The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1891-05-25
WOMEN OF FRANCE.
The Most Powerful Trade Corporation
In Paris.

Inc MOS5 POWef1ul lr1ue corporation
In Paris. .
It is estimated that Paris expends 120,-
600 francs per day on laundry work;
quarter of century ago the daily bill
was only one-half of that sum. Linen
warehouses are the best money-making
concerns in Paris. The humblest family
in France, if it has not every day a table
cloth, every member OF the family Will
possess at least meal-napkin. And to
think that Marie d. Anjou, in the fifteenth
century, possessed as an exceptional
luxury only two chemises. Romorantin,
near Blois, 40 miles from Paris, was
forty years ago one of the most backward
villages in France. In its vicinity Paris
needle-woman sought refuge to die; her
health improved; the firm tor which she
worked when in the city sent her down
work embroidering handkerchiefs and
making under-linen of every descrip-
ton. She engaged and taught few girls
to assist her, and this only brought her
more orders. The neighboring Mayors
established workshops, and nuns onyned
industrial schools; instead of .erding
cattle, barn-door fowls, and working in
the fields and vineyards, every girl for
miles round became duly seamstress.
A Paris firm has workshop to-day in
Romorantin which employs 400 girls, be-
sides 1000 who are given employment in
their own homes. They make chemises,
the highest priced. The localities had to
refuse the army contract for sheeting for
the soldiers beds because of lack of
hands. With all the ability of the female
population in and around Romorantin
they have never been able to make up
gentlemen's chemises to suit the Paris
shops, although the best laundry maids
of Paris have been sent down to give in
struction. The firms have thus been
obliged to give their laundry work out to
the city and suburban 6Ldnchfsseases
where many of the best 'ironers'' are
men, as the ablest house maids in Paris
belong to the male sex. The average
wages of work girls in Romorantin is
from francs to q francs per day; many
do not draw their wages only every
three months. a cooperative store Sc
cures them the necessaries of life of good
quality and at a minimum profit. Schools
have been established to teach young
girls sewing and the making up of linen.
AT IL years of age they are examined for
present to obtain permanent employ
ment.
The high rate of mortality among the
shop girls in the monster shops of Paris
six per CENTS largely due to premature
vital exhaustion from being unable to sit
down throughout the day. One firm ac-
cords the female assistants permission to
sit, instead of leaning against the shelves
behind the counter. SympathiZing la
dies appeal to their sisters when shopping
not to take up the assistants time exam
lining and pricing goods they have not
the slightest intention of purchasing, but
prompted solely by curiosity to give this
unconscious trouble. The majority of
shop female assistants are worn out at
forty years of age. Then they are trans
ferred to the sedentary department of
needlework, where the wives of the shop
men are chiefly employed. The shop as
sistants are now nearly all enrolled in a
syndicate of their own, called the EN-
ployes of Commerce. It's benefit fund is
swelling rapidly, and firms send hand
some donations to it from time to time.
1t is the most powerful trade corporation
to-day in Paris.
Seventy years ago shopmen-females
were not then employed-were the Turks
head for all the ridicules and jokes. They
laid themselves open to satirical attack
Although Waterloo had been fought and
won, the shopmen concluded that the
military spirit of the nation was incar-
mated in them hence their swash-buck-
Ter dress, spurs, troopers boots, white
milk and coffee swallow-tailed coat
Scribe mercilessly ridiculed them and
baptized them Gdticots-from their hand
ling calicoes, and sobriquet that still
sticks. Dreadful rows took place at the
Vaudeville Theater, but Louis XVIII.
connived at the satire, so the play was al
lowed to proceed, and every night two
policemen with loaded muSkets had to
be placed at each side of the stage to
shoot down any rioters who attempted to
mount there.