Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1892-12-24
MISERY IN SWEAT SHOPS.
Results oi the inquiry made by the Mouse
Committee.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2S.--The suh-com-
mittee of the House manufactures commit
stce investigating the sweating system has
closed the testimony taking. Several wit
nesses from Brooklyn and New York were
heard. II is said by them that the evil had
been lessened in Massachusetts by . rigid
enforcement of state laws. In New York
the contrary was the case, owing IN a meas
ure to the fact that the officials charged
with the enforcement of the law were no,
paid employees, AMI accordingly were not
as attentive TO their duties as those in Mas
sachusetts.
Secretary Chas. Relchers. of che Gar
ment- Workers Union, recommends a sys-
TEN of registry. license and inspection, and
the legalzaion of labels. He said tina,
nearly all the small clothing dealers who
now thrive by the sweating system subscribe
annually to the Hebrew immigration fund
and each emmigrant receives in Europe
enough money from this fund to meet the
requirements of law AMI keep him from be-
ing returned, These Hebrews, said Mr..
Rvlchers, are brought over in drovcs and
given places in the sweat shops.
A large storm overcoat which retails at
81 10 was exhibited, and testimony by Mr.
Reichers was given to show that 10 person.
were employed to make all its parts, ( r
which each received his proporuopate
amount of i5 cents after the profit of TIA,
swea,-shop proprietor had been deducted.
One witness sail he knew of eases in
New York where clothing inspectors hal
been bribcd by sweat. shop proprietors. and
he intimatcd that arrests would follow
shortly.
Chairman Warner of the subcommittee
said today of the results of the inves,iga-
tons made in Chicago, Boston and New
York. that the human conditions of the
sweating business are practically identical
in the three cities. In Chicago the sweat
shop quarters are less crowded, but the
business is carried on IN disgusting, rotten
frame buildings, and the liability to con
tagious and epidemic diseases is MS great az
in New York. In Boston this liability is
even greater, because of the more limited
area covered.
ain New York" said Mr. Warner, 'thc
streets are. as a whole, much better paved
and cared for than in Chicago ani the tcne-
ments are much more spacious an atfOrl
more breathing room than in Boston. While
the tenements in New York are, on one
hand far more like human hives than those
In Chicago and Boston, they are more
recently and soil ily built and, therefore,
on the average less squald and uncomfort
able.
''As to danger of coniaglon there j.
equally little distinction. In Chicago we
saw the scarlet fever signs posted up whore
the sweating system had been carried out
saDd in a neighborhooa where it WAS still
being prosecuted. In Boston we stumbled
into proximity with the disease i'll . room
while the household manufacturing Of
clothing was going on in another room that
opened into the same CORR lor. In New
York We found poor wretches working un
der 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"
whist is the general result of your in
vestigaiionl" was asked.
ave have replied Mr.. Warner, "veri-
fed, not merely as instances, but as u gen
eral condition, the worst that has been al
legged, with one exception we have met will
no proof of immortality, and speaking for
myself, have the greatest respect for th
maniness and womanliness of the Pc rs0n
employed"
Mr.. Warner said that he personally saw
little of the employment of children. Chill
dren. however, in every condition of fit
and health swarff1ed in most of the shops
In one shop Mr.. Warner saw two men wori
out with Is hours of toll preparing to sleeI
on bundles of made-up goods without br'
clothing and without having cleansed thei
persons or changed their clothes.