The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-02-09
THE LONDON DUsT-YARDs.
A Form of WOman's Work the Most Alb
ject and Degrading.
Chicago Tribune

ject and Degrading.
Chicago Tribune.l
A recent number of The Pail Mall
Gazette contains an account of a form
of industry in London which is not only
unique in itself, but comes as near to
white slavery as it is possible to come
without actual ownership of the workers
as chattels. 1t is the dust business, and
in this business 1,403 women are en-
gagged who live in the heart of the me-
trOpolis upon mere pittance and sub
ject to regulations in comparison with
some of which the edicts of slavery were
merciful.
The dust contractors of London de-
liver their loads, taken from the thOus-
ands of bins in the city, into the dust
yards along the canals. The dirt is
piled in large heaps on their banks, leav-
ing just room enough for the women to
stand between the heaps and the water.
Upon the top of each heap boy or girl
is posted who shovels the dust into a
sieve held by each of the women. She
sits the dust and sorts what is left,
picking out the different articles and
sorting them into baskets at her back.
Kitchen utensils, broken glass, crockery,
rags, papers, bones, bread, and numer-
Gus other articles arc found. When
nothing is left in the sieve but cindtrs
and ashes the former are thrown to one
side and the ashes fall through on the
heap on which the woman stands.
When it gets so large as to interfere
with her work it is dumped into the
barges lying near by Describing these
women, The Gazette says:
''In summer, when the majority Of
dust producing Londoners are out of
town, and when the poor people do not
use much fire, the business is slack, and
in many yards the women work only
half time. The best time is when days
are dark, fOggy, and cold; then rich
harvest is brought into the yards, and
the woman rolls up her sleeves a little
higher than usual, thrusts an old sack
over her shoulders, puts on the lightest
pair of navvies' boots that she can get,
and plunges into her work. She is not
a picturesque spectacle as the rain drips
from her face and hair on the coal-crust
of her arms, leaving little rills of flesh
trying as the work may appear
to the uninitiated, there are few
female workers who can boast of
more robust health than these women
of the dust yards. Their features may
be swollen by drink, or brutalized by
immortality, but there are no sickly
faces to be seen among them, for weak
women could not stand the work. The
age of the duSt-woman ranges from IA
wears to above go. OF the latter there
are not a few, and the old ladies are the
liveliest of the party, raising with
pointed speech many roar of laughter
and approval Most of the women,
however, are middle-aged, with large,
increasing family at their homes, such
as they are. If there is a girl of 10 to
- among the children, the rest are left
in her care till she is old enough to be-
gin work in the yard; if there is no
elder child, the small children are put
under the care of another woman, who
is paid by the week.
In the Squalid homes of these women
whole families of eight or ten-parentS,
grown-up sons and daughters, young
children, and babies-live and sleep in
one room, in the foulest of air, both
within and without The women go to
work at half past in the morning and
quit at 5 in the afternoon, and then
"they come home to a room full of hun
CRY children, who all must be satisfied.
The husband also has to be attended to;
there are rags to wash and mend, the
dinner for next day has to be cooked,
and it is no wonder that there is but
rarely an hour left for the nee
essary cleaning" Sometimes the
women are allowed to take some wood
and cin1ers home, or they find an old
pair of boots or bit of cloth which they
can make serviceable, and they are per-
mitted to take these also-on the condi-
ton that they show them to the fore
man, who fixes price upon them and
deducts it from their wages!
1t is said by The Gazette that the
value of one of these large dust-heaps
before it is sorted averages between
$50, 900 and. $50, 900. 1t is a lucrative
business, for there is no expense except
in the collection of the dust, and the
wages of these women average about So
per week, or little more than 80 cents
a day for eleven hours of work as hard
coarse, and filthy as any performed by
the lowest class of laborers.