Year: 1874

/
generally winning The average wages Of
all the workmen in Massachusetts, are
S611.13 per year, and most of these work.
men are poor. II is said that it is because
they are drunken and improvident, but it
isn't true. The drunkenness is the result of
ignorance, aud the ignorance is the result Of
poverty.


Some time ago she got aboard a train in
the morning, which was loaded with work.
men going to their work. She talked with
Some Of them. They were going to work
where they got s per day. Out of this
they paid their board. When they went
home they found shabby home shabbily
dressed wife, and an empty lardcr There
were no books nor pictures, nothing to make
home attractive, and they had not money
enough to buy any. Was it any wonder,
then, that they sought the saloons, those
breathing places Of the bottomless pit which
we allow to tempt them on every hand,
where they would find jovial company, and
where for few cents they can buy the
draught which for the time makes them for
get their poverty, makes them kings2 Ex-
cept among the Catholics these people can
not attend church. Pew rents and dress
keep them at home.


Thank God the workingmen are organiz-
ing, not for strikes, but for cooperation for
purposes of trade and for mutual improve
nent, moral, social, mental. Thank God,
too, for the twenty thousand and fifty gran
ges with their million and a half of members.
These organizations will not only receive So
cial benefits but pccuniary ones. In Iowa,
two years ago, she saw the great baskets of
golden corn in tho dwellings, in the hotels,
everywhere, being burned for fuel. A
Massachusetts man bought corn there for
l0a cents per bushel and sold it in Boston
for II cents, and made only cent aud
quarter per bushel All the rest went for
freight. Those Iowa people are now organ
lied and get better rates of freight already,
while the California grangers do their entire
shipping independently, by their own line of
steamers.


But there is another class who are not
getting the benefits Of this organization, the
working women of the cities. They are not
only fighting the battle of money but Of pur.
ity, honor, virtue, godliness and they bat
tie against fearful odds, hundreds upon hun





Of sin and destruction. They need help as
well as men. There never was so great
need of help for working women as to-day.
Women are taught everything but work
how to earn money. There are industrial
schools for men, but not in the whole United
States an industrial school for women.


Money is raised to support the minister
by fairs, suppers, pew rents, &c. We are
asked to attend this or that festival, fair,
&C., to help support the minister. Some
time ago the Northwestern railroad took
away the half-fare tickets from ministers,
and a letter was sent to them signed by
scores of ministers thanking them for it.
They do not want to be supported, but claim
the right to support themselves.


But we talk about men supporting their
wives, and there is an idea that somehow all
the men in the world support all the women
in the world She remembered talking with
man who had acquired considerable means,
and in speaking Of the hard work he had
done he said all his labor had been sweetened
by the thought that he was getting the means
to support his wife. She asked him a few
questions. He had reared large family,





down. Besides, number of his workmen
had generally boarded at his house. He had
had "hired girl" part of the time, but
generally went without because they were so
scarce. She asked him how much it would
have cost him to hire all the work done that
his wife had done. He replied, at couldn't
be estimated" Here was a woman who had
done the work in a large family for many
years, almost entirely alone, and received in
return her board and clothing, and now her
husband was talking about having support
ed" her


The UHited States census takes the same
view Of the matter The men are classified
under various occupations but turn to the
statistics regarding women. We find four
millions assigned to various occupations, and
S,l5O,00O who are not reported as doing
anything. On writing to the census officials
to know what these S,l50,000 women were
doing, she received the information that
housekeepers were included. So housekeep-
ing is regarded by the United States authori-
ties as doing nothing.


Women are not aH0lOed to do the work
they might. She went to the proprietor of
paint shop and there got employment for
a young girl who did decorative painting bet
ter than the men there employed. In a
short time the men became Jealous of her,
and one morning the proprietor went to the
shop and found his 81 men idle. lie asked
what was the trouble, and they said they
would not degrade themselves by working in
the shop with Il girl. So this young girl,
though she could do the best work in the
shop was dismissed.


There are 20,042 sewing women in Bos-
ton. Becoming interested in them, she visit
ed some of them at their homes and saw
such poverty as she had not supposed poss-
bic in this country. In the first room she
visited were eleven women, and only in the
middle Of the room could they stand upright
An old woman unable to work, and a child
occupied the bed in one corner, and when
night came the rest of them slept upon the
iioor, covering themselves with rugs or any,
thing they had, Their diet was tea, bakers
bread and crackers. The stove was a sheet
iron affair and no chance to cook upon it.
Sometimes neighbor allowed them to use
her stove TO make soup, they furnishing
their own fuel, but it was seldom they could
afford meat for soup. She went in dis
guise to where these women get their work
and by leaving the value of the cloth in
money as security, after trying in vain in
several places, she was allowed to take away
a dozen red flannel shirts to make. She
took them home and worked faithfully all
dOy, and at seven O'Clock had not quite fin.
ishsd eight Of them. She carried them back
and got her pay, 81 cents each, and did not
wonder that the sewing women suffeoed. If
her soul depended upon such labor and such
pay as that she must be lost.


There these women are, with no hope in
life, no expectation Of love and friendship
lost women. Lost And we endeavor by
perpetuating our present institutions to per.