Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-11-04
OUR FACTORY GIRLS.
They Are Far Ahead of the English
Girl I'm EverythinE.

Girl In Everything.
'sYou watch the girls as they come
out this noon and compare them with
the girls that come>out of an English
factory and you will see what differ
ence American restlessness, American
equality, education and wages Make
said the manager of New England
mill to me recently. IF you aren't sat
isied with your country it is because
you don't believe in giving the masses
any chance
So watched them as he had suggest
ed. Most of the young women had hats
trimmed with considerable taste. They
wore bright shirt waists, with collars
and neatly tied bows, and skirts of
good quality of cloth. Some of them
had capes, some boas, and they looked
fresh and healthy, as if they had enough
to eat and were not returning home to
an ale-house brawl. In England they
would have worn shawls over their
heads and a dirty gown of the cheap
est stuff. They would have returned
home to bread and cheese for supper
and maybe glass of beer.
If you had shown the group of Ameri-
can girls that I saw to an English fac
tory manager, he would have said that
they must have come from seminary.
If you had convinced him of the truth
he would have said: What do factory
girls want such things for? 1t doesn't
help them to work, does it?" To this
there is the reply: what does anybody
want such things for? Why does any
body want to be happy?"
Nov, I'll tell you another thing"
said this American manager. do you
know that these American girls do
more and better work than the English
girls? There is sense of discipline
and pride about them. You never see
them intoxicated, though it is very COM
mon to see women drunk in an English
factory town. There are 10000 factory
hands in radius of five miles in this
vicinity, and there is only one pawn
shop. I should like to know of an area
similarly populated in England that
hasn't ten pawnshops.
English factory girls go to a pawn
shop every pay day and get out their
clothes and all valuables they have.
Then the poor creatures go back on
Monday morning, after their Sunday
night ale debaud1, and put them in
pawn again. When we have been lis
tening to the talk of foreigners we
Americans wonder sometimes if we
have anything to be proud of. I tell
you these factory workers are some
thing to be proud off,
If the English factory girl reads at
all it is the cheapest and most objec-
tionable of fiction papers. If she ever
goes to a play, it is of the lowest
and cheapest variety. The Ameri
can factory worker goes to the theater
about five times as often as the Eng
lish girl, and selects plays of superior
class. 1t is a mistake to suppose that
all factory girls read Laura Jean Lib
hey; they don't. There has been a
great change in this respect in the last
few years. Every factory town has its
public library, and there the factory
girl finds a better class of books.
/ went into a library at one factory
town and found that nine-tenths of the
readers there were actual workers, and
that the library did not keep Laura Jean
Libbey- There are factory workers
who get as much pleasure out of our
best works of modern fiction as the
sons and daughters of the rich.
And then the factory worker in our
country does not consider himself de-
PeHueHt DelnS. AS rule, ne is an own
er of real estate and a depositor in
the savings bank. Give him work, and
in the majority of cases he saves money.
Girls do not consider it hardship to
work in well ventilated factory over
clean loom. Manyof them would rather
do it than to clerk. Often the father
and his two or three daughters and two
or three sons all have places and to-
gether earn $40 or $50 week At this
rate they soon have enough saved to
buy home. This is more than a thou
sand generations of their ancestors
nave accomplished.
1t is not uncommon for two or three
persons in a factory workers family
to have bicycles. A factory worker in
England with bicycle would be Gu
ciosity.-Philade1ph Press.