PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD. 

BY HELEN CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF "PRISONERS OF POVERTY, " "THE WHAT-TO-DO-CLUB, ""MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME, " "MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY, ""ROGER BERKELEY'S PROBATION. "

BOSTON:ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1889. 

_Copyright, 1889, _

BY HELEN CAMPBELL. 

University Press:

JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 

 _"But laying hands on another_ _To coin his labor and sweat, _ _He goes in pawn to his victim_ _For eternal years in debt. "_

TO

F. W. P. 

THE FRIEND IN WHOM JUSTICE AND TRUTH ARE SO DEEPLYIMPLANTED THAT BOTH ARE INSTINCTS, AND WHOSE MANHOOD HOLDS THE PROMISE OF WORK THAT WILLGO FAR TOWARD FULFILLING THE DEEPEST WISH OF THEGENERATION TO WHICH THE MAKER OF THESE PAGES BELONGS. 

PREFACE. 

The studies which follow, the result of fifteen months' observationabroad, deal directly with the workers in all trades open to women, though, from causes explained in the opening chapter, less from the sideof actual figures than the preceding volume, the material for which wasgathered in New York. But as months have gone on, it has become plainthat many minds are also at work, the majority on the statistical sideof the question, and that the ethical one is that which demands no lessattention. Both are essential to understanding and to effort in anypractical direction, and this is recognized more and more asorganization brings together for consultation the women who, havinglong felt deeply, are now learning to think and act effectually. Thesepages are for them, and mean simply another side-light on the laborquestion, --the question in which all other modern problems are tangled, and whose solving waits only the larger light whose first gleams arealready plain to see. 

HELEN CAMPBELL. 

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY, _October, 1888. _

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE

 I. BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 7

 II. IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE 19

 III. THE SWEATING SYSTEM IN GENERAL 31

 IV. AMONG THE SWEATERS 42

 V. CHILD OF THE EAST END 54

 VI. AMONG THE DRESSMAKERS 66

 VII. NELLY, A WEST END MILLINER'S APPRENTICE 77

 VIII. LONDON SHIRT MAKERS 90

 IX. THE TALE OF A BARROW 100

 X. STREET TRADES AMONG WOMEN 112

 XI. LONDON SHOP-GIRLS 122

 XII. FROM COVENT GARDEN TO THE EEL-SOUP MAN IN THE BOROUGH 131

 XIII. WOMEN IN GENERAL TRADES 155

 XIV. FRENCH AND ENGLISH WORKERS 167

 XV. FRENCH BARGAIN COUNTERS 176

 XVI. THE CITY OF THE SUN 184

 XVII. DRESSMAKERS AND MILLINERS IN PARIS 194

XVIII. A SILK WEAVER OF PARIS 203

 XIX. IN THE RUE JEANNE D'ARC 214

 XX. FROM FRANCE TO ITALY 224

 XXI. PRESENT AND FUTURE 234

PRISONERS OF POVERTY ABROAD. 

CHAPTER I. 

BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA. 

With the ending of the set of studies among the working-women of NewYork, begun in the early autumn of 1886 and continued through severalmonths of 1887, came the desire to know something of comparativeconditions abroad, and thus be better able to answer questionsconstantly put, as to the actual status of women as workers, and oftheir probable future in these directions. There were many additionalreasons for continuing a search, in itself a heart-sickening and utterlyrepellant task. One by one, the trades open to women, over ninety innumber, had given in their returns, some of the higher order meaninggood wages, steady work and some chance of bettering conditions. Butwith the great mass of workers, the wages had, from many causes, fallenbelow the point of subsistence, or kept so near it that advance wasimpossible, and the worker, even when fairly well trained, faced apractically hopeless future. 

The search began with a bias against rather than for the worker, and thedetermination to do strictest justice to employer as well as employed. Long experience had taught what was to be expected from untrained, unskilled laborers, with no ambition or power to rise. Approaching thesubject with the conviction that most of the evil admitted to exist mustbe the result of the worker's own defective training and inability tomake the best and most of the wages received, it very soon became plainthat, while this remained true, deeper causes were at work, and thatunseen forces must be weighed and measured before just judgment could bepossible. No denunciation of grasping employers answered the questionwhy they grasped, and why men who in private relations showed warmhearts and the tenderest care for those nearest them became on theinstant, when faced by this problem of labor, deaf and blind to thesorrow and struggle before them. 

That the system was full of evils was freely admitted whenever factswere brought home and attention compelled. But the easy-going Americantemperament is certain that the wrong of to-day will easily becomerighted by to-morrow, and is profoundly sceptical as to the existence ofany evil of which this is not true. 

