The morning call., 1894-01-20
A GOOD IDEA.

On Thursday and Friday next, January
% and January &c, an entertainment will
be given at StockwelPs Theater under the
patronage of leading society ladies to pro-
vide means 10 organize systematic at
tempt to afford relief TO uDem ploved
women. The present idea, which is of
course subject to revision, is to hire a
building where women without food and
shelter shall be housed and fed. Every
recipient of the hospitality of this build
ing will be expected to accept work if it is
offered on satisfactory conditions; those
who are not trained to work will be taught
laundry work, cooking. plain sewing and
such other work as women are fit for.
The ladies of San Francisco will be So
licited to seek the HELM they require in
their households from the ranks of these
women. The institution will, it is hoped,
become sort of registry Office, where fe-
male workers temporarily out of employ
ment can enter their names, specifying
what kind of work they can do; ladies in
quest of servants will inspect these regis
ters, and may supply their wants from
their pages.
This seems to be a practical plan to
abate an undoubted evil. The position of
the San Francisco girl who has 20 support
herself has al ways been an anomalous one.
From various causes, chief among which
is the competition CT Cinnamon, the girls
have allowed themselves 10 be elbOwed
out of the resource which furnishes live
hood 10 poor girls 10 other cities-domes-
tic service; at the present time house
holders are employing Chinese servants at
twice the wages which are paid in New
York or Boston. while girls are working
in stores for wages which hardly clothe
and feed them. The great bulk of the
laundry work in this city is done by Chi
namen; while girls who might earn a
living by doing it are either idle or are
working for a pittance so small that it is
pitiable to think Of it. This is not alto
gether the fault of the ladies Of the city.
Domestic service is Odious 10 girls who
have been brought up at the schools, and.
TO tell the truth, many of them have not
cared 10 educate themselves 10 perform IFS
duties efficiently. They prefer more
independent life.
Accident has now brought the anomaly
to climax No; only have large num-
bers of girls been thrown out of employ
ment by the curtallment of industrial
production, but in the wake of the male
tramps numbers of Eastern women have
come here in the hope of bettering their
condition. However badly they were off
in their olC home they now wish they had
stayed there. Their destitution appeals to
the sympathies Of all. Something must be
done To avert the deplOrable consequences
which want entails upon despairing girls
The first thing required is TO collect
round sum 70 hire house and supply il
with bedding and food. This is the present
objective of the charitable ladies VINO
have started the enterprise. They hope
that the entertainment they propose to
give next week will he of a character that
will attract audiences merely for enjoy
ments sake. The object should induce
many who cannot conveniently go to lay
in small stack OF tickets for their friends
1t is TOO soon as yet TO mention the fea-
TIRES of the performance. but it will CON-
bine a dramatic and a musical entertain
ment. in which perhaps some Of our gifted
amateurs. with whose faces the public
are unfamiliar. may kindly take a part
The more attractive The show is made the
larger the number of hungry girls who
will be fed.
Inc promoters OF tins enterprise have
an example before them in the Woman's
Exchange. 1t would be difficult to exag-
gerate the good which that institution has
done in its modest, unobtrusive way. A
registry office for unem ployed females will
aid to relieve humber class in the COM
munity; but it will be equally deserving of
admiration if it provides unskilled female
labor with work, and keeps the wolf from
the door Of the scrubbiug woman, the
washerWOman and the plain cook.