Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-22
THE SWEATING EVIL.
Results of the Investigation Made
BY Congressional Probers.
WRETCHED STORIES VERIFIED.
HoW Disease Is Spread and Children Made
Beasts of Burden.
PHILADELPHIA AND CINCINNATI WORST

mittee of the House Manufacturers Com
mittee, which is investigating the Sweat
ing" system, this morning gave hearing
to several witnesses from Brooklyn and
New York. 1t was shown conelusively oy
the witnesses to-day that the evil was not
diminishing in any of the large clothing
centers, with the exception of Boston,
where the State laws have been so effectively
enforced as to lesson it to a great extent
PHILADELPHIA and Cincinnati were stated to
be the great centers of the country, where
the system was most prevalent and where
the conditions were most unfavorable, from
a sanitary standpoint.
Representative Warner, of New York,
the chairman of the subcommittee, who has
just returned to Washington, after thor
ough investigation of the working OF the
system in the cities Of New York, Cnlcago
and Boston. on being asked how the condi-
tion of New York compared with that OF
the other cities, said:
Mr.. Warmers views.
They are so similar as to be scarcely dis
tiuguishable. except as modified by the diff
fereut conditions of the several cities. In
Chicago, for example, this sweating busi-
ness is carried on in quarters where the
atreets are practically bottomleSs and the
buildings are rotten and disgusting, as we'll
as inadequate and untitled for human occu-
pants These buildings are generally frame
and two stories in height with Easements
generally below the sidewalk. Hence
there is nothing like that possibility OF
crouding there would be in quarters more
closely and substantially built up The
conditions of the sweating industry there,
ity to contagious and epidemic diseases as
great as in New York. In Boston, the in
dustry seems to be carried on exclusively
in extremely old but fairly substantial
buildings in the most crowded quarters, so
that while the municipal conditions are bet
ter the result is an even greater liability to
contagion in the more limited area covered.
In New York the streets are, as whole,
much better paved and cared for than in
Chicago, and much more spacious and az
ford more breathing room than in Boston.
While the tenements in New York are, on
the other hand, far more like human hives
than those in Chicago and Boston, they are
more recently and solidly built, and there
fore, on the average, much less squalid and
uncomfortable. The human conditions are
practically identical, aud the general result
varies only by essential and local condi-
tionS."
Local Authorities Powerless.
"What do YOU find to be the attitude of
the local authorities?" was asked
zone of prompt cooperation in every
case, and one of frank admission that the
evil was beyond their power to handle.
"As to dangerous contagion there is
equally little distinction. In Chicago we
saw the scarlet fever signs posted up,
where the sweating system had been car
ried on, and in q neighborhood where it
was still being prosecuted. In Boston we
stumbled into room with the disease,
while the household manufacturing of
clothing was going on. 1t was not occupied
by the same family, but it opened upon the
same corridor. In New York one of the
most typical instances was where we found
poor wretches working, under the most
filthy conditions at 10 o'clock on Sunday
night, when in the next block to them the
typhus had broken out only last summer.
"The members of the committee arrived
here yesterday" continued Mr.. Warner,
land expect that they will complete the tax
ing of testimony to-day, and then it will make
its report at the earliest possible moment. "
''What is the general result of your in
vestigation?" was the next question.
As Bad as Represented.
1--WE have" replied Mr. Warner, "veri-
fed not merely as instances, but as a gen.
eral condition, the worst that has been al
legged But, with one exception, we have
met with no proof of immortality, and
speaking for myself, 1 have the greatest re-
spect for the manliness and the womanliness
of the persons employed. From the testi-
mony taken, we find repeated instances
where, at 9 and 10 o'clock at night, the
operatives were still continuing their
work. They had begun their work at or
A. NJ. and the so-called Sweater or boss
worked along with them, bringing work for
them the next morning 1t was not unusual
to find eight or ten people with their
machines, tables, etc, crowded into II by
Is foot room. In the majority of the cases
the living room of a family was connected
with the shop, and garments flushed and
unfinished were scattered about indiscrimi-
nately.
''Ot child labor 1 personally saw but few
instances, but 1 did see little girl about s
years of age at $50 in the evening dragging
along a bundle, which she was physically
unable to carry, and acting as human ex-
press for the transfer of goods. Children in
every condition of filth and health swarmed
in most OF the shops. In the last one we
visited everyone had gone except two worn
out fellows, who had made pile of the
bundles of goods ready to be made up, upon
which, without bed clothes, they proposed
TO sleep without change of the filthy condi-
tion OF their persons or their clothes. The
sweater and the 'sweated' perfectly agreed
as to the mIserably low wages paid.