"It's pretty bad, yes, I know it's pretty bad, " said one large employerof women, and his word was the word of many others. "But we're not toblame. I don't want to grind 'em down. It's the system that's wrong, andwe are its victims. Competition gets worse and worse. Machinery is toomuch for humanity. I've been certain of that for a good while, and so, of course, these hands have to take the consequences. "

Nothing better indicates the present status of the worker than this veryphrase "hands. " Not heads with brains that can think and plan, nor soulsborn to grow into fulness of life, but hands only; hands that can holdneedle or grasp tool, or follow the order of the brain to which they arebond-servants, each pulse moving to the throb of the great engine whichdrives all together, but never guided by any will of brain or joy ofsoul in the task of the day. There has been a time in the story ofmankind when hand and brain worked together. In every monument of thepast on this English soil, even at the topmost point of springing archor lofty pillar, is tracery and carving as careful and cunning as if alleyes were to see and judge it as the central point and test of the labordone. Has the nineteenth century, with its progress and its boast, nopossibility of such work from any hand of man, and if not, where has thespirit that made it vanished, and what hope may men share of its return?Not one, if the day's work must mean labor in its most exhausting form;for many women, fourteen to sixteen hours at the sewing machine, thenerve-force supplied by rank tea, and the bit of bread eaten with it, the exhausted bodies falling at last on whatever may do duty for bed, with no hope that the rising sun will bring release from trial or anygleam of a better day. 

With each week of the long search the outlook became more hopeless. Herewas this army crowding into the great city, packed away in noisometenement houses, ignorant, blind, stupid, incompetent in every fibre, and yet there as factors in the problem no man has yet solved. If thiswas civilization, better barbarism with its chance of sunshine and air, free movement and natural growth. What barbarism at its worst could holdsuch joyless, hopeless, profitless labor, or doom its victims to morelingering deaths? Admitting the almost impossibility of making themover, incased as they are in ignorance and prejudice, this is simplyanother count against the social order which has accepted such resultsas part of its story, and now looks on, speculating, wondering what hadbetter be done about it. 

The philanthropist has endeavored to answer the question, and sought outmany devices for alleviation, struggling out at last to the convictionthat prevention must be attempted, and pausing bewildered before thequestions involved in prevention. For them there has been active andunceasing work, their brooms laboring as vainly as Mrs. Partington'sagainst the rising tide of woe and want and fruitless toil, each waveonly the forerunner of mightier and more destructive ones, while theworld has gone its way, casting abundant contributions toward theworkers, but denying that there was need for agitation or speculation asto where or how the next crest might break. There were men and women whosounded an alarm, and were in most cases either hooted for their pains, or set down as sentimentalists, newspaper philanthropists, fanatics, socialists, --any or all of the various titles bestowed freely by thosewho regard interference with any existing order of things as rankblasphemy. 

Money has always been offered freely, but money always carries smallpower with it, save for temporary alleviation. The word of the poet whohas sounded the depths of certain modern tendencies holds the truth forthis also:--

 "Not that which we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who bestows himself, with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbor and me. "

Yet it is the Anglo-Saxon conviction, owned by English and American incommon, and unshaken though one should rise from the dead to arraign it, that what money would not do, cannot be done, and when money is rejectedand the appeal made for personal consideration of the questionsinvolved, there is impatient and instantaneous rejection of theresponsibility. Evolution is supposed to have the matter in charge, andto deal with men in the manner best suited to their needs. If theancient creed is still held and the worshipper repeats on Sunday: "Ibelieve in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, " hesupplements it on Monday and all other days, till Sunday comes again, with the new version, the creed of to-day, formulated by a man whofights it from hour to hour:

 "I believe in Father Mud, the Almighty Plastic; And in Father Dollar, the Almighty Drastic. "

It is because these men and women must be made to understand; becausethey must be reached and made to see and know what life may be countedworth living, and how far they are responsible for failure to makebetter ideals the ideal of every soul nearest them, that the story ofthe worker must be told over and over again till it has struck home. Toseek out all phases of wretchedness and want, and bring them face toface with those who deny that such want is anything but a temporary, passing state, due to a little over-production and soon to end, is not acheerful task, and it is made less so by those who, having never lookedfor themselves, pronounce all such statements either sensational or thework of a morbid and excited imagination. The majority decline to taketime to see for themselves. The few who have done so need no furtherargument, and are ready to admit that no words can exaggerate, or, indeed, ever really tell in full the real wretchedness that is plain forall who will look. But, even with them, the conviction remains that itis, after all, a temporary state of things, and that all must veryshortly come right. 

