Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-11-04
SALARIES IN NEW YORK.
The Beggarly Pittance Earned by New York
Clerks and Salesmen-WageS of Working
Women
Utica Herald.


! Comptroller Loew has announced that
! hereafter he will not pay any part of a
clerks salary to the loan broker, who have
| so long fattened on this kind of usury,
says New York letter to the Utica Her
aid. The pressure to which salaried men
are subject makes them incessant borrow
ers, and after they have run in debt else
where as much as possible they apply to
the salary-brokers, a class which has
reached permanence, if not respeota-
blllty. Some of their number limit loans
to So or SO month, and find their Gus
toners In retail clerks. Others hang
round the postoffice and city hall and deal
out large sums but the best pickings are
found at the customs-house, where most
of the officials live month ahead and
pay large fees for cash advances. The
salary broker under such favorable cir
cumstances can clear $4,000 year, and
IN an easy manner on the shaves inflicted
on others. When a clerks wages are
mortgaged a month ahead he is so afraid
that his employer will find it out that he
pays in self-defense.
Secrecy, indeed, is of the highest i'm
portance, and hence all sush transactions
are advertised as confidential" This
fact has led Comptroller Loew to his de-
! termination to oppose the ruinous sys-
tenn. He will pay no more salary orders
to brokers, and if any order is presented
1T will not be paid until an explanation is
given why personal application is not
made. 1t is one of the common COM
plants among salaried men that they
can not live on their income. No Won
der, for New York salaries are very low
compared with expenses. Clerks in re-
tail stores get from So to S15 a week,
| and the latter is paid only TO the best
statesmen. Bookkeepers receive from
$500 to $1,000, though few ia
vored men in fat places get ST.
600 year. Situations in the post
Office at $500 are in great demand. and
clerkships in public Offices at $1,000 are
| among the spoils of party success. Such
berth, indeed, is often sought for by
bribery-that is, by paying So week
bonus for the appointment. Now when
you consider that a set of apartments
costs, $50, and that a fiat three stories
high rents from $50 to $40 month, it
is not surprising that salaried men should
be almost always in debt. There has
| been for several years a reduction in
salaries of all kinds, owing to severe COM
| petition IN trade. Among the poorest
paid class is the galemen at the elevated
road, who only get 81 % day and yet
| many of them are married. There is
great pressure, however, to get even such
an immense number of people in search
OF work that the very smallest salaries
are accepted.
| Multltudes of young men are now
! tempted to come to this city by the ad-
vert1sements for clerks, bookkeepers,
statesmen, and other help, most of which
is mere decoy. The object of the ad-
vertisers is to fleece the unWary, and they
find their most facile victims in country
| youths. Here is sample of some of these
decOys:
"A first-class salesman, of pleasing ad-
! dress, who can loan $1,000 on undoubted
security, is wanted to solicit orders for
an established firm. Salary 800 per
month, Or a liberal commission. Address
! Business, box-office.
"a partner wanted with S4OO. An edu-
Gated young man in the auction, real
estate, and store agency, letting and col
Letting rents. Apply to P. g., auctioneer,
-Bowery"
The sole object of the advertiser is to
get possession of the victims, and as this
can not be done in a direct manner
little trickery is necessary. The appli-
can't finds the ''business man" in an Office
where books are shown to prove the profit
of the proposed transaction, but after
the money is paid it does not take more
| than a day or two to reveal the fraud.
Every dollar that the victim has invested
is lost, and when he applies to the police
office more money Is wanted. The police
will not trouble themselves with such
matters without pay, for they know that
nothing will be got out of the knaves,
and at last the poor dupe will find him
self left to make the most out of his
costly experience. Such cases are oc-
curing daily, and this will continue as
long as the supply Of greenhorn5 is I'M
exhausted.
One bf the most painful features in
metropolitan life is the degradation of
women. I do not here refer to anything
of vicious nature, but simply to the
effect of extreme poverty. 1t is always
p1tlable to see the sex forced to unfemi-
nine employments, but it is a common
thing here. l have seen a woman cut
ting grass with a sickle in an uptown lot
in order to make hay for the winter sup
port of a goat. L have seen a woman
bring home a board from some demolish-
ed building and then try to break it up
for fuel by pounding it on the sidewalk
L
rying coal in a pail up three pairs of
stairs to her room in tenement house,
She had bought small load of this ar
ticle and was thus storing it away.
large part of the chifOniers or rag and
waste-paper pickers are women, and
what horrid looking creatures they are!
On the other hand a dealer in fashions
told me that there are hundreds and even
thousands of women who spend $4,000
annually on dress. 1t may be difficult to
imagine the feelings of this fashion wor-
shipping crowd, bu5 how much mere so
to imagine those of woman so degrad-
ed that rag picked from the streets is a
prize. Taking general view, New York
life is not favorable to woman. Among
the rich the idleness of luxury wastes its
victims into helplessness. while among
the poor one notices that disproportion-
ate degree of hardship which so often
stamps the countenance with fearful ugli-
ness. You can find the most repulsiye
creatures here that can be imagined,