Morning journal and courier., 1890-08-16


 Perhaps the winter is the best season for this wit-sharpening game, but there are even in s'outing time" days wet and dreary when outdoor sports must be deferred and indoor amusements become suddenly desir- able. The word is an old one; the game was diversion of belles and beaux in Ad- dison's time, though probably not played in modern fashion, and Robert Burns spoke slightingly of his own rhymes as ''crambo clink" and ''crambo jingle" It will serve to amuse and possibly to awaken in some the rhyming faculty, though it is not prob able that the number of poets will be great ly augmented by this exercise.
 Each member of the company should write question, pertinent or impertinent and when these have been shaken up and passed around in hat each must draw one Words are then written, substantives and adjectives are generally used, and these are distributed in the same way; then rhyming answer to the question must be composed, into which the given word is introduced as dexterously as may be. Mrs Whitney's rule for doing this is to put it in as you would 'thrust pin into a pin cushion"
 This is the time of knotted brows and of fingers surreptitiously tattooing the sylla- bles, but when these productions are read aloud what laughter and applause follow, and criticism is unknown. Two samples are here given; one has been carefully kept in memory of the lively "Crambo club" whose members were scattered long ago; the second is souvenir of a recent visit to an ancient Massachusetts town, where blueberries abounded, and where in an old colonial mansion q merry company | spent a delightful week.
 Question. Are you smarter than every one elsei
 Word. Insanity.
 | You'll think am conceited | If do answer yea,
 l. You'll hint 'tis mock humility | If shall say the nay.
 | think I'll plead humanity Not competent to say.
 Question. Dost thou.
 Word. Blueberries.
 Do which, or do | how, or do whatshsnames Your meaning is, to say the least,
 | puzzle to my brain
 | Which fed on blueberries for weeks,
 Can hardly bear the strain.
 Ipray you, let me answer this, | Your question most obtuse.
 By Yankee way of answering,
 So long in common use.
 Dost thou suppose read the thought
 Of sister scribe, or brothery
 One question for the other
 GRINDING LIFE DOWN FROM ITS MARK.
 People who buy ready made clothing wondering at and congratulating them selves upon it cheapness, may not like te have their satisfaction in good bargain disturbed by revelation of the privatior , and miseries of those who make it. Blu the bliss of ignorance is not always bliss t, which we are entitled; it is the sadness O wisdom that inspires all effort for the re lief of suffering, or deliverance from op pression. It would not be possible fo clothing to be sold at such low rate , were it not that manufactures bu, materials in the largest quantities thei business will allow, the garments are GU by machines that enable one man to do tn work of twenty who cut by hand, they ar 3 then given out wholesale to contractors 3 who finish them in their workrooms top :, lofts of buildings or tenement houses i quarters where rents are cheap. One c
 these workrooms, described in the Ne,
 York Star, is situated on East Broadwa ss in the very heart of the foreign quarter l It occupies an entire floor of dingy an - foul-smelling building, twenty feet wide b @ eighty feet deep, the front being partition ed off to form the proprietor private of6c, thus excluding light and air from the ope F atives. In this department are forty sev @ ing machines, with man or woman t a each, and there are a number of oth.
 workers who sew on buttons, press an
 fold, or take the place of an absentee , It the machine. At all times of the year u 1t ventilation is terrible while the raw edg, a of the cloth and the continuous jarring the machines fill the room with fine woole 70 dust. In summer the air that comes frol l. the hall and rear windows is surcharge $ with presidential vapors, in winter, doc a and windows are closed ar the room heated by sms It stove kept at a cherry-red heat, and i T. this reeking atmosphere, so vile that l. stranger who looks in upon them mu
 suffer the penalty of sick headache, the
 people work all day long and often f
 into the night, and, to make matters st TO worse, they must even eat here their u 1t savory and insufficient lunches. " The average wages are $500 per wet is while the number of days unemploy
 often seriously reduces this rate. II d profit of making goes to the contractc le or, as the work people call him, ct d sweater" an expressive and ill-omen ,s name. Numbers of these are well to d 70 investing in east side tenements which p at in rentals dividend of not less than eig a. per cent, and which they often rent ,e snelr own operatives, 'deducting the re ;s from the weekly pay bill. The room ( ID scribed was occupied by cloak maker Is "only one regiment of the great army es men and women who live by the needle III The clothing makers of New York numb
 twenty-five thousand, and represent 's population three times as large; their co lg stant and painful struggle for the be