Day by day, the desire has grown stronger to make plain the fact thatthis is a world-wide question, and one that must be answered. It is notfor a city here and there, chiefly those where emigrants pour in, andso often, the mass of unskilled labor, always underpaid, and always nearstarvation. It is for the cities everywhere in the world ofcivilization, and because London includes the greatest numbers, theselines are written in London after many months of observation amongworkers on this side of the sea, and as the prelude to some record ofwhat has been seen and heard, and must still be before the record ends, not only here, but in one or two representative cities on the continent. London, however, deserves and demands chief consideration, not onlybecause it leads in numbers, but because our own conditions are, in manypoints, an inheritance which crossed the sea with the pilgrims, and isin every drop of Anglo-Saxon blood. If the glint of the sovereign andits clink in the pocket are the dearest sight and sound to British eyesand ears, America has equal affection for her dollars, in both countriesalike chink and glint standing with most, for the best things lifeholds. It remains for us to see whether counteracting influences arestronger here than with us, and if the worker's chance is hampered moreor less by the conditions that hedge in all labor. The merelystatistical side of the question is left, as in the previous year'swork, chiefly to those who deal only with this phase, though drawn uponwherever available or necessary. There is, however, small supply. Savein scattered trades-union reports, an occasional blue book, and here andthere the work of a private investigator, like Mr. Charles Booth, thereis nothing which has the value of our own reports from the variousbureaus of labor. The subject has until now excited little interest orattention, save with a few political economists, and the band ofagitators who are the disciples, not of things as they are, but thingsas they ought to be. One of the most admirable and well-officeredorganizations in New York, "The Workingwoman's Protective Union, " whichgave invaluable assistance last year, has only a small and feebleimitation in London, in the Woman's Protective Union, founded by Mrs. Peterson, and now under the admirable management of Miss Black, butstill struggling for place and recognition. 

Thus it will be seen that the work to be done here is necessarily moresketchy in character, though none the less taken from life in everydetail, the aim in both cases being the same, --to give, as far aspossible, the heart of the problem as it is seen by the worker, as wellas by the eyes that may have larger interpretation for outward phases. The homes and daily lives of the workers are the best answers as to thecomfort-producing power of wages, and in those homes we are to find whatthe wage can do, and what it fails to do, not alone for the East End, but for swarming lanes and courts in all this crowded London. The EastEnd has by no means the monopoly, though novelists and writers ofvarious orders have chosen it as the type of all wretchedness. ButLondon wretchedness is very impartially distributed. Under the shadow ofthe beautiful abbey, and the towers of archiepiscopal Lambeth Palace;appearing suddenly in the midst of the great warehouses, and the pressof traffic in the city itself, and thronging the streets of that boroughroad, over which the Canterbury pilgrims rode out on that immortalsummer morning, --everywhere is the swarm of haggard, hungry humanity. No winter of any year London has known since the day when Roman wallsstill shut it in, has ever held sharper want or more sorrowful need. Trafalgar Square has suddenly become a world-wide synonym for thesaddest sights a great city can ever have to show; and in TrafalgarSquare our search shall begin, following one of the unemployed to therefuge open to her when work failed. 

CHAPTER II. 

IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. 

To the London mind nothing is more certain than that Trafalgar Square, which may be regarded as the real focus of the city, is unrivalled insituation and surroundings. "The finest site in Europe, " one hears onevery side, and there is reason for the faith. In spite of the fact thatthe National Gallery which it fronts is a singularly defective andunimpressive piece of architecture, it hardly weakens the impression, though the traveller facing it recalls inevitably a criticism made manyyears ago: "This unhappy structure may be said to have everything itought not to have, and nothing which it ought to have. It possesseswindows without glass, a cupola without size, a portico without height, pepper boxes without pepper, and the finest site in Europe withoutanything to show upon it. "

In spite of all this, to which the pilgrim must at once agree, theSquare itself, with the Nelson Pillar and the noble lions at its base, nobler for their very simplicity; its fountains and its outlook on thebeautiful portico of St. Martin's, the busy Strand and the greatbuildings rising all about, is all that is claimed for it, and thetraveller welcomes any chance that takes him through it. Treasures ofart are at its back, and within short radius, every possibility ofbusiness or pleasure, embodied in magnificent hotels, theatres, warehouses, is for the throng that flows unceasingly through these mainarteries of the city's life. 

This is one phase of what may be seen in Trafalgar Square. But withearly autumn and the shortening days and the steadily increasingpressure of that undercurrent of want and misery through which strangeflotsam and jetsam come to the surface, one saw, on the long benches orcrouched on the asphalt pavement, lines of men and women sittingsilently, making no appeal to passers-by, but, as night fell, crouchinglower in their thin garments or wrapping old placards or any sack orsemblance of covering about them, losing memory in fitful sleep andwaking with dawn to a hopeless day. This was the sight that TrafalgarSquare had for those who passed through it, and who at last began toquestion, "Why is it? Who are they? They don't seem to beg. What does itmean?"

