The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1886-08-18
pooR WORKING GIRLS.
How Some of the ToiIers of New York
are Treated.

yet live on, he has but to investigate the
actural condition of the working girls of
New York, and by that time it will seem Won
derful that the rivers are not full of despair
| ing suicides. In one house live twenty-five
working girls, not all of one family nor all
of the same trade, and yet all belonging to
one sisterhood of suffering SO that the song
| of the shirt might with equal propriety be
sung of them all, as far as their misery is
concerned. In one room of this building
two young girls make their home together
| paying 80 week for room and alcoye,
and they join in the expense of living and
taking turns in cooking. They are machine
| operators ON saddlery and have labor heavy
anough to tire a strong man, running the
machines ten hours day. They are fined
if they are ten minutes late, but they often
have to stay over the time for closing and
for This they never receive anything. For
this heavy labor the girls are paid 81 day
of ten hours. During the summer they are
laid off !" frequently and the loss of time,
of course, falls upon the girls who thus do
not average So week the year round.
Harder still is the labor of the girls who
work at the government mail bags or ore
sacks. Three of the inmates of this house
work at that and their physical condition is
very bad. They are pale and wan and
'toop painfully, and suffer from weak sides
or backs, as do also the saddle workers.
The government gives contracts to different
firms for the making of the mail pouches,
and they used to get from 5 to cents
apiece, but now the price has been reduced,
and the sacks for which the girls used to re-
ceive cents apiece they now must make
for one-fourth of cent each. This work is
the hardest that can be done by women, as.
the material is SO firm and closely woven as
to require terrible outlay of strength to
drive the machines, and when the hens are
turned by the men they have to be pound
I'd by hammers to make them lie flat. Form
leaden tables used to carry the work from
the cutting room to each girl, but now they
must go to the cutting room and get their
own work and the loads are very heavy. In
one of these factories the ventilation is very
bad and the sanitary arrangements are SIM
ply outrageous, as there is no private room
set apart for the girls, and the foreman is
most brutal in his treatment of the work
girls. The utmost they can earn is $3.50 o
week. This labor is SO hard and straining
that girls cannot work at it long. A few
years at most and they fall by the wayside
and die, or grow weary of the toll and strife
and go to worse than death
The younger girls of families living here,
or sisters of those who work in the harder
trades either go to learn trades or else work
at paper box making, at which they earn
about $1.50 per week, or making pills for
druggists, which pays about the snme or
else as cash girls in stores, or Gaping and
labelling medicine bottles and packing pro-
prietary medicines. The labor in all these
different businesses is light, with the excep-
ton of that of the cash girls, which is a
strain that few strong men could bear under
the most favorable conditions, and when it is
taken into consideration the fact that these
girls are just passing the most critical
period of their lives, when good, wholesome
food, outdoor exercise and tranquil minds
are needs imperatiyely demanded by the
system, it is the cruelest burden to lay upon
them. The constant nervous strain, the
hurrying to and fro in heated, crowded
places, the seedlings and fear of fines, and
the improper food they get, let alone its in
sufficiency, makes it wonder one of them
lives through it.
There are number of other minor indus
tries which afford work for little girls,
among them fringe making This work is
not heavy, but it requires constant labor,
scarcely allowing the children time to eat a
bit of cold lunch in the middle of the day,
and this is very wearisomo. They wind the
fringe upon reels and pack it in boxes, be-
sides assisting in the making of it as they
learn. The pay begins with nothing, and
never reaches over 81 week for the most
expert. The fringe factories gave out n
great deal of such work as requires hand
labor, like the tufted chenille fringe, the
hand-knotted and the beaded fringe. The
fringe is measured into fifteen-yard lengths,
and the sewing silk and the beads or chenille
are all weighed in finely balanced pair of
scales. This is then given to the applicant
for work and is taken home to be done. The
applicant is told that she can earn up to $15
week If she becomes an expert. The work
is simple and almost mechanical, and full
of hope the poor creature takes it home and
finishes the first fifteen yards and takes ii
back, where it is weighed, and the worker
told that she has not used all the beads or
has wasted the chenille or sewing silk, and
finally she is told that the work is badly
done and that they can give her no more.
A demand for the pay at II cents per yard
is invariably refused on the ground that
they never pay for sample work. One firm
Is popularity supposed to get all its bead and
chenille fringes made for nothing. Still it
is necessary to have regular hands in these
places and they are paid from 81 to 81 per
week. The foremen III nearly all these
places seem to be men without hearts, fol-
they have never been known to do q kind.
ness to one of the workers no matter what
the circumstances, and they are only happy
4
when writing up fine. In many places
the girls feel sure the clocks are tempered
with and are set forward in the morning
md back in the afternoon for the fines for
ardiness and the extra value of their work
dter hours
The morals of the very young girls who
are thus set to work in crowds under
go great trial, and few are those who es-
cape scathless, for the talk and actions Of
those naturally bad exert great influence
over others, and girl needs unusual
strength of character and pure home intiu-
snce to enable her to withstand them. Add
to this the ever-grinding poverty, the nat
ural longing of every young girl for pretty
clothes and the perpetual temptations be-
fore them, what wonder they fall2
And whose the blamep
HOUSEKEEPERS