Evening journal., 1889-07-05
WOMEN WORKERS VICES.
THE HARD LOT OF MANY SISTERS
THAT SHOULD BE IMPROVED

Rena A. Mirliacis Points Out the Pressing
Neets-women in tho High Pressure
whiri Of Modern Workshops They Are
Less Favored Than Mem
''oh, girlsi am 80 tired. I wish were
deadm IL was Saturday night and the
speaker one Of bevy of young women pour
ing out of one Of those manufacturing estab-
lshments where women's souls are stitched
into mems coats for few paltry shillings a
day. A glance into the speakers face con
WINGED us that she was not one of that numer-
Gus class Of women who are SO pcrpetually
signing for death that it is source of won
der to their friends that they are not making
more definite preparations for that event.
The face Of the speaker, though still young,
bore all the record of laborious days spent in
badly ventilated rooms and without whole
some food for body or soul in brief, the story
Of a soul-a womans soul-struggling to
wrest from tight listed world the barest
subsistence for herself and Others All the
pent up weaiiness and discouragement Of the
week, and hungry longing, too, for some
thing better were expressed in the words
and tone as well as in the tensely drawn mus
cles Of the worn and weary face. Involun-
tarily our heart echoed the words Of Rlslsin;
'Woe unto the nation that malieth its daugh-
ters tiredm
EFFECT or HIGH PRESSURE LABOR.
Speed and not safety is the watchword Of
American labor, from a Vanderbilt to the
smallest manufacturer of one mans brain
and soul into another mans comfort
Truly we are not so utopian as to believe
that all this social machinery can be sudden
ly stopped and set in motion again in the
right way and at the proper speed. But who
ever reflects upon this characteristic tenden-
cy Of American life cannot fail TO see that
the ultimate effect must be physical and
| spiritual degeneration.
In basement without any means Of venti-
lation, and the air Of which was poisoned by
rancid oil, we saw young women working
with flying fingers, every thought and muscle
concentrated on the definite set of motions
that occupied them ten hours of every day.
Thousands OF women are each day employed
in a similar way. Work they must; that is
a necessity, a duty. But how many Of them
ever think that it Is a duty 20 demand better
conditions for work, and how many Of them
realize that rest is necessity Ia order to do
the best works
There is this important difference between
men and women as workers: When men
leave their shops and offices they seek recre-
alton or relaxation of body and mind Their
evenings are spent In rest or pleasure, or
both. AS rule the working woman does
another days work after 0 o'clock Starva-
ton wages compels her not only to make her
own clothing, but perhaps TO aid in making
the clothing Of the family. Sometimes the
family washing and ironing and baking must
be done after the days work Is done or before
/ ii Is begun. And when the Sabbath comes
the working woman finds herself too tired to
rest even, and If she be conscientious church
attendant her exhausted body refuses even to
| let her soul find rest in the service In the
case Of the laboring classes at least, the les
sened attendance upon the Sabbath service is
largely due TO this habitual overwork, rather
| than lax morals or loss of spirituality.
THE WRONGS or WORKING WOMEN
1t Is easy to point out evils; 1t is more diff
| cult to suggest practicable remedies IF,
however, there Is one thing which more than
another distinguishes what Is known as the
woman movement, It Ia the fact that intelli-
gent women are keenly alive to rhe wrongs
| of working women. It is too late for pressor
| pulpit TO ten thoughtful women that they
| ought 70 have no thought beyond their bread
or babies, while their sisters are seeking
refuge from starvation In cishonor or suicide
| They are not going to pass by tho sister who
has fallen among thieves. But righteously
indignant they are turning 10 the political
| economists with an emphatic why TO the
/ question Of unequal wages for equal work,
and they win not accept In reply evasion or
sophizn or anything short Of justice
Best and most effective OF al, women are
beginning 10 have more confidence fn women.
There was time when the American work
| ing woman felt that her well-to-do and intel-
ligent sisters had more interest In the women
Of Canton or Calcutta than in theft despair
ing sisters at homo Missions have now a
broader meaning. They are Synonymous with
humanity. Whoever suffers or is oppressed
or is kept in moral or spiritual darkness,
whether in Canton or Chicago, the same Is
my neighbor. That IS the spirit Of modern
missions, and not so modern, either, since it
was the spirit Of the subnmest missionary
sermon ever preached to man.
Emerson marked a widedilference between
the thinking man and the man thinking 1t
is the woman thinking who goes to find her
sisters In the crowded manufacturing rooms
and marks the effects Of the foul air, filed
with the poisonous breath Of men stepped in
whisky and tobacco. 1t is woman thinking
who foresees the inevitable results upon our
national character Of this inccssant, nervous
strain to which working women are sub
iected. 1t is woman thinking who notes the
fact that the majority Of working women are
not only dependent upon themselves for sup
. port bat also have others dependent upon
them, and Epging this, 1t Is woman think
ing who turns TO Carroll d. Wrght's ex-
hausttve report on labor statistics and reads
there long lines Of average wages paid for
, tho game work to ''malen and "femaIen
workers.
! It is woman thinking who knows that we
cannot hook % state or church for the correc-
! ton Of these evils The working woman
} must know that beneath even silken robes
are beating sister hearts keenly alive to every
wrong that cTipples and destroys the lives of
sister women The brotherhood OF m&u has
its true, effective complement in the sister
/ hood Of woman. Wherever women work
other women must know the conditions un.
der which they work; and wherever there is
: wrong to be righted or an evil to be de
Q stroyed let women remember that the walls
I Of more than one Jericho have fallen to the
J sound Of many voices impassdoned for purity
) and justice.-Rena A. Michaels in Chicago
News.
The Highest Volcano.
The highest active volcano in the world is
1 "a