The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-11

more experience.
What is true of coatmaking is the
same with pants and vests. Each
Workman attends to one particular
part of the garment.
How They Begin.
What do the boys do when they
first begin work."
Pull out hastings We keep them
at that for weeks until they get ac-
customed to the confinement, constant
ly Sitting still. and all that. Many of
our employees take coats and pants,
already cut out, home to make up,
and little boys and girls, too, help
them there in various ways. when
quite small, indeed, maybe 7, maybe s
years old
They learn to operate a machine
readily and then they are easily taught
to overcast seams and to press open
the seams in garments that do not re-
quire special care
A Dispiriting Business.
Rows of stands or tables three or
four feet long are ranged across the
building and at each of these the boys
are stationed.
They are all in their shirt sleeves,
their hair is unkept and their faces
wear a wan, unchfIdlike expression.
They sit and stand yariously, accord
ing to the demands of the work they
are dong. Many of them, in their
abandonment to their occupation, have
permitted their suspenders to slip off
of both shoulders and bangle defect
edly about their hips
The office boy, the newspaper boy.
the errand boy, even the boy who
clerks in a store mas the use of his
limbs and some chance to indulge a
boys natural love of exercise. but for
these small tailors there is no such OPP
portuntty. They have sat so long
cramped up in that close, vitiated at
mosphere that doubtless many of them
have almost lost their normal desire
to run and shout and play.
The small coat-naker stoops perpetu-
ally over a monotonous and unlovely
task, except during that one hour when
he may eat an unsavory lunch in a dark
and chittered-up back yard. so dirty
and repulsive that the sun even shines
into it reluctantly
Sundays are halcyon DAYS for the
boy-toilers; that is, unless it rains very
hard or is bitterly cold. When the
weather is fine, they stroll along the
wharves and watch the shipping and
the sailors, visit the many places where
the men congregate, stroll through the
liveliest thoroughfares, play ball in the
street, and otherwise enjoy themselves.
for one day free from the trace-chains
OF labor and the argus eyes of that in
eXorable foreman.
Poor Prospects.
There is no hope of their rising to a
higher plane in their profession be-
cause they have only been taught it in
sllp-shod way calculated to please a
not over particular class of custom
They may rise to the rank of foreman
in some such factory as their own. and
shat distinction would be slight. in
deed, for more unprepossessing set OF
men than these self-same foremen ii
would be difficult to find.
A Fine Trade.
There is another class of tailoring in
which there is chance OF success, and
success of an unqualified description
That is the province of the merchant
! tailor who makes fine coats and suits
| to fit individual customers. A boy has
to work hard and long for success in
this line, however.
1t takes seven years of apprenticeship
to make even a tolerable mechanic
that is, a workman we'll versed in al
the various departments of garment
making. and much more experience
after that time has expired before HI
can take fine coat and make it out
and out, exact and perfect in every
respect.
Authorities state that even a thorough
mechanic cannot average more than IS
or 80 week the year round and that
owing to this slow-going progression in
the tailor trade. the American boy pro-
per is leaving the profession more and
more to his foreign cousins who are
conteLt with less wages. OF truth
the tabor boys in the factory shops
are nearly all of foreign extraction and
perhaps have inherited their trade from
their fathers.
For an artistic designers services the
highest prices are paid, there always
being room in the market for talent
and industry combined. The tailor
trade, in higher circles, is growing to
be more and more of an art each day
and wealthy merchant taiIors are on
the lookout for promising apprentices.
The trade schools appreciate this fact
and they are drilling hundreds of boys
in the rudiments of tailoring in order
to see whether they develop special
aptitude for the business The pupils
at these trade schools, however. look
much more happy, prosperous and we'll
cared for than the small unfortunates
! have tried to describe. If they are
happy it is in the face Of great odds.