The Square presently overflowed, and in any and every sheltered spot thesame silent lines lay down at night along the Thames Embankment, in anycovered court or passage, men rushing with early dawn to fight forplaces at the dock gates, breaking arms or dislocating shoulders oftenin the struggle, and turning away with pale faces, as they saw thehoped-for chance given to a neighbor, to carry their tale to the hungrywomen whose office was to wait. The beggars pursued their usual course, but it was quite plain that these men and women had no affinity withthem save in rags. Day by day the numbers swelled. "Who are they? Whatdoes it mean?" still sounded, and at last the right phrase was found, and the answer came: "They are the 'unemployed. ' There is no longer anywork to be had, and these people can neither get away nor find anymeans of living here. "

For a time London would not believe its ears. There must be work, and sofood for whoever was willing to work; but presently this cry silenced, and it became plain that somebody must do something. 

Food was the first thought; and from the Limehouse district, and arefuge known as the Outcasts' Home, a great van loaded with loaves ofbread came in two or three times a week, taking back to the refuge inthe empty cart such few as could be induced to try its mercies. Coffeewas also provided on a few occasions; and as the news spread by means ofthat mysterious telegraphy current in the begging fraternity, suddenlythe Square overflowed with their kind; and who wanted to work and couldnot, and who wanted no work on any consideration, no man coulddetermine. 

With the story of this tangle, of the bewilderment and dismay for allalike, and the increasing despair of the unemployed, this chronicle hasbut indirectly to do. Trafalgar Square was emptied at last by meansalready familiar to all. Beggars skulked back to their hiding-placeslike wharf-rats to the rotten piles that shelter them; the unemployeddispersed also, showing themselves once more in the files thatregistered when the census of the unemployed was decided upon; and then, for the most part, were lost to public sight in the mass of general, every-day, to-be-expected wretchedness which makes up London below thesurface. 

Scores of wretched figures crouched on the icy asphalt of the Square ona pouring night early in November, before its clearing had been ordered. The great van was expected, but had not appeared, and men huddled in themost sheltered corners of this most unsheltered spot, cowering under anyrag of covering they had been able to secure. In a corner by the lions apair had taken refuge, --a boy of ten or so, wrapped in two newspaperplacards, and his bare feet tucked into a horse's nose-bag, too old androtten for any further service in its own line of duty; over himcrouched a girl, whose bent figure might have belonged to eighty, butwhose face as she looked up showed youth which even her misery could notwipe out. She had no beauty, save soft dark eyes and a delicate face, both filled with terror as she put one arm over the boy, who sprung tohis feet. "I'll not go where Nell can't, " he said, the heavy sleep stillin his eyes; "we're goin' to keep together, me an' Nell is. "

"'Tain't the van, " the girl said, still holding him; "they tried to takehim back to the Refuge the other night, and he's afraid of 'em. Theydon't take any over sixteen, and so I can't go, an' he's afraid somehowthey'll take him in spite of me. I'd be willin' enough, for there's nomore I can do for him, and he's too little for this sort of life; but hewon't go. "

The girl's thin clothing was soaked with rain; she shivered as shespoke, but sat there with the strange patience in look and manner thatmarks the better class of English poor. "But is there nobody to give youa shelter on such a night? You must have somebody. What does it mean?"

"I had a bit of a place till last Wednesday, but the rent was far behindand they turned me out. I was home then a day or two, but it's worsethere than the streets. There was no work, and father drunk, and beatingmother and all of us, and Billy worst of all; so the streets werebetter. I've tried for work, but there's none to be had, and now I'mwaiting. Perhaps I shall die pretty soon, and then they can take Billyinto the Refuge. I'm waiting for that. "

"But there must be work for any one as young and strong as you. "

The girl shook her head. "I've walked the soles off me shoes to find it. There's no work in all London. I can go on the streets, but I'd ratherdo this. My mother did her best for us all, but she's been knocked roundtill she's as near death as we. There's no work for man nor woman in allLondon. "

The boy had settled down at her feet again, satisfied that no attemptwas to be made to separate them, and fell asleep instantly, one handholding her dress. To leave the pair was impossible. Other cases mightbe as desperate, but this was nearest; and presently a bargain had beenmade with an old woman who sells roasted chestnuts in St. Martin's Lane, close by, and the two were led away to her shelter in some rookery inthe Seven Dials. A day or two later the full story was told, and hasits place as the first and strongest illustration of the state of thingsin this great city of London, where, as the year 1888 opens, officialregisters hold the names of over seventeen thousand men who wish to workat any rate that may be paid, but for whom there is no work, their namesrepresenting a total of over fifty thousand who are slowly starving; andthis mass known to be but a part of that which is still unregistered, and likely to remain so, unless private enterprise seeks it out in laneand alley where it hides. 

