Omaha daily bee., 1884-12-20
is LIFE WORTH LIVING ?
Haw The " Song Of The Shirt" is Snug
in New York,
Thirty Cents n Dozen-A Mar and
Two Women Paid ST.75 for Max
ing POI Undergarments.

From the New ork Herald
When Thomas Hoods poetic soul, IN
gered at the inhuman name In which
indignant Euglish seamstresses were
treated by their employers, inspired him
to produce his immortal ''Song of the
Shirt, England responded to his cry for
Justice and vowed that the evil which he
deplored should be at least ~mitigated if
not deplored. A similar appeal to hui
mainly seems to be desirable in this city
Just at present, at least II M is so to
Judge from the heart.rending story
which a prominent merchant told a Her.
aid reporter yesterday afternoon.
"Six dollars and tfty-three cents is
nice payment for making 291 shirts, Is it
not2" was his indignant question, as he
pulled the pay book from his pocket and
showed the figures in black and white.
"No, / am wrong. The estimable EN-.
ployers paid 1910, but you must deduct
from that 81 % for car faros, and then
you have So 80 for making 291 shirts.
| Who was fool enough to accept the iob2
I'll tell you. A man came here from
| Silesia about fifteen months ago with his
wife and two children. He Is a bright,
intelligent fellow, about forty years old,
and has worked for some years on a rail-
road In Germany. He brought with him
two sewing machines, andhe and his wife
managed to support themselves for
some months by making shields Tor caps.
| When the demand for these articles
ceased he sought other employment, but
was unable to find any. At last a friend
told him that a firm on East Fifty-third
street would be willing to employ him at
making shirts. He jumped at the Idea,
went to the firm, got the material for the
shirts and set to work at once, after he
had provided himself with cotton thread
and other necessaries. This was on No.
vember 26. From this day on until De-
cember 8, he and his wife and another
woman, who provided q third sewing ma
chine, worked from 6 o'clock in the
mrrning to IL at night, and at the end
of the time they had finished two hun
bred and ninety one shirts Il had
received seven dollars and seventy five
cents.
TWO CENTS n A HALF FOR EACH SHIRT,
she lived in Brooklyn, at a consider
able distance from the ferry, and had tc
pay a considerable sum in car fares. The
agreement was that he should receive
thirty cents for every dozen spirits, and
on November the Goth he took three
shirts to his employers, expecting to be
paid at the rate of two cents and a hall
a shirt. But how could he be paid the
odd half cent? Would his employers be
~magnanimous enough to give him eight
cents instead of seven and a half2 Quite
the contrary. They paid him seven
cents instead of seven and a half cents,
his lawful due. On December 8 he took
eight dozen shirts to his employers, and
received So 40; on the 9TH he took an.
other eight dozen aud received So GA.
the increased wages being accounted for
by the fact hat these shirts required to
be finished better than the others, and on
the 9th he took a third eight dozen and
Received the same amount as for the pre-
ceding lot.
NATURALLY INDIGNANT.
81 saw him after he had taken his last
eight dozen and he told me his stosy.
got his pay book from him and showed il
to several influential gentlemen of this
city. Knowing the price they have tc
pay for shirts, they could hardly believe
that any employer would be 80 mean al
to ask men and women to make them for
two and a half cents each. l told them
that the man's wife could not support
her children on such starvation wages
and was obliged to get coal, tea an6
money from some charitable ladies ir
Brooklyn. l then went to a prominent
labor bureau and requested the proprie
tor not to recommend any man or woman,
however badly off he or she might be, tt
take employment from this firm al
such a rate of payment, and finally
promised the man, whose case attracted
my attention to the matter, to do my
best to get him some job better than tina
one. He was an honest man, and HI
says hat it would break his heart to SCI
his children selling newspapers on the
street. That was the reason why he &C
copied such badly paying work. If tn
Herald will only give due prominence tt
this story Hoods hopes may be realized
in this city. You remember how HI
says:
"And still in a voice of dolorous pitch,
(Would hat its tones could reach the rich)
She sang the song of the shirt"
"Not even the most stony-hearted EN-
ployer would dare to pay a man and two
women for thirteen days labor such
miserable sum as this firm paid Rsger
and his fellow.workers, if the matter
were known to the public"