The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-10

From the Survey.
 Shop early. Buy your Christmas pres ents early-early in the day and early in December That will be your biggest gift of the holidays to the workers be- hind the counters and on the delivery Wagons.
 This slogan has been made famous by the National Consumers league whicn actuated by humanitarian reasons. has fought to modify the unnecessary hard ships incident to Christmas shopping. For two weeks before Christmas most depart ment stores do a ''capacity business and the pressure is intensified at every point. Authentic records from the lives of clerks, .delivery boys ana wagon drivers show that as a result the season of Christmas festi- Wal and of charity for the lame the halt and the blind reduces to illness and eX- haustion inc young and faithful who serve us, seen and unseen.
 A kind of meanness in human relations was witnessed by Miss Johnson an ln- uurer for the Consumers league, who worked in one of the stores during the week of Christmas good will. Her actual experiences are told in a volume entitled s''Making Both Ends Meet by Sue Ainslee Clark and Edith Wyatt, of which the Macmillan company is the publisher.
 The rush had begun when Miss John son was transferred in this Christmas week from the neckwear to the muffler department on the first floor of one of tine cheaper stores. All the girls stood all day long, from s to 12 and from 1 to at night on the first days; from l at noon to 10 and II at night, as the season pro- gressed and, on the last dreadful nights, from noon to the following midnight. The girls had 8 cents supper money. Ex- cept for that, all this extra labor was unpaid for.
 The work was incessant. The girls were nervous, hateful, spiteful with one an- other. The manager. a beautiful and eX- tremely rough girl of 19, swore constantly sat all of them. The customers were grabbing, insstent, unreasonable from lncrnins to evening, from evening to mid night Behind the counter, with the ad- svance of the day, the place became an inferno of nervous exhaustion and exas- peration. In the two weeks of Miss Johnson's service one customer once thanked her, and one tipped her cents for fthe rapid return of a parcel. Both these acts of consideration took place iu the morning. Miss Johnson said that this was fortunate for her, as, at one word of ordinary consideration toward the end of her long days work, she thought she must have burst into tears.
 There was a little bundler in the de- partment Catriona Malatesta. white, ahungry looking little North Italian of H. with a thin chin and dark shadowed, worried face. She had an adored sick sis Fter of 1, besides six other younger brothers and sisters, and a worshipped .mother, to whom she gave every cent of her wages of $3.50 a week. An older brother a day laborer paid the rent and Fprovded food for all of them Every other family expense was met by Cat liona's S3 50 so that she was in the habit nf n,lx lunch and, on the. nights of overtime, 5 cents for her own dinner, in order to take home The extra 30 cents, and every .day she looked whter and older.
 Al the beginning of the week before Christmas the store raised Catriona' S wage to A. Her mother told her she might have the extra 50 cents for her self for Christmas. Though Catriona had wcrlzed for some months, this was the first money of her own she had ever shad. With pride she told the depart ment how it was to be spent. She was going to surprise her mother with a new waist for Christmas, a waist Catriona had seen in the store marked down to 4S cents. A 10 per cent discount was al- lowed to employees, so that the waist would cost 45 cents. With the remaining cents Catriona would buy her sick Rosa doll. All her life Rosa had wanted a doll. Now, at last, she could have one.
 On the day when she received the money, Catriona kept it close at hand, in a little worn black leather purse in d shabby bag hanging from her arm. and not out of sight for an instant.
 Her purchases were to be made in the three-quarters of an hour allowed for supper. The time Catriona consumed in eating her , cent meal was never long. so that, even allowing for prolonged purchasing, her absence of an hour was strange,
 'D-- your soul, where in hell have you been all this time, Catie?' the manager screamed at her. angrily, without glancng at her, when she came back at last.
 Catriona looked more anxious and white than ever before. Her face was stained with weeping. T lost my purse,' she