Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1891-09-05

at the noon hour wandering bare
headed through .the streets, their beg
carly. garments covered with cotton
lint Those who are not barefooted
wear heavy clogs without stockings,
and they will kick shins with any
rough in Liverpool for a pot of beer.
Many cargoes of damaged cotton ar
rive here. IL is sold by auction to "a
class of dealers who dry 1t and prepare
it second time for the market. Two
or three thousand of the hoodlum
class of young women sort or .'pick"
this stuff in filthy noisome pens. The
employment is not steady, and they
get what the renovators have q
mind To pay; all the way from
4 to 10 shillings per week. These
girls and women are about as respect
able as men would be under like cir
cumstances drink gallons of beer per
day while at work, clubbing their
pennies for its purchase: ferociously
beat those who do not drink fair" 7;
and live in any manner they may;
there being absolutely no effort on the
part OF any person or society 10 better
their condition
Plain cooks in houses, restaurants
and the common grade Of inns, will
earn eight shillings per week A gem
eral house servant receives six shil-
lings A housemaid, nurse and wait
ress combined, who Is regarded as the
highest grade of house servant, may
receive eight shillings. Charwomen or
scrubwomen receive three shillings
per day and breakfast, that is, tea and
bread and butter, and they may pos
sibly secure two engagements per
week. Washerwomen are very glad To
earn altogether ten shillings per week,
and perhaps their assistants may get
from shilling to one and four-pence
a day, and tea" or three ha'p'worth
of bitter" which translated means
three cents worth of bitter beer.
Girls in tobacco, confectionery and
stationers' shops will receive from four
to six shillings per week; and wait
resses in restaurants, considering the
severity and hours of their labor, are
the poorest paid of all. Many of these
girls are required TO serve meals in
gentlemens' chambers and in Offices, at
all hours, after the manner of the
Havana coolie cantineros, and are sub
ject to- all manner of insult which they
endure with dogged bravery and
CHEEKY invulnerability emitting them
to be regarded as real heroines in any
other land.
But what may be the amusements
and diversions of the Liverpool lowly?
drink. drink, and scamping" the
rents. Not all are drunkards. Most
of them are regular drinkers. The
horror of 1t all is women predominant.
From Saturday noon until II at night,
and again from Sunday noon until 10
at night, excepting closing hour be-
tween half past and o'clock, in the
bar, smoking rooms, 'snugs' and par
lors of each of the about , 900 licensed
public houses of the city and environs,
an average of fifty persons may be
| found in all conditions of "cheeriness'
and semi-consciousness. That will ac-
count for about 100000 persons | do
not know how often these gatherings
will wholly change their personel, but
| ] believe a quarter of a million people
in Liverpool drink whenever they can
get il, and that one-half of that mum
Der are confirmed tipplers and drunk
ards The homes of most of these are
bare walls and squalid belongings.
The public house is the only cheerful
place they know in their lives Rent
collectors assert that over 10000 OF
such families scamp the rents" that
is, get possession of any sort of habit.
alton and re,nain rent free until
warned out or thrown out by bailiff.
There is not in any ten leading Ameri-
can cities as much actual squalor and
beastly hopelessness as may be found
in this one. And yet nearly every one
of this class does something and earns
something here. Whatever may be the
purchasing power" of money in Amer
lea, il is a good thing to remember that
American laborers are not yet the sub
! jects OF such studies as these
EDGAR l.. WAKEMAN.