The father was a "coal whipper" on the docks near Tower Hill, thismeaning that he spent his days in the hold of a collier or on the deck, guiding the coal basket which ascends from the hold through a "way" madeof broken oars lashed together, and by means of a wheel and rope is senton and emptied. Whether in hold or on deck it is one of the mostexhausting forms of labor, and the men, whose throats are lined withcoal dust, wash them out with floods of beer. Naturally they are allintemperate, and the wages taken home are small in proportion to theirthirst. And as an evening solace, the father, who had once been footmanin a good family, and married the lady's maid (which fact accounted forthe unusual quality of Nelly's English), beat them all around, weepingmaudlin tears over them in the morning, and returning at night toduplicate the occasion for more. 

The mother had made constant fight for respectability. She did suchdressmaking as the neighborhood offered, but they moved constantly asfortunes grew lower and lower, sheltering at last in two rooms in arookery in Tower Hamlets. 

Here came the final disablement. The father, a little drunker thanusual, pushed the wife downstairs and their Billy after her, the resultbeing a broken hip for the first and a broken arm for the last. Nelly, who had begun to stitch sacks not long before, filled her place as shecould, and cared for the other seven, all not much more than babies, andmost of them in time mercifully removed by death. She was but twelvewhen her responsibility began, and it did not end when the mother camehome, to be chiefly bedridden for such days as remained. The threelittle boys were all "mud-larks, " that is, prowled along the rivershore, picking up any odds and ends that could be sold to the rag-shopor for firewood, and their backs were scored with the strap which thefather carried in his pocket and took out for his evening's occupationwhen he came. 

The mother, sitting up in bed and knitting or crocheting for a smallshop near by, fared no better than the rest, for Billy, who tried tostand between them, only infuriated the brute the more. The crisis camewhen he one night stole the strap from his father's pocket and cut itinto pieces. Nelly, who was now earning fair wages, had long thoughtthat her mother's life would be easier without them; and now, as Billyannounced that he had done for himself and must run, she decided to runtoo. 

"I told mother I'd have a bit of a room not far off, " she said, "onlywhere father wouldn't be likely to search us out, and I'd do for Billyand for her too what I could. She cried, but she saw it was best. Billywas just a bag of bones and all over strap marks. He'd have to mud-larkjust the same, but he'd have more to eat and no beatings, and he'dalways hung to me from the time he was born. So that is the way I did, and, bit by bit, I got a comfortable place, and had Billy in school, andkept us both, and did well. But then the wages began to go down, andevery week they got lower till, where I'd earned twelve shillings a weeksometimes, I was down to half and less than half that. I tried stitchingfor the sweaters a while, but I'd no machine, and they had more handsthan they wanted everywhere, and I went back to the sacks. And at lastthey dismissed a lot too, and I went here and there and everywhere foranother chance, and not one, --not one anywhere. I pawned everything, bitby bit, till we'd nothing left but some rags and straw to sleep upon, and the rent far behind; and then I went home when we were turned out, and that father took for his chance, and was worse than ever. 

"And so, when there was no work anywhere, though I was ready foranything, I didn't care what, and I saw we were just taking the breadfrom mother's mouth (though it's little enough she wanted), then I toldBilly to stay with her, and I went out and to the Square and sat downwith the rest, and wondered if I ought to sit there and wait to be dead, or if I hadn't the right to do it quicker and just try the river. But Isaw all those I was with just as bad off and worse, and some withbabies, and so I didn't know what to do, but just to wait there. Whatcan we do? They say the Queen is going to order work so that the men canget wages; but they don't say if she is going to do anything for thewomen. She's a woman; but then I suppose a Queen couldn't any way know, except by hearsay, that women really starve; and women do for men firstanyhow. But I will work any way at anything, if only you'll find it forme to do--if only you will. "

For one of the fifty-three thousand work and place have been found. Forthe rest is still the cry: "I will work any way at anything, if onlyyou'll find it for me to do; if only you will. "

CHAPTER III. 

THE SWEATING SYSTEM IN GENERAL. 

