The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-11-21
SLAVES OF THE SHOPS.
London's Store Clerks Have Long
 Work Days and Bad Air.
London Express.

Some of the troubles of shop assistants have recently attracted sympathetic com ment from our readers-notably the dt- cree of a sternly sensible employer that hiI workers must deny themselves the joy ot love and marriage until they have saved a minimum of 8200-a sum that epi esents years of self-denial to the poorly paid dependent of the drapery counter But there are woes more pro- saic and real than those of the young nan who loves but may not marry. The report of the Select Committee, appointed to report on the early closing of shops, which has just been issued, tells sad story of grievously long hours of labor, insanitary conditions of work and of liv- ing, of toll that saps the hope and en- ergy of young men and women while af- fording the m little prospect of rising to comfort and independence. It would al- most seem that for the average assistant there Is no career possible. The clever est and strongest may have a remote chance of living through the ordeal of wage-earning days and gaining the posi- ton of masters and employers, but most of them are doomed to wear out youth and strength in servitude, drifting into other work when they become unequal to the strain of their hard life.
 Most of the shop assistants of London h six days of the week. and some of them as much as one hundred hours a week. more than sixteen hours daily! Figures are not in themselves impressive, but they indicate a picture of incessant, heart breaking servitude which it is pitiable to contemplate. Fourteen hours a day for work and seven hours for sleep-not an eXtravagant estimate-leave the toiler just three hours for dressing, for meals a nd for relaVpfiOn That iS n fhaFA is practically no time at all for reading, for exercise, for society, for correspond ence with friends, for any of the lighter side of life which alone makes life tol erable Even in the longest summer day the man or woman working such hours can seldom look at the sun in the sky, save from the window of the bed room, where the slave of the shop goes wearily to bed and rises wearily to renewed toll. Add to the grind of ceaseless labor the tainted atmosphere of the shop, dusty with the continual tramp of customers, vitiated with the burning of many gas jets; consider the burden of standing for hours together, the has tily snatched meals-always liable to Interruption by a sudden call to attend on waiting patrons the mental strain of constant endeavor to satisfy a watchful superintendent and captious public. and 1t will be easy to
 
 that have to be borne by the class re- ferred to.
 The committee makes some excellent recommendations; let us hope they may be acted on. It is suggested that town councils should be authorized to pass provisional orders, making such regula- tions as they deem necessary for earlier closing of shops, and that such orders should acquire the force of law by par liamontary sanction. Something of the kind is obviously necessary. The Volun- tary Early Closing Association has done excellent work in securing a weekly half holiday for many shop assistants, but it's efficacy must remain incomplete so long as the caprice of an employer may debar the workers under him from par ticipation in the scheme, and 1t cannot touch the larger question of the number of hours in the ordinary working day during which the assistant can be kept at the counter, or the matters of proper food, adequate ventilation, and satisfac- tory sanitary conditions. It is for par liament and the public to take this busi- ness in hand-one vital to the health of the nation and the efficiency of the race. We know only too we'll that the tenden- cy of the times is to attract workers from a healthy agricultural life to the harder toll of cities. It behooVes us to see that the vigorous young lives thus drawn into the vortex of city streets have a chance to remain healthy. The town cannot always be recruited from hn frNr