Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-01-26
WORK FOR GIRLS.
TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT FOR "Ex-
 TRAS" AT GOOD WAGES.

Well Paid Situations Going Begging
 During the Holidays-Great Demand
 for Smart and Pretty Young Ladies'
 An Objectionable Feature-The Law.
 Nearly all large New York retail houses hire extra employees for the holiday trade. Nine-tenths of these ''extras' are women. They arc hired as clerks and cashiers in dry goods houses, stationery stores and confec- tionery shops They are kept busy from the fortnight before Christmas until the week after New Years day.
 Inquiries among leading firms show that no less than 3O,O00 young women have got temporary employment at good wages dur ing the holiday season, and that several thou sand more could have found similar service. The number of these holiday "extras" eIn ployed by individual firms range from 150 to 1,5OO. They receive better wages than regu- lar employees i'll similar capacities.
 During the season girls working as extra hands have been paid from $9 to s13. 50 week. Regular wages for the same services are from $S50 to $12.50 week. Even at the advanced figures it has been almost impossi- ble, several leading firms assert, to obtain the kind of "extras" desired. One large house estimated that their holiday business had fallen at least $15,O00 short of what it would have been if it could have engaged as many acceptable girl clerks as it wanted. The su- perintendent verified this statement by pointing to a score of "want' advertisements which the firm had inserted in the daily pa pers for fortnight He added, however, that the trouble was not lack of applicants in number so much as ill kind.
 NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS.
 "What particular qualifications must the girls haveT'
 ''They must be able to make change, add simple figures, remember prices, dress neatly, be agreeable, and, above all, have good looks The last particular is the one ill which most of the girls arc lamentably deficient You may smile, but good looking shop girls have great deal to do with trade at all times, and especially during tho holidays. You will always find the biggest crowds in the stores which have the prettiest girls. It is just like artistic show window dressing. People will go where they can ree beauty if it doesn t cosS chem anything extra. This is cold, hard business sense. Don't you suppose that the average man would rather be smiled on by a bright, handsome, stylishly dressed young woman than be transfxed by the frigid stare of prim, persimmony feminine person, with false hair and rasping voice."
 "Ycs, but ill the dry goods trade the cus- toners are principally womcn," was sug- gested.
 My dear boy," the superintendent replied, 'you have lots to learn about the psychologi- cal order of shopkeeping. Women shoppers are just the ones above all, strange as it may seem, for whom we arc more anxious to have pretty girl clerks. Here is the secret The average woman hates nothing in this world so heartily as woman who is better looking or better dressed than herself Yet there is nothing she will go around the block quicker to see the sly. Tho average woman also likes nothing better than a chance to domi- neer over some other woman. In the pretty and often stylishly dressed shop girl she has Q passive victim. The better looking and better dressed the girls, the more jealously they will be eyed by women who call them loud, braZen creatures, while furtively' talk ing notes for future use from the fashionable attire of tho girls.
 AN OBJECTIONABLE FEATURE
 'One objectionable feature that attends the hiring of girls for their attractiveness alone must not be lost sight of. The most success full shoplifters in this city are those who arc in league with saleswomen. Our losses from that source are incalculable, and shoplifters working with saleswomen are rarely caught But so great IS the benefit We derive from the pretty face, that we cheerfully put up with whatever loss attends it."
 ] In many of the large stores large number of shop girls from H to 16 years of age were noticed, who looked pale and languid, plainly showing the lack of healthy out door exercise | Tho society for the suppression of vice ha. made several attempts to restrain the large firms from employing girls, but as the law specifies that girls willing to work cannot bt molested, the efforts of the society have failed. The assertion of the society that tit influences which surround the girls are de l moralizing in the extreme and units then for household duties, is not combatted by their employers, who, however, declare tha girl who is compelled to earn her living cannot find better way to do so than 'clerk
 ing" in store.-New York Commercial Ad l vertiser.