"History repeats itself, " is a very hackneyed phrase, yet, for want ofany better or more expressive one, must lead such words as are to besaid on an old yet ever new evil; for it is just forty years ago, sincethe winter of 1847-1848 showed among the working men and women ofEngland conditions analogous to those of the present, though on a farsmaller scale. Acute distress prevailed then as now. Revolution was inthe air, and what it might mean being far less plain to apprehensiveminds than it is to-day, a London newspaper, desirous of knowing justwhat dangers were to be faced, sent a commissioner to investigate theactual conditions of the working classes, and published his reports fromday to day. Then, for the first time, a new word came into circulation, and "sweating" became the synonym, which it has since remained, for asystem of labor which means the maximum of profit for the employer andthe minimum of wages for the employed. The term is hardly scientific, yet it is the only one recognized in the most scientific investigationthus far made. That of 1847-1848 did its work for the time, nor have itsresults wholly passed away. Charles Kingsley, young then and ardent, hissoul stirred with longing to lighten all human suffering, took up thecause of the worker, and in his pamphlet "Cheap Clothes and Nasty, " andlater, in the powerful novel "Alton Locke, " showed every phase of thesystem, then in its infancy, and, practically, entirely unknown on theother side of the Atlantic. 

The results of this agitation became visible at once. Unions andAssociations of various sorts among tailors and the one or two othertrades to which the sweating system had applied, were organized and fromyear to year extended and perfected till it had come to be the popularconviction that, save in isolated cases here and there, the evil was tobe found only among the foreign population, and even there, hedged inand shorn of its worst possibilities. This conviction remained and madepart of the estimate of any complaints that now and then arose, andthough the work of the organized charities, and of independentinvestigations here and there, demonstrated from year to year that ithad increased steadily, its real scope was still unbelieved. Now, afterforty years, the story tells itself again, this time in ways whichcannot be set down as newspaper sensationalism or anybody's desire tomake political capital. It is a Blue Book which holds the latestresearches and conclusions, and Blue Books are not part of the popularreading, but are usually tucked away in government offices or libraries, to which the public has practically no access. A newspaper paragraphgives its readers the information that another report on this or thatfeature of public interest has been prepared and shelved for posterity, and there the matter ends. 

In the present case public feeling and interest have been so stirred bythe condition of unexampled misery and want among masses eager to workbut with no work to be had, that the report has been called for andread and discussed to a degree unknown to any of its predecessors. Whileit gives results only in the most compact form and by no means compareswith work like that of Mr. Charles Peck in his investigations for theNew York Bureau of Statistics of Labor, it still holds a mass ofinformation invaluable to all who are seeking light on the cause ofpresent evils. As with us the system is closely a part of themanufacture of cheap clothing of every order, tailoring leading, andvarious other trades being included, furniture makers, strange to say, being among the chief sufferers in these. 

With us the system is so clearly defined and so well known, at any ratein all our large centres of labor, that definition is hardly necessary. For England and America alike the sweater is simply a sub-contractorwho, at home or in small workshops, undertakes to do work, which he inturn sublets to other contractors, or has done under his own eyes. Thebusiness had a simple and natural beginning, the journey-worker of fiftyyears ago taking home from his employers work to be done there eitherby himself or some member of his family. At this time it held decidedadvantages for both sides. The master-tailor was relieved from findingworkshop accommodations with all the accompanying expense and fromconstant supervision of his work people, while good work was insured bythe pride of the worker in his craft, as well as his desire not to losea good connection. There was but the slightest subdivision of labor, each worker was able to make the garment from the beginning to the end, apprentices being employed on the least important parts. 

Work of this order has no further place in the clothing trade, whethertailoring or general outfitting, save for the best order of clothing. Increase of population cheapened material, the introduction of machineryand the tremendous growth of the ready-made clothing trade are allresponsible for the change. The minutest system of subdivided labor nowrules here as in all trades. When a coat is in question, it is no longerthe master-tailor, journeyman and apprentices who prepare it, but alegion of cutters, basters, machinists, pressers, fellers, button-hole, and general workers, who find the learning of any one alone of thebranches an easy matter, and so rush into the trade, the fiercest andmost incessant competition being the instant result. 

In 1881 a census was taken in the East End of London which showed overfifteen thousand tailors at work, of whom more than nine thousand werewomen. The number of the latter at present is estimated to be abouttwelve thousand, much increase having been prevented by various causes, for which there is no room here. As the matter at present stands, everyman and woman employed aims to become as fast as possible a sweater onhis or her own account. For large employers this is not so easy; for thesmall ones nothing could be simpler, and here are the methods. 

