Union in Bleecker Street, and the persons
complained of are summoned to meet
the plaintiffs. If the former do not appear,
and also ignore second summons, the case is
taken into court at once; but usually the en-
ployer presents himself to answer the charges
made against him, and sometimes he proves
that it is he who has been injured-some-
times-by no means often.-William H.
Rideing, in Harper's Magazine.