The morning news., 1888-09-24
WOMEN WAGE WORKERS.
TRADES UNIONS AMONG THE
WHITE SLAVES IN LONDON.

Movement They Have Started-A So
cietv of Seven Hundred Women
Who Work for ST. 80 Week-Book-
Binders, shirtmakers, Dressmakers
and Tailoresses Who Are Organized
and Well-Known People Who Help
Them-Work at a Penny an Hour in
the East End.
copyrighted 1887
LONDON, Sept. 12-"No. dear lady you
had spoke up for us, and we want goin'
back on you"
assembling place
Through Old Ford and Tiger Bay, thread
ing squalid streets suggestive of garrote-
robbery and East London tragedy at every
turn. in pitchy darkness, broken by the
glare of lamps from public house windows
pelted by the dismal downpour of dogged
British rain; up a dingy court where the
houses leaned to meet one another over
head; up again ragged staircase to the top
of a tumble-down building, into a large
bare room filled with eager women's faces
Women gaunt, ragged, with kercAiefs
knotted loosely about their thrOats and hair
straying into their eyes. Women young,
pale, thin underszed; girls who have not
eaten meat once month in years. W omen
older, whose youth was spent under better
co dltions stronger III health more vigor-
Gus, more resistant Women rough-look-
ing and rough in tone one and all, but not
without a certain directnesS. frankness
and an intelligence of their own, as If some
thing might be made of them under whole
some life conditions.
Two or three of them are talking at once,
and they address woman in a gown of
some soft, gracefully fitting yellow stuff
VINO sits at little table. She is a woman
with fine intelligent face which bears IN re
marks of pain than of joy. Londoners cali
her that atheist, that alien t. all which
church and state hold sac ed, but here she
is as a queen IN her court, for this is Annie
Besaut, and the others are Bryant a. May
match girls, whose victory i'll their strike
la It month has given such an impetus to the
organization of workingwomen in Great
Britain as the trades have never seen be-
fore
1t is Monday night, the regular meeting
night of the newly organized Match Girls,
Union. There are nearly 700 names on the
Match Girls books and fully 500 Of the
number are packed into the meeting room
They are not collecting dues nor talking
over grievances tonight for this is jubilee
evening. Five minutes ago three poorly
clad but sturdy women went awkwardlY
down the aisle and awkwardly placed il
Mrs. Besaut's hands gold penholder and
pen, bought out of the earnings of girls who
hardly average shillings and 6 pence a
week, but zealously subscribed for as q
memorial of the fight that is over, the
union that is and the better times that are
to be.
One of them is speaking. She hesitates
and stammers. She never addressed an au-
dience before.
I'VE went to the 'Ouse NV Commons and
we told 'em we 'as robbed of a penny in
every shilling. Wemarched the streets and
we said as 'ow we'd never go back till they
stopped the fines. And they stopped enl.
They lad to do it. We'm got our pennies
We'm got our union. Wem got the biggest
union of women in all Hengland. Weain't
| got our wages. Some of you get shillings
| ha' penny week and some gets shilIings
tu' pence. Some get 6 shillings s, but there
amt one as gets over II shillings penny
We lived on bread and tea and maybs q
bloater for Sunday, an likely to 'av the
phooSy phosphorus jaw any day. But
we'm got our union. An now we want a
| 'ouse We want 'ouse where we can
| come o nights, where we can do our bit sew
| ing and our bit talkin' and maybe our bit
| sngin' and the like; where folks like the
( dear lady here" turning to Mrs. Besant
'can come an talk to us and where we can
| be real club to ourselves
Such a cheering and waving of handker-
! chiefs as followed. The match girls are
thoroughly walked up They have the
largest trades union of women yet organ
lied i'll London, and they are to have a
union headquarters With the money real
lied fran the match girls benefit given by
Grace Hawthorne at the Princess theater as
a nucleus, subscriptions are going rapidly
| forward, and the prospects are that home
for the union, where its business will be
| transacted, where reading room can bs
opened whore there may be a piano aud
recreation rooms, viii be built in East Lon
don before winter sets in.
The match girls, in helping themselves,
have helped all the working women of Eng
land. The organization of trades unions
for women is not new thing here Mrs.
Patterson, the wife of cabinet maker
started unions i'll several trades fourteen
years ago. Through her efforts were organ
iZed the Womeu's Trades Union Provident
League, which devotes itself to the forma-
tion of trade societies among women and
publishes the Women'S Union Journal as
its organ. Mrs. Patterson worked for
womens urions while she lived and since her
death building fund, now amounting to
g. ,000 has been started for the erection of q
memorial hall, which should be a good cen
tral office for the work of organizations in
! London.
The present secretary of the Women's
Trades Union League is Miss Clementiua
Black Miss Black Is II youcg and hand
Sc me Englishwoman of the best tyne of the
rosy, clear-skiuned, vigorous English breed.
She IS a forceful speaker and cultivated
writer, whose influence would make itself
widely felt in any work which she might
undertake.
Sitting over cup of tea-it is curious h ow
ones preludlceS against tea melt i'll this bar
barous scllmate-green England, thou art wet
| England, too-on u rainy afternoon, high
up above the noise of High Holborn, Miss
Black ran over with me the records of the
women's unions thus far formed. Through
the help of the league the women engaged
in bookbinding have been organized in
London and in Dublin. The women tailors
have been organized IN London, Dublin
Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Oxford.
Dressnakers, upholstresses, shirt and collar
makers and sewing machine workers have
been organized in London and Aberdee !,
Stay work has union in Portsmouth and
| hosiery has one i'll Leicester.
Of the WON sns trades unions in London
the oldest, and next to tine match girls, the
largest,.is the book binders. This was estab.
lished III September 1874 IL has 50J mem
bers and supports benefit club with a fee
OF shilling for admi sion, dues of pence
weekly and payment of shillings weekly
during sickness
Nart this in siza ,onae 4ba eh;rt aud crl