The advocate and Topeka tribune., 1892-08-24

stands for hundI ed like her own. She averages
$500 week. Pays $3.50 for. her room; for break.
fast she has cup Of coffee; lunch she cannot
afford. One meal day is her allowance. This
woman Is young, she Is pretty. She has "the
world before her" Is It anything less than
miracle II she ia guilty Of nothing worse than the
"early and imprOvident marriage" against
which mOraliSts exclalm as one Of Che prolific
causes Of distress Of the pOorP
=
have aimed to set down few dry facts
merely. They carry their own comment. Back
Of the shop with its weary, grinding toll, the
home in the tenement which It Is said In a re.
port Of the State Labor Bureau: "Decency and
wOmanly reserve cannot be maintained there
what wonder so many fall away from virtue?
Ofthe outlook, what2 Last Christmas eve my
business took me to an obscure street among
the West Side tenements. An old woman had
just fallen on the doorstep, stricken With paraly-
SiS The doctor said she would never again
move her right hand and foot The whole side
was dead. BY her bedside, In their cheerless
room, sat the patients aged sister, hopeless
cripple, in dumb despair. Forty years ago the
sisters had come FIVE In number, from the north
Of Ireland to make their home and earn living
among strangers. They we're lace embrolderers
and found work easily at good wages. All the
rest had died as the years went BY. The two
remained, and, firmly resolved to live an honest
life, worked on though wages fell and fell as age
and toll stlffened their once nlmble fingers and
dimmed their sight. Then one Of them dropped
out her hands palsed and her courage gone.
Stil the other tOlled on, resting neither by night
or by day, that the sister might not want. Now
that she, too, had been stricken, as she was
going to the store for the work that was to keep
them through the holidays, the battle was over
at last. There was before them starvation or
the poor house. And the proud spirits of the
sisters, helpless now, Quailed at the outlook,
These were old, with life behind them. For
them nothing was left but to sit in the shadow
and walt. But Of the thousands who are
travelling the road they trOd to the end, with the
hot blood OF youth In their veins, with the love
of life and Of the beautiful world to which not
even 60 cents day can shut their eyes-WhO Is
TO blame II their feet find the paths Of shame
chat are always open to themP The very paths
that have effaced the saving "lmit," and to
which It is declared to be inevitable that they
must In many instances resort" Let the moral
lSt answer Let the wise economist apply hls
rule Of supply and demand, and let the answer
be heard in this city Of a thousand charities
where justice goes begging.
Here is mere glimpse of the life
Of the poor workingwomen in single
city. The sad story might be cou-
tinued much more in detail did space
permit. We might add to the fore
going the experiences and obserVa-
tions of that brave little woman, Miss
Nell Nelson, a correspondent of the
Chicago Times, who, clothed in the
garb Of a working girl, sought and
obtained employment in many Of the
manufacturing and mercantile estab-
lishments in Chicago in order to learn
for herself the life Of the working
girls of that city. The story would
be but a repetition OF that of Mr..
Riis. We might also refer to the re-
cent Investigations of B. o. Flower,
editor of the Arena, of the condition
in the city of Boston. Every great
city in all this broad land, could the
conditions of the working girls be
brought as clearly to light as have
those in New York, Boston and Chi
cago, would confirm Congressman
Simpson in his sverment. Yet in the
face Of all these facts, the Republican
stand up for Kansas" crowd deny