The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-01


| obtained permission TO go through the
rooms in which competitive examinations
for postoffice vacancies were being held
three or four weeks ago. The time and
place OF holding the examinations had been
advertised in the daily papers and would-be
photographers, cler&s and sorters-tlis ast
lower grade of service we're promoty on
hand. There were not many plic;s t. fill,
less than fifty all told, but the candidates
reached nearly 600. One of the civil service
examiners told me that there had been oc-
casions when more than 1000 women ap-
| Piled for 100 vacancies. Near SOD of the
girls were applicants for sorters' places,
| sorters receiving u shil!ings week wages
ard rising by promotion in time to 20 shlll-
ings.
TypeSetting is etter trade for a woman
proportionately in Englnpd than in Ameri-
| ca. That is, it paws her better relatively to
wages in other trades. A woman with
| nimble fingers makes from 81 to 25 sailiings
| a week. but before she comes into receipt of
| any such income she must serve an appren-
ticeship lasting from three to four years.
| Printing houses require a premium, some
| times large, som times small, before they
| take a girl apprenteaCe, vino earns no
| wages for the first six months and very lit
| tie until the expiration of her time. The
length of the apprenticeship tells very heav-
| lily against families with little money but
daughters to a trade.
There is no business in which an English
girl can engage the returns from which
vary so much as in the case of dressmak
lag. A family of artisans, for instance,
who wish to make a drassm1ker of clever
girl IN her teens, must first save the money
| for the apprenticeship premium, which at
| no good house will be less than $3.50. and is
quite likely to be $50. THIS sum, paid
down in adv lnce, covers the apprentices
board and lodging, but is none the less hard
% raise for that, and iuSures her living in
me house of her employer, where she works
much longer hours than if she went home
1t night. DressmakerS' apprentices serve
-lree years. Sometimes they receive
mall salary for the last year, sometimes
2othing for the entire period There is
tourth years probation as lmprover, dur
~ which the earnings are very small.
ine fullfedged hand, under ordinary cir
instances, earns about o15O year with
BOARD. Good Nouses sometimes pay 500.
Hhs young woman who leaves the house to
hcn she was articled at the end of her
&c m and works by the week outside may
arm shillings, as | found one dressmaker
with two children to support doing, or she
nay average 10 shillings, or with good
3atronage in good neighborhood, she may
make FL a week or more. 1t all depends.
these are the rank aud file of the business,
CttS ST6dG ultSS Oh LDuIOh uIcSSIudh0IS. u6
EXCEPTIONAL dressmaker, who is an artist and
designer, who has such an education as to
sHter into the art revival of the day, and
originate dress ideas in harmony with it,
nay become foreman and earn 3200, like
ne college girls and society women who
axe up the business, may become the fash
ion and make fortune Possibilities f II
them are not possibilities for the average
London girl brought up in a London back
street.
Englishwomen show considerable in
5enuity IN finding new occupations for
themselves under the new social conditions.
| nave found about half dozen at work as
hairdressers for ladies and children, and as
many as photographers, succeeding especi-
ally with pictures of b lbies and young chill
lren. The business of the trained nurse is
lot yet overcrowded, but the number of
applicants for training increases SO fast that
vacancies in the London hospitals have
! Deen rare things for two years. Trained
urses do not earn moro than l guinea to
Suineas week, except in infectious cases,
md often not that, a large proportion of
| them being permanently attached to hos
| ital stats at salaries of not over $50
| year, anu sent out to private cases by the
| hospital, not receiving the wages them
selves. The woman masseuse has come into
| existence here, and the demand for her
| services increases. There are two or three
| NOIlleu Cu6lllISUS III 1OuUOn, anu several
| are now studying in pharmaceutical
| chools. Art branches of one sort and an
| other are, as in America unreliable. Women
| try wood carving, painting on glass, stain
| ing glass, decorating china, ETC., but all
these things are overlooked and afford no
| reliable income. There are some women
| engravers, but not many. Women are try
| ing to raise fruit for sale and canning, but
| The past summer has been so wet as to dis
| courage many who had embarked in such
| schemes. Women with capital let hackney
| coaches and go directly into trade quite as
| vigorously as in America.
The lack CT training stands in woman's
way at every turn. The great middle class
is an immensely conservative class. and it
| has hardly yet made up its mind that it is
| quite the proper thing for its daughters to
| work.
| When the need of work comes upon
| them, as come it certainly does in this coun-
| try where incomes are steadily contracting,
where the family property goes TO the boy,
| aud where the girl, being one of 3,000,O 600
| too many, very likely, cannot marry, they
| are in sore straits, with no industrial re-
source, crowding the occupations which are
| most easily learned, and cutting one an
| others threats by underwriting wages
| There are two distressing spectacles, both
common in E gland. One is that of fam
| lily of splnster sisters whose parents could
| not think of permitting daughter of theirs
| to go out" all dependent on the wages of a
brother, who is thereby hindered from mar
rying. The other is the sight of the same
| sisters, or others like them, standing about
| in a labor market, which they don't under
stand and in which nothing that they have
been taught to do will yield them more
than starvation rates. While she has so
many of them, England must bring up her
girls to business. For my part l think l
shall emigrate
ELIZA PUTNAM HEAToN.