The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-03
LONDON SHOP SHOES.
The Living I'M system and Its En-
feet on English Clerks.

feet on English Clerks.
The living in system" as applied to
| England means that shop employees are
lodged and fed together at the employ
er's expense and are under his jurisdic-
! lion at night as well as by day. The
| grievances of the shop assistants who
have to live in begin with their sleep
| ing ROOMS. OF all the big London shops
| there are not more than one or two
| where every assistant has bed TO him
self or herself. The general rule is two,
and sometimes three, in one bed and eight
or nine in every room The rooms, too,
are about as bare and unattractive it
is possible to make them. Iron bedsteads
constitute the furniture. There are no
chairs, no tables, no cupboards. Every
assistant keeps his or her clothes in
trunk under the bed and if inadvertently
any article is left lying out it usually is
confiscated. 1t is against the rules to
have any pictures, photographs, or orna-
hents on the walls OF any flowers, either
in pots or vases. The girls are forbidden
| TO do any needlework in their dormitorisS.
Cold water and basins are supplied by the
| generous house, put the clerks have to
| get their soap and towels. If they break
| any article of furniture or crockery they
| have it TO pay for.
| No assistant is allowed to visit any
| other assistant in his or her room; none
| is allowed to receive q friend from out
| side anywhere in the building. But the
| hardest rule of all is that the clerk can
| not choose his bedfellow or fellows but is
| foraced to bunk in" wherever he is put,
and If his bedmates be of bibulous pro-
| elivities and come home drunk, or happen
| to have any disease. why, so much the
/ IL l..
| the same in the girls department as in
| the mems. There is a sitting room for
| the girls and smoking room for the men,
| but they are both always crowded to suf-
| location. and the assistant who would like
| to read book or write letter has no
| chance at all. 1t is one of the bitterest
! cries of what it's victims have dubbed the
white slavery" that there is no such thing
as privacy-that one is never alone
| Again, every assistant half suspects every
! other of being one of the firms staff of
| unknown spies. and they distrust each
| other accordingly.
Everybody must be out of the living
rooms by s O'Clock in the morning and
| in again by II at nightly y on Sundays.
| The living rooms are generally in q build
| ing in side street near the shop, and at
| the street door there is Cerberus who
| lets in the young men and women as they
/ arrive, up to the forbidden hour. when he
| door is shut, and if a girl has been de-
! layed in getting back it's 10 10 she will
| have to walk the streets all night unless
| she can find friends to put her up"
Just fifteen minutes after the closing
| hour the gas goes out everywhere. and
anyone who has a light later than that
| time is discharged. Not even q candle is
allowed. In most houses it is rule hat
| all rooms shall be unoccupied on Sunday
and most OF the assistants are glad to
| live up to it, but sometimes. when the
| seventh day happens to be rainy il comes
/ hard
No marriage is tolerated where living
| i'm obtains. II the firm gets wind OF an
| affection between a man and girl one of
! the two is promptly discharged. Such
| houses will not employ a married man II
! they know il. but sometimes they are out
wii:ed by men who see their better halves
only from Saturday to Monday There was
| an instance of young fellow who deceived
| his employers in this way for six Years,
| When discovered although he had given
| faithful service all that time, he was dis
/ charged instantly. II is another hard and
/ fast rule that none OF the male employees
| of these shops may vote.
The dining-room is usually darl one in
| the cellar not invariably free from cock
reaches. known in England as black bee
/ ties. The meals are served on long OIL
I cloth covered tables, bare of anything be-
! yond the essential implements of CASTRO
nGmic warfare AS a rule the food is in
| different, for the proprietor is constantly
| dissatisfied with the chefs efforts in the
way of economy and the bill OF fare hard
( ~ ever consists of more than three staples
| This proprietor does not have much
| trouble with grumblers, however Lad
! table he sets" The reason Is that he
! fines his people two shiliings sixpenee, or
sixty-two cents, grumble. iiie chef is
/ commonly surly and independent; he
! knows that in a scrim7ing oicy he has
{ his governor behind him and the
help know 1t and suffer IN silence.
In London shops work begins 1T about
/ $50 O'Clock in the morning When it
ends depends on the district in which the
shop fouFishes. In the swagger West
End business is over by Z, not on &C.
count Of any special humanity, but be-
cause il costs more TO light the shop after
4 that than its trade brings IN. In an in
dustrial district the shop may close ~ 2,
10, or II. hut carefully gathered statistics
show that on an average, the London shop
assistant works eighty hours week.
The London shop nan draws 2 salary
Of from $50 TO $225 year ia addition to
his board and lodging; the shop girl $40
year less. They have to be we'll
dressed. and their little income is drained
by all sorts of fires. to say nothing of the
small sums they often have to spend to
exc out their scrimped meals. OF course
there is a fine for every clerical mistake.
and the proprietor encourages those
whose business il is to ferret out such
slips by paying them a small gum for
every one they can locate.
The London employer who insists upon
/ his assistants living in defends the sys-
/ tenn on the grounds that it saves the
people" all the trouble OF hunting up
lodgings, and they are lodged and fed
better than they could be for the same
. amount expended by themselves The sys-
TEN itself is. Of course, growth of the
old custom by which an apprentice was
/ practically a member OF his employers
household. Five years ago a society was
formed TO abolish living in" and gener-
ally TO befriend the shop assistant. and it
has now about 5000 members This So
ciety hopes 10 accomplish its object by
Z gathering all the shop assistants in Lon
don-who number 700, o00-to its standard
but they don't come in great numbers.
for the simple reason that they despaired
long ago of getting any reform.
Women Fdkir~.
| Women are the cleyerest fakirs in the