The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-20
HOW THE ro11ERs ARE PAID.
The Demands of the Bargain Hunter
Press Upon the Bargain Maker.
From Donahoes Magazine

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Did your minds eye ever rest on the
other women at the bargain counter? Not
the weary saleswomen or the motley
throng of bargain hunters, but the gaunt,
famished spectres in the background,
mute protest shining in their sunken eyes,
the fOrtitude of despair stamped on their
wasted features. There are among them
women bent with toll and years. mothers
with babes clasped to their breasts, young
girls entering on womanhood, and little
children forced from their play to add
their paltry earnings to the family fund.
They represent the great industrial
mass of women workers striving noblv
for self-support, and as little part of
blatant, staggering poverty making cap
ital, as of the well-to-do class greeGlly
chaffering over the counters for bargains
already paid for in human flesh and
blood.
In every large city there is a proper
tiOnate number of women with an insatia-
bic thirst for getting something for moth
ing. The injury they do to working
women is incalculable. They haven't in
tellect enough to compute it, or heart
enough TO care if they could; IS a general
rule, they are IDLE married women, who
find in trivial saving a sufficient excuse
for neglecting their children and house
hold duties, delegating their responsible
ties to Overworked maids-of-all-work.
This mild protest against the bargain
habit is the direct result of an incident
that came under the writer's notice A
few days ago young girl said to her (oh,
so wearily): Il am so disheartened
got work, but can't earn car fare at it. Z"
Inquiry elected the fact that she was
working in a well-known manufacturing
house, making wrappers for % cents a
dozen For the magnificent sum of less
than cents each this poor little girl was
expected to lay six plaits in front, ar
range the back in elaborate folds, run in
! gathered sleeves, finish off with frilled
collar, belt, buttons and buttonholes
They say you make good pay in there
when you get SMART she added; but l
| can't make one wrapper a day yet"
Granting that any woman could be
nimble enough to make dozen day the
good pay" still seemed to the writer to
be mythical condition, S5.70 a week
being hardly fabulous sum from which
to pay for board, clothing and incidental
expenses.
Il could get back in the factory" she
continued, "but the lint seemed to get
into my lungs and make me cough"
! There was no complaint in her voice or
manner. She was simply marshaling
! facts and reviewing her prospects of max
| ing living. She had tried factory life
and broken down under the strain; weak
! lungs are rather handicap. She ad-
mitted this in a resigned, thoroughly dis
heartened way, more pathetic than tears
On taking up the paper the following
! Sunday the wrappers were found con-
| spiciously advertised at a figure that
might have astonished the reader only
for that glimpse afforded into the inner
workings of the trade
The wistful look in that girls eyes, and
| the pltiful culver about her mouth, would
! have made any woman with a womans
! heart forever renounce bargains and
| firmly resolve to help turn every bargain
| counter in the country upside down
| Such resolution carried into effect
! would be productive OF more goods than
| all the Upotian schemes for controlling
and reforming the polls Women are
| wasting energy clamOring forsufrage, de-
manding widening of a sphere that would
| be better contracted till every individual
| case of suffering and wrong existing
among their sex came directly under
| notice, and so nearer to a happier CON
dition Of life.
She-I want to ask favor Of you. win
you 81 ant it,
] 90