The Labor enquirer., 1884-03-01
HUNGRY GIRLS.
A Visit to Chicago Eating Houses
Patronised BY Working
Girls.
InsufRciency Of Food, Owing to the
Miserable Wages They
Receive.

Chicago Inter Ocean.
Whatever is the cause the American
girl prefers to enter any other avenue Of
labor. however crowded, and drag out
existance on pittance that does not
give her comforts comparable with such
q, she should receive in home from the
honorable and most natural occupation
Of women-housework. Sooner will
she drudge in manufactures, behind
counters, be snubbed in offices, half
starve in order to keep up an appearance
that bellies her need. If she is homeless,
| 1t is only by strictly watching the ex-
penditure of each hard-earned penny
that this fight for respectable self-main-
tanning existence is maintained. If she
is employed in any of the callings termed
'lady-like" or "genteel" she must be
neatly and fairly dressed every day.
Many positions, where the work is
poorly paid for, are positively unattain-
able to any woman shabbily clad. A
woman's attire is no indication of her
resources. ~ ,.... g. A.. ,.ss
"Show me what people eat and I will
tell you their condition" exclaimed a
political economist. His assertion may
be widened to compass the history of,
the earth's population or narrowed to
that of q single individual. ..- ,.... 81
One has but to enter any restaurant in
the city frequented by working women
at lunch hour and observe the food they
eat to find :in it the elucidation of
many wan faces indicative of constitu-
tions enfeebled or breaking; to find in it
a revelation of lives that daily deny the
demands of nature and scrlmp the first
claims of existence. The observer will
ascertain, as he watches these women at
their noon-day repast, that the majority
of working women are far more poorly
fed than workingmen. If he asks him-s
self why" it is easy for reflection to
give answer. They are paid less for
their labor than men. Their expenses
are equal, often greater. There are, too,
numerous places for the exclusive pat
ronage of men where nutritious food cano
be obtained for small sum.
There are no like places open to
women in this city. In the eating
houses they can frequent for small
amount they can appease hunger; they
cannot satisfy it. Men will eonfide in
facquaintances, appeaito strangers, resort
to trickery to get enough to eat. There
is no silence prouder than that of a
hungry woman who desires to keep
position of respectability.
"One can be hungry and no one know
it," said Young girl to the writer one
day, "but if ones clothes are shabby
everybody knowsit." This is the feeling
that actuates 80 many women in the
natural and laudable effort to appear in
garments that shall not evince their
poverty to the world to deprive them
selves of enough to eat. -
Entering Dearborn street restaurant
largely patronized at the noon hour by
women employed down town, a reporter
whose modesty was ruthlessly destroyed
in youth, with his usual sang froid seated
himself in, the department especially
allotted to ladies. He ordered repast
and proceeded leisurely to scan the ap-
pearance of the women at the tables and
the food before them. They were uni
formly we'll dressed.
There was one pretty, pale-faced girl
near him whose lunch consisted of two
slices of Vienna bread, watery boiled
potato and piece of pie. Bv reference
to the menu it was found that this meal
cost l5 cents.
Continued on Page A.