If the trade is an unfamiliar one, there is first the initiation byemployment in a sweater's shop, and a few months, or even weeks, givesall the necessary facility. Then comes the question of workroom; andhere it is only necessary to take the family room, and hire a sewingmachine, which is for rent at two shillings and sixpence, or sixtycents, a week. To organize the establishment all that is necessary is abaster, a machinist, a presser, and two or three women-workers, one forbutton-holing, one for felling, and one for general work, carrying home, etc. The baster may be a skilled woman; the presser is always a man, theirons weighing from seven to eighteen pounds, and the work being of themost exhausting description, no man being able to continue it beyondeight or ten years at the utmost. The sweater-employer often begins bybeing his own presser, or his own baster; but as business increases hispersonal labor lessens. In the beginning his profits are extremelysmall, prices varying so that it is impossible to make any general tableof rates. Even in the same branch of trade hardly any two persons areemployed at the same rate, and the range of ability appears to vary withthe wage paid, subdivision of labor being thus carried to its utmostlimit, and the sections of the divisions already mentioned being againsubdivided beyond further possibility. So tremendous is the competitionfor work that the sweaters are played off against each other by thecontractors and sub-contractors, the result upon the workers belowbeing as disastrous as the general effect of the system as a whole. 

As one becomes familiar with the characteristics of the East End, --andthis is only after long and persistent comings and goings in street andalley, --it is found that there are entire streets in Whitechapel or St. George's-in-the-East, the points where the tailoring trade seems tofocus, in which almost every house contains one, and sometimes several, sweating establishments, managed usually by men, but now and then in thehands of women, though only for the cheapest forms of clothing. Here, precisely as in our own large cities, a room nine or ten feet square isheated by a coke fire for the presser's irons, and lighted at night byflaming gas-jets, six, eight, or even a dozen workers being crowded inthis narrow space. But such crowding is worse here than with us, forreasons which affect also every form of cheap labor within doors. London, under its present arrangements, is simply an enormous smokefactory, and no quarter of its vast expanse is free from the plague ofsoot and smoke, forever flying, and leaving a coating of grime on everyarticle owned or used, no matter how cared for. This is true forBelgravia as for the East End, and "blacks, " as the flakes of soot areknown, are eaten and drunk and breathed by everything that walks inLondon streets or breathes London air. 

There is, then, not only the foulness engendered by human lungsbreathing in the narrowest and most crowded of quarters, but the addedfoulness of dirt of every degree and order, overlaid and penetrated bythis deposit of fine soot; the result a griminess that has nocounterpart on the face of the earth. "Cheap clothes and nasty" did notend with Kingsley's time, and these garments, well made, and sold at arate inconceivably low, are saturated with horrible emanations of everysort, and to the buyer who stops to think must carry an atmosphere thatends any satisfaction in the cheapness. Setting aside this phase as anintangible and, in part, sentimental ground for complaint, the fact thatthe cheapness depends also upon the number of hours given by theworker--whose day is never less than fourteen, and often eighteen, hours--should be sufficient to ban the whole trade. Even for thislongest day there is no uniformity of price, and with articlesidentically the same the rate varies with different sweaters, theincreasing competition accentuating these differences more and more. Thesweater himself is more or less at the mercy of the contractor, who saysto him: "Here are so many coats, at so much a coat. If you won't do themat the price, there are plenty that will. "

Already well aware of this fact, the sweater, if the rate falls at allbelow his expectation, has simply to pursue the same course with thewaiting worker in his shop, a slight turn of the screw, half a penny offhere and a farthing there, bringing his own profit back to the rate heassumes as essential. There is no pressure from below to compel justice. For any rebellious worker a dozen stand waiting to fill the vacantplace; and thus the wrong perpetuates itself, and the sweater, whosepersonal relation with those he employs may be of the friendliest, becomes tyrant and oppressor, not of his own will, but through sheerforce of circumstances. Thus evils, which laws have not reached, increase from day to day. Inspectors are practically powerless, and theshameful system, degrading alike to employer and employed, grows by whatit feeds on, and hangs over the East End, a pall blacker and fouler thanthe cloud of smoke and soot, also the result of man's folly, not to belifted till human eyes see clearer what makes life worth living, andhuman hands are less weary with labor that profiteth not, but thatdeadens sense and soul alike. 

This is the general view of the system as a whole. For the special theremust still be a further word. 

CHAPTER IV. 

AMONG THE SWEATERS. 

