Wichita eagle., 1888-04-24
CHEAP CLOTHING.
LIVES OF WOMEN WORN OUT ON
READY MADE SUITS.
What 1t Costs to Put bargain" Price
Marks on Wearing Apparei-Dangers
of the "Slop shop Trade-A Business
Needing Ventilation,


The slop shop is the biggest thing IN the
cheap clothing trade, and the slop shop Keep
ers are the hardest tassmasters Of the poor
slaves Of the metropolis. Competition IN the
retail clothing business has brought this con-
dition of things about. Besides, the wnoie
system on which the manufacture OF cheap
clothing is carried on is as bad as 1t can oe-
and its continuance Is a menace 70 puD4lc
health anda danger to the general welfare OF
the community beside which the Inuch
talked of tenement house manufacture or
cigars is nothing.
There are comparatively few clothing fac
tories in New York Most Of what are called
such are simply shops where the eiota Is CUE
It then goes, each sort Of garment separately,
to the ''tailors, 50 called, who have TIER
shops all over the city, but chiefly IN the most
densely populated tenement house districts
ana in the very Sums One tailor VIII take
out hundreds or thousands Of pairs Of panta-
looms in week, another carries of the coats,
and the vests go somewhere else. II THESE
men or women have any shops at al they are
simply their living rooms in the tenernen5S,
where they hire girls 10 come for from MOTH
ing to q few dollars week and work al sew
ing machines making up the garments In
many instances rnen instead Of girls are hired,
especially on heavy work, but III either case
the people are crowded as closely as the ma
chimes can be put together, often four or i've
IN one small room where al the household
lives aud all the domestic work is carried on.
In these places. reeking with all tie vile
odors of the tenenents, with dirty CHI
dren crawling over the filthy floors, play
ing among them by day and sleeping upon
them at night, in an atmosphere in snort, or
dirt, disease and death, the garments are
finally made up. They may be finished
that is, have the buttons put on and the other
hand sewing done-in the same place. or this
work may be farmed out TO still more abject
slaves than those who toll over the machines
to women who are prevented by invalid
husbands, young children or other reasons
from leaving their homes, and who are there
fore obliged to take up for their work what
ever pittance the slOp shop barons Will dole
out to them and trust to charity for enough
more to staye off starvation. In the bar
rem rooms Of these lowest OF slaves
the garments have a chance to get
a new variety Of doors and disease
germs. Then they go, most likely, to the
buttonhole factory, where they touch shout
ders with similar lots from dozens OF other
tenement house shops, and when their own
odors and germs have thus been amalga-
mated with the odors and germs Of all the
tenements for half mile around, they go
back to the original slop shop, and thence in
the course of time to the alleged manufac-
turer. who sells them 10 a wholesaler, maybe,
from whom they go to the retailer, and after
all these different hands have taken their
toll the general public is invited to come in
and look at the wonderful bargains in cloth
ing.
Often they ere wonderful bargains indeed,
in spite of the numerous profits that have
been made off of them; but If they are cheap
it is because women have turned their sinews
into thread and their blood into sewing ma
chine oil in the making of them They are
aired and fumigated and cleansed, maybe,
before they are sold, but man in the bust
ness says: If people knew where those
clothes have been they would never buy
them
Philip LeidesdorF has been in business for
eighteen years. His brother is with him now,
and they have a buttonhole factory. They
take the work after those who get iG from the
manufacturers have made it up and put in
the buttonholes for SO much hundred.
''This tenement house work" he says, sis
the ruin of the clothing business, and worse
yet, its the ruin of those that work at i.
Some day people will wake up to what this
cheap clothing business means. Go into
some Of these tenementS and you'll find II
some of the little rooms q whole family liv-
ing, and three or four girls working at ma
chimes al day. They take the goods from
the tailors and make them up III the rooms
where they cook and sleep Why, they use
the clothes for bedding, even, If people
could see once the vile holes in which the
clothing Is made up they'd never buy any
any Of it. | wish they could see some of it
when it comes here TO have the buttonholes
put IL 1t gets aired and cleaned before it is
put up for sale.
THE way these people do is to get young
girls to come and learn the business. They
make them work SIX weeks for nothing, or,
maybe, 81 week for their work and they
pack Just as many of them as they can set
into one room, along with the children and
the cooking and ali the rest. That way they
make a little money for themselves at the
expense Of the girls, but it don't do them
much good, for pretty quick the manufac-
turer grinds down the price another peg,
and the more they grind the girls the more
the manufacturer grlRds them, until nobody
Is making, more than bare living. The
people that take the work out in the country
to do ara pretty near as bad Is the tenement
house people for prices but, OF course, they're
cleaner II it wasn't for them prices would
be 4 good deal higher in the city. New
York is tbs worst city in the country for
sewing women In Philadelphia, even, they
pay them a good deal better. Ibs al Oh ac-
count Of tins tenement house work, and it'll
never be any better TIL they pass laws max
ing it Illegal for mora than one Elschina 10
be pu: in an ordinary living room
There's another thing, said David Leidcs-
dorif, brother, and Il cholera CT any such
disease ever gets q start n this city people
viii find II out mighty quick These tene-
mene house factories would spread the dis
ease through the whole country I've always
said that if cholera ever got start in New
York I'd drop this business and get out right
away, and Id do 1t, too. They nave board
OF health and laws enough here, but I've
never been in a city Yet, and I've been al
over the world, where they allowed such
things as they do here. Ouly last winter. ct
a place IN a street. II ht near here, the chill
dTen in a family were sick of smallpox IN the
same room where the clothing was being
made UP and sent out every day. These PEG
pie dent have any more regard for the Laws
or for other peoples health taan they Do for
their own health. and if yoa have ever been
in any Of the holes where they live and worS
you know how little that Is Tais whole
businessof the manufacture OF cheap ciosaia.
needs showing up"-New YORK Sun
The Husbands Position
The husband who chooses TO make the ef
g. Sd - = 2.
wife full acknowledgment Of heT ildlvitU-