Evening journal., 1908-01-13
WOMAN OF THE STREETS

In every land. in every cline, where
men are depraved and women weak,
are found the Daughters of Lilith.
The treatment accorded the de-classe
woman is paradoxical. With one hand
we push her farther down into the
black abyss of crime; with the other
we veil our bushes of righteous IN
dignation that such evil should exist
Economic conditions in America
make it more and more difficult for the
unskilled girl worker to remain virtu-
Gus, and yet we cast out into the uu-
derworld the girl who falls.
She cannot associate with the wives
and daughters Of the men who reap
fortunes from her underpaid labor-she
is not fit. But the man who offers that
girl $3.50 a week as a living wage, ex-
planning she is not expected to live on
it-that man is honored and respected
by society.
Down in the depths of New York's
lower East-side. that seventh circle Of
an inferno surprising Dante's vision Of
hell, found Hannah Weiss.
She is a Russian Jewess, just II. a
girl like any other girl. loving pleasure
and pretty cloths and the society Of her
fellows.
Hannah Weiss works in a dirty, lit
tie. fl-smelling Houston street sweat
shop from z a m. till D. m, for $3.50
a week.
She makes buttonholes in coats and
vests, 200 buttonholes a day.
There are 80 girls in. the shop where
Hannah Weiss works. and some of
them make as high as $40 a week on
piece work." These are now nothing
but machines, with lack-luster eyes
and yellow. parchment-like skins. The
ordinary girl has only been making
buttonholes a couple of years gets from
$3.50 a week to s..
How do you suppose these girls live?
Well. you win find Hannah Weiss
home on the top floor of a Delaney
street tenement. In a room IT as
big as a cell in bankers TO n the
Ohio penitentiary she lives with five
other human beings. Could that girl
invite her friends into that home, with
such surroundings? Certainly not So,
as a consequence of her youth and sex
she spends ter evening in a dance hall
or out on the street.
The lowest price at which a girl can
obtain board and, lodging in absolutely
respectable surroundings is $3.50, and
that is at the Young Woman's Chris
tian Association. which can only take a
limited number. Suppose the girl pays
| all her salary for board and shelter,
Where is the money coming from for
clothes, car fare. lunches. doctors bills,
and the hundred actual necessities of
life?
Visit the Haymarket dance hall, sit
through a session of the night court,
go to "Cairo" or look into the dance
halls and Sitting rooms" along the
Bowery and you will find the answer.
Vice is a repulsive thing. isn't It? In
theory. / mean. Actually it presents
q fashionable and altogether pleasant
appearance, at least. in New York
city.
Out of 20 women of the street haled
into court I could not find one half 50
wratched and deserving of pity as my
little friend Hannah Weiss Of the
Houston street sweat shop.
These were fashionably dressed wo-
men. Their eyes were bright, their
hair soft and silky and daintily Dress
ed. All nonchalantly paid fines Of So
and SO. Then the obliging judge turn
ed them back on the streets.
Judges, lawyers, settlement workers
viii tell you nine-tenths Of New York's
street walkers are daughters Of immi-
grants.
That's what we are doing for the i'm
migrant and his children. The major
ity of these girls parents are. respec-
able -hsTd-workng people who came to