The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-15

anime the record of every girl at the
police station. If she has ever been
discharged you will find that fact there,
with the reasons therefor, and thus can
tell her character at a glance, without
resort to the farcical letter of recon-
mendation given by former employer.
LAS the system implies every Ger
man woman is an absolutely competent
housewife. She knows the business OF
running a house thoroughly. Young
girls of good family, after they leave
school, often go to some particularly
competent housewife, whom they pay
to put the finishing touches upon their
education in this respect. 1 knew one
such woman who brought up three sons
by means of taking boarders and of
teaching young women of good families
in the manner described"
The head of the trimming depart
ment of a big hat manufacturing es-
tablishment draped cloud of chiffon
round a sailor hat.
II don't see,' said she, to the New
York Times, why they don't write
something about the milliner's trade
when they write about all the things
that women do. They may talk about
pharmacy and patent soliciting and
landscape gardening and tapestry
weaving and pottery designing, and all
the arts and crafts they have mind
to for women
But the fact remains that woman
first faced the world with a needle-a
bit of primitive of construction at first,
perhaps-and it is still the weapon by
which the largest number of bread-win-
ming women keep the wolf at bay.
There are probably 10000 girls and wo-
men associated with the milliners
10 IN in
"a girl who comes in here" contin-
ued the speaker, "as an apprentice
learns first to put the underband on
the hattie band that lies next the
hair. She is kept at that till she
knows how to hold the needle proper
ly and her hand is light and familiar.
Meanwhile, she waits on the trimmer,
selects flowers and materials for her,
and so gets her first lesson in combin-
ing colors.
"This is the first stage, and 1t usual
ly lasts about three weeks. For the
first three months she gets no pay. Then
she starts in with $3.50 a week. If she
is good for anything, she gets raised
to SO in a few weeks. An ordinary
smart girl ought to be getting S. at
the end of the first year. She won't
get more than Sc or 81 during the three
years of her apprenticeship.
For two years she copies model
hats. These model hats are mostly de-
signed by the head of the department
This house, which sells to big whole
sale houses, will not import more than
one or two dozen hats from Paris in
season. The Paris ideas are too ex-
IRENE for the inland cities. The wo-
men generally prefer the American
styles At the end of two years the
apprentice is given materials and told
to see what she can do at designing a
hat. If she has the creative faculty in
her, it will come out. From here on
the success depends upon the individ-
uals. If they have no genius for de-
signing. you can't put it into them.
"At the end of her three years APP
premiership the girl goes as a trim
mer. If she is an ordinarily smart
girl she will get SIS her first season
out. People do not believe that the
trimmers get so much, but they do.
And what is more, a trimmer is never
without a position in any city in the
country. She can go East or West,
North or South, and she will always
| ind work to her hand. Sometimes l
| get tired of New York. Then 1 go
| to some city South or West and take
a position for the season, and in that
| way I've seen a good deal of the coun-
| try.
THE trimmer will rarely get more
than SIS her first season, for the peo-
pie want to see what is in her. But
if she proves a success she immedi-
ately becomes valuable to her employ
err, for women will go to the millin-
cry store where they like the work of
the trimmer, and proprietors know
when a woman has attracted business
to another store. Her salary will run
all the way from SIS to $35 a week.
"She has to dress we'll 1t is abso-
lutely necessary that her appearance
be not only neat, but stylish. But
there are no women in the world who
can make so good an appearance on
the same amount of money as millin-
ers. They all make their own clothes,
but their clothes never look home
made.
Men? Yes, there are a few men in
the trade in New York now. They sit
beside the girls and trim away just
like them. Strange to say, they are
invariably little men, both in their ap-
pearance and their ways. I never saw
one who was not. Yes, they seem to
do just as we'll as women. They learn
to handle the needle as we'll and make
their work at neat. That is all a mat
ter of practice, anyway. But / have
never been able to see that they were
any more artistic in the higher grades
of work. And yet a man will get 1876
for doing exactly the same work as the
woman who sits beside him and gets
$25.
There are a number of French wo-
men in good positions in the city, and
| yet not as many as you might support.
| They are employed more for the name
of it than anything else. Partisan
| trimmers carry prestige possessed by
no other But they are not superior to
| our best American women. If there is
anything in which they excel it is in
| the artistic blending of colors. In de-
| signing they are not better. A French
head milliner gets $40 to $45 a week.
I'm wholesale houses salaries for
head trimmers run as high as $65 a
week. In some of the retail houses on
| Fifth avenue they pay SIS, and there
are a few women in New York who get
| a salary of thousands a year and have
| their expenses paid for three months
of the time in Europe, where they go
| to buy for their houses. They are sure
| to be tall, stately, handsome women,
who always go elegantly gowned There
is no business in the world, excepting
| dress are so necessary to a woman as
! in the millinery business. Let two wo-
men go after a position in a millinery
| establishment and the one with the
stunning appearance will get it every
time. She may not be competent
enough to hold it, for competence tells