Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-03-07

LWSuty"LWO una LlrC0sQudrCeT weeks OL actual work, or $S-O3 for each week in the period. Moreover one in four of these women had helper in her work. 1t Is we'll known that these home fin ishers receive froxf 5 to ' cents for finishing coat or pair of trousers and that they can finish" only one garment an hour. Hence to make even 6S cents day they must work steadily between nine and ten hours a day, be- sides which they are obliged to carry the garments to and from the contract or's shop, being frequently detained there to wait for their work and final ly they must take time to perform their regular duties as housekeepers. 1t will therefore be seen that the home finish CTS work unusually long hours.
 Mention has already been made of the fact that $79 represents the aver age six months earnings of home fin- isherS and their helpers. The 722 fe- 1 male finishers had 195 helpers, of whom 32 were husbands, 5S relatives or grown up sons and daughters and 105 minor children. It Is probable, howev- CT, that more children than that actu- ally rendered some assistance, as par ents realize the prejudice against child labor and hold back mention of the l same Of the 1O5 child helpers none was under eight years of age, although there were 634 children below that age in these families; were between eight and twelve years of age out of total of 3o5 in that class; 12 were between twelve and fourteen years of age out of total of 121 children in that class; 24 were between fourteen and sixteen years of age as compared with 147 in that class, and 62 were between sixteen and twenty -one years of age as com- pared with 241, most of the remainder being engaged in outside employments With such outside work of husband, children, etc., the average six months earnings per family were $249, which was increased to $261 by the receipt of money for board and lodgings.
 Small as are the earnings of the home finishers they were superior to the in come of makers of artificial flowers. The average earnings of sixty women, nearly all Italians, engaged In this trade in the first half of 1902 were only $7O, and in earning this amount the sixty women had flfty-seven helpers.
 In view of the low wages paid in this trade 1t is worthy of note that all of the workers reported that they were employed directly by manufacturers and not by contractors, who by some persons are looked upon as superf1uous if not oppressive middlemen.
 The average number of weeks xx1rrtnd hrYf 1ET 1o .Iyorc in the first six months of 1902 was twenty and three quarters, and of the 823 women twenty-two and half weeks. The majority (4O7 of 722) of the women who did finishing" worked more or less steadily throughout the en- tire twenty-six weeks, the average number of weeks worked by all having been twenty-two and three-quarters. Twenty eight of the sixty women who made artificial flowers worked every week in the season, which includes a few weeks at the close of 1901, but twelve worked only seventeen weeks out of the twenty-s six and thus reduced the average time for all to nineteen and three quarter weeks.
 The average age of all the male home
 
 certained, was forty-six years. None was under twenty-one years of age, and thirteen were more than sixty years old. The average age of female home workers was thirty-seven years. This was also the average of the home finishers, while the artificial flower makers averaged only thirty three years.
 Of 158 male home workers 6o were Germans, 25 Italians and IS Americans. Most of the Germans reside in Brook lyn. Of S52 female home workers 515 were Italians, 166 Germans and 136 Americans, other nationalities being feebly represented. The predominance of the Italians among makers of arti- fcial flowers was especially marked.