The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-07-02
TuE POOR OPERATIVES.
The Women and Children Employed III Fac
toricS-I:ili Arp Writes of Theu-fhe
Crowded Workshops and FoiS-
onous Atmosphere.

L
sewing women of Boston are not so
bad rs the Georgia factory girls IN the
Century, bat the description Of their
miserable condition is worse and
arouses the most intense pity and IN
dignation in the mind Of every reader.
Is it possible that such inhumanity to
helpless women and children is allowed
in Christian land? We do not know
Fletcher Osgood, but he seems to be
well accredited by the publishers OF
that great Boston paper, and as the
scene laid in Bost0A we take 1t Tor
granted that be has not overdrawn the
painful picture. The head line says
Starved aud Hopeless Lives"
Mr. Osgood has been investigating
and tells us Of sixty contract shops in
Boston that are operated by Russian or
Polish Jews in the manufacture OF
ready-made clothing. Their work
rooms are in the cheapest old buildings
that can be found il the worst sections
of the city. Some of the shops are
reached by six or more flights OF stairs,
and are invariably foul with accumu-
lated litter and dirt. Rooms are crowd
ed with toiling women and girls, with
here and there boy. The atmosphere
if,fetid and fatal to health. The workers
have 40 air Of suppression about them
such as characterizes Q gang Of prison
ers. The majority OF these workers are
Americans, their ages from seventeen
to thirty, but there were some women
of lifty-five aud some girls not over
twelve. They were poorly dressed,
many Of the faces drawn and haggard,
and the expression hard and sad. The
work hours are from ! o'clock in the
morning to IL tie evening, with
forty-fve minutes for lnnch at noon.
The most expert girls earn as much as
IS week IN the busiest season, but
their average wages are from s. to 81 a
week. The eXacting oversight Of the
bosses forces these workers to an un-
natural tension, and then there is the
fetid air, the abounding dirt, the forced
association of girls with men ofunclean
habits and filthy speech, and the low
ering Of the moral tone Of the families.
No girl is free to ''look up from her
work. and minute late loses her half
a day. But the girls can't stop, not
for day, to look for better place. II
they Go, they are boycotted, and can't
get work anywhere. Some of the
bosses have q way Of SLOWING the
clock so as to get extra time out of the
girls. The forei9ness are all filthy and
use bad Ian guage, and the girls cannot
escape it. Some Of the girls wo-'t tell
where they live. They are ashao1 ID to.
They find rooms in old dusty attics in
bad localities. They can keep up but
a few years at most, and then they die
of overwork and destitution.
This is an abstract of Mr.. Osgood's
sketch-of these starved and hopeless
lives-these human machines, whose
daily work is killing the body and
starving the soul-these creatures OF
God from whom "hope has whitening
fled and mercy sighed farewell" Six
!. ty factories in Boston--how many more
IN New York ard Brooklyn and Chi
cago and Cincinnati? Will history
keep on repeating itself? 1t is less
than fifty years since Tom Hood wrote
''The Song of The Shirt" and now in
cultured Boston it fits the time and the
place as we'll as when he said:
"Stitch, stitch, stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at orce with double thread.
\ shroud as We'll as shirt.
On God.that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap"
Women and children working as
prisoners work for crime, and no hope
of q better time coming!
When farmers feel thai they are op-
pressed they cry aloud, and thier wall
is heard from the Atlantic to the Pa
cific ocean. But the poor and friendless
are too weak to cry. They can't be
heard as far as the nearest church.
Compared with these wretched women
and children the poorest farmer IN Bar
tow County is prince, for he always
has enough to eat
And the sky is above his head.
And the Grass beneath his feet.
lie is freeman, and cringes not be-
meath The tyranny OF any man, much
less under the frown Of q Russian or a
Polish Jew.
Friends, Americans, countrymen,ca can
such things be and we be silent? 1t
matters rot where such suffering and
misery and found-whether in the
workshops OF Boston or the factories of
the North or of the South-let our phi
lanthropic men and women seek it out
and cry aloud and spare not. Georgia
has her trusted agents, who are always
guarding and protecting her prisoners
from inhumanity, but who is to pro-
tecs those who have committed no
crime? It takes great heart to do Il,
and comfortable homes will do it.
Illiteracy is not the question before
Us now. It is never the question with
the poor and oppressed. Slow, pitiless,
waiting death that Stares one IN the
face every day IS not concerned about
reading or writing. Bread is the first
thing. Good food, good clothing, good
shelter, some flesh, pure air to breathe,
some medicine for the sick and decent
burial for the dead come before books.
# many OF these Docr girls need reform
: - I,