The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-02

this is a luXury Dinner is meat anC
 potato, helped out on some days witt
 a morsel of pudding, on others by al
 extra vegetable, Every day has its fixed menu, and a London shop assist tant could tell you what that menu
 would be on any given date six months
 hence. SteWs and resurrection dishes
 relieve the monotony of hot roast beef cold roast beef; hot roast mutton, cold
 roast mutton. Supper is generally an
 abomination
 Of course, there are meals served in
 the clerks quarters Sundays, but they
 outshine in badness even those that are
 served during the week. and proprietors
 get the credit of planning this with the
 idea that the wretched assistant" will
 spend part of his slender income out
 rather than grapple with the fare at
 home He generally does, and the I proprietor chortles and saves money. This proprietor does not have much
 trouble with grumblers, however bad a
 table he sets" The reason is that he lines his people two shillings sixpence,
 or sixty-two cents, a grumble. The
 chef is commonly surly and independ- ent;ne knows that in scrinlping poli- cy he has his governor" behind him,
 and the "help'' know it and suffer in si- lence
 In London shops work begins at about half-past eight o'clock in the morning. When 1t ends depends on the district in
 which the shop fourishes. In the swag-
 ger west end" business Is over by sev-
 en, not on account of any special hu- l I1,,a a,,tt hut +rS
 light the shop after that than it's trade
 brings in. In an industrial district the
 shop may close at nine, ten or eleven,
 but carefully gathered statistics show
 that on an average, the London shop
 assistant works eighty hours a week. With worklike this, coupled with the
 indigestion that follows on the heels of
 bolted food, and the whole procession
 of complaints that results from under
 heated rooms, 1t is small wonder that disease is rampant in the shops. Some times there are epldemics in the ''liv- 1 ing" quarters of which the health au- | thorities, however are kept in blissful l ignorance.
 There is doctor attached to the shop who has the reputation of cherishing Fl ClodilN ullIpcltlly lO OlaGll lll5 dIl sistant to knock off, for day, though they seem hardly likely to play pos sum" when certain of being docked for every day lost. In these shops one of the help can be i'll in the house for a week. Then his friends must take him away. All his medicines must come from the store doctor, and he cannot |even consult with his private physician. There was one case of young man who had come down with hard cold. The doctor visited him and servant brought him beef tea and other invalid foods, but no nurse was got for him. One night his rawlings were so terrible that his bed mate fled from the room in horror and called for help. When it came they found the sufferer out of bed, but after tussle they forced him back and sent for the doctor three times. He did not come, and the boy died in the midst of his terrorized chums. The records are brimful of stories as pitlful. For instance, there is in London a former shop assistant hobbling about on crutches, who might now have been sound and fit if human ity had occupied the bridge in the shop where he worked. He had an attack of influenza, and although his home was one hundred and eighty miles away, they turned him out after he had been i'll in his dormitory for the allotted pe- riod of week III as he was, he trav- eled to the railway station nearest his 1 home, and then drove eighteen miles to reach it. He never got out of bed for | the next four years, and when he did l get about anything like active work 1 was out of the question. Tn another shop young woman was taken i'll, and ] asked leave to consult her physician, It was denied, and she was left to the | tender mercies of the "store doctor" After pottering a while, he ordered her sent to the hospital, where she died less than a week after admission.
 A woman who has seen service In the London shops says that in one of them she remained only fifteen weeks. In that time three girls had been obliged to give up on account of illness. The speaker worked with sixteen others, and | reports that of them one was anaemic, )ne had varicose veins, one had chron- c cough, one chronic headache al suf- 'ered from lassitude and four often lost heir voices through weakness. One girl, who had fainted away with ex- laustion but who an hour after was pack at the counter again, showed this witness her feet, which were blistered rom long standing and said she had lot been ble to bathe them for three lays, as there had only been enough water in their dormitory for ordinary 
 To the assistant who is to live in, the london employer is able to offer a sal ny that would be absurd were 1t not for he impression conveyed at the same ime that it Is so low simply for the eason that the employe will be lodged nd fed free. Yet in the event of the ssistant being discharged at any time, e could draw months salary in lieu f notice, but not months board and odging. Critics of the 'living-in" sys- em do not hesitate to declare that it is | ne of the best paying departments of he stores in which it exists. The em- lover tells his assistant that his board | osts him (the employer) three dollars
 Week-a sum that otherwise, in uheo- ' it is estimated that many mployers, by practicing economy, real / pay about half that sum and pocket f he balance. In some eases the clerks I., l,1,J 1,lr 4rtn