The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-03

This slogan has been made famous by
 the National Consumers League which,
 actuated by humanitarian reasons, mas
 fought to modify the unnecessary hard
 ships incident to Christmas shopping. For
 two weeks before Christmas most de
 partment stores do a capacity business
 and the pressure is intensified at every 1oint Authentic records from the lives of clerks, delivery boys and wagon driv- CTS show that as a result the season or
 Christmas festival and of charity for the
 lame, the halt and the blind reduces to
 illness and exhaustion the young and 1 faithful who serve us seen and unseen l A kind of meanness in human relations was witnessed by Miss Johnson, an en- | uurer for the Consumers Leagues who l worked in one of the stores during, the week of Christmas good will. Her ac- , tuat experiences are told in q volume entitled Making Both Ends Meet by
 Sue Ainslee Clark and Edith Wyatt. of which the McMillan Company is the pub fisher.
 The rush" had begun when Miss John
 son was transferred in this Christmas
 week from the necllwear to the muffler
 department on the first floor of one of the cheaper stores. All the girls stood all day long-from eight to twelve and from one to eight at night on the first days; from one al noon to ten and eleven
 at night as the season progressed; and.
 on the last dreadful nights. from noon to the following midnight. The girls had
 B cents supper money. Except for that all this extra labor was unpaid for. The work was incessant The girls were nervous hateful. spiteful with one ano- ther. The manager a beautiful and ex- tromely rough girl of nineteen, swore con stantly at them. The customers were
 grabbing, insistent, unreasonable from
 morning. from evening to midnight Be- hind the counter with the advance of
 the day. the place became an infernq of nervous exhaustion and desperation Nln the two weeks of Miss Johnson's service one customer once thanked her: and one tipped her five cents for the rapid return of parcel. Both these acts of consider aton took place in the morning. Miss Johnson said that this was fortunate for her, as at one word of ordinary consider ation toward the end of her long days
 work she thought she must have burst into tears
 There was little bundler in the de- partment, Catrona Malatesta, as white,
 hungry looking little North Italian of fourteen with a thin chin, and a dark shadowed worried face. She had an adored sick sister of four. besides six other younger brothers and sisters. and
 worshpped mother. to whom she gave every cent of her wages of three dollars
 and half week An older brother, a cay aborer, paid the rent and provided
 food for all of them. Every other fam ily expense was met by Catrona's three
 dollars and half a week, so that she vas in the habit of spending only five
 cents for her own lunch, and on the
 nights of overtime five cents for her
 own dinner, in order that she might take home the extra thirty cents: and every
 day she looked winter and older.
 At the beginning of the week before Christmas the store raised Catriona S wages to four dollars. Her mother told her that she might have the extra half dollar for herself for Christmas Though Catriona had worked for some months this was the first money of her own she had ever had. With pride she told the department how it was to be spent She was going to surprise her mother with a rev waist for Christmas. wair. Catri-
 ona had seen in the std | down
 to 49 cents. A ten per 7 scount was allowed to employees q, that the waist
 would cost 45 cents. With the remaining five cents Catriona would buy her sick Rosa doll All her life Rosa had
 wanted a doll. Now at least she could have one.
 On the day when she received the
 money, Catrona kept it close at hand in
 little worn black leather purse in a SllGpDA ndS HdHtlut iFoi1 ltT arm, ana
 not ont of sight for an instant. Her pur- chases were to made in the three-quar- ters of an hour allowed for supper The time Catriona consumed in eating her fve-cent meal was never long, so that even allowing for prolonged purchasine her absence of hour was strange
 Damn your soul, where in hell have you been all this timer the manager
 screamed at her angrily without glaneing
 at her, when she came back at last Catrona looked little more anxious and white than ever before. Her face was stained with weeping. II lost my
 purse, she said in a dazed. unsteady
 voice "lt was gone when l opened Inv
 bag in the lunch room. I've looked for it everywhere.'
 There was sudden breathless change
 in the air of the department. You could have heard a pin drop. aFh Well she continued suddenly. the minute Catriona was out of ear shot. "Im not 90 poor but l can help make
 that ,n Y S,s to"N dollar bl' from
 Ter pocket book. Every one contributed
 something though several girls went