"'Nine tailors to make a man, ' they say. Well, now if it takes thatamount, and from some lots I've seen I should say it did, you've got tomultiply by nine again if you count in the women. Bless your 'art!" andhere, in his excitement, the inspector began to drop the _h_'s, whichthe Board School had taught him to hold to with painful tenacity. "Blessyour 'art! a woman can't make a coat, and every tailor knows it, andthat's one reason 'e beats 'er down and beats 'er down till 'ow shekeeps the breath of life in the Lord only knows. Take the cheapest coatgoing and there's a knack to every seam that a woman don't catch. She'sgood for trousers and finishing, and she can't be matched forbutton-holes when she gives her mind to it, but a coat's beyond her. I've wondered a good bit over it. The women don't see it themselves, but now and again there's one that's up to every dodge but a coat seam, and she wants more money and couldn't be persuaded, no, not if Moseshimself came to try it, that she isn't worth the same as the men. That'swhat I 'ear as I go, and I've been hup and down among 'em three yearsand over. Their dodges is beyond belief, not the women's, --poor souls!they're too ground down to 'ave mind enough left for dodges, --but thesweaters; Parliament's after 'em. There's enough, but ther's no manhalive that I've seen that knows how to 'old a sweater to 'em. How's oneor two inspectors to get through every sweating place in Whitechapelalone, let alone hall the East End? It's hup an' down an' hin and hout, and where you find 'em fair and square in a reg'lar shop, or in roomsplain to see, you'll find 'em in basements and backyards, andwashhouses, and underground, --anywheres like so many rats, though, I'mblessed if I don't think the rats has the hadvantage. Now, the law saysno working over hours, and I go along in the evening, about knocking-offtime, and find everything all clear only a look in the sweater's heyethat I know well enough. It means most likely that 'e's got 'is womenlocked up in a bedroom where the Parliament won't let me go, and thatwhen my back's turned 'e'll 'ave 'em out, and grin in his sleeve at meand Parliament too. Or else 'e's agreed with 'em to come at six in themorning instead of eight. It's a twelve-hour day 'e's a right to, fromeight to eight, but that way he make it fourteen and more, if I or someother inspector don't appear along. 

"Now, suppose I drop down unexpected, --an' that's the way, --before I'vemade three calls, and likely nailed every one in the house forviolation, it's down the street like lightening that the hinspector'safter 'em. Then the women are 'ustled out anywhere, into the yard, or ina dust bin. Lift up 'most anything and you'd find a woman under it. I'vecaught 'em with their thimbles on, hot with sewing, and now they drop'em into their pockets or anywhere. They'd lose a job if they peeped, and so there's never much to be done for 'em. But why a woman can'tmake a coat is what I study over. Did you ever think it out, ma'am? Isit their 'ands or their heyes that isn't hup to it?"

This position of the little inspector's problem must wait, though in itis involved that fatal want of training for either eye or hand whichmakes the lowest place the only one that the average needlewoman canfill. Their endurance equals that of the men, and often, in suddenpresses of work, as for a foreign order, work has begun at seven o'clockon a morning and continued right on through the night and up to four orfive of the next afternoon. The law demands an hour for dinner and halfan hour for tea, but the first is halved or quartered, and the lasttaken between the stitches, but with no more stop than is necessary forswallowing. The penalties for violation of these acts are heavy and theinspectors work very thoroughly, various convictions having beenobtained in 1886, the penalties varying from two pounds to ten poundsand costs. But the sweaters, though standing in terror of suchpossibility, have learned every device of evasion, and, as beforestated, the women necessarily abet them for fear of losing workaltogether. 

Let us see now what the profit of the average sweater is likely to be, and then that of the workwoman, skilled and unskilled, taking ourfigures in every case from the Blue Book containing Mr. Burnett's reportand confirmed by many workers. A small sweater in Brunswick Streetemployed a presser and a machinist, with two women for button-holes andfelling, his business being the production of tunics for postmen. Foreach of these he received two shillings, or half a dollar a coat, whichhe considered a very good price. He paid his presser 4_s. _ 6_d. _ ($1. 12)per day; his machinist 5_s. _ ($1. 25); his button-holer 2_s. _ 6_d. _(60c. ), from which she must find twist and thread; and the feller 1_s. _3_d. _ (30c. ), a total of thirteen shillings threepence. For twelve coatshe received twenty-four shillings, his own profit thus being tenshillings and ninepence ($2. 68) for his own labor as baster and forfinding thread, soap, coke, and machine. The hours were from seven inthe morning to ten in the evening, less time not sufficing to finish thedozen coats, this bringing the rate of wages for the highest paidworker to 4½_d. _, or nine cents an hour. For the small sweater theprofit is slight, but each additional machine sends it up, till four orfive mean a handsome return. If work is slack, he has another method oflessening expenses, and thus increasing profits, arranging matters sothat all the work is done the three last days of the week, starting on aThursday morning, for instance, and pressing the workers on forthirty-three to thirty-six hours at a stretch, calling this two days'work, and paying for it at this rate. If they work fractions of a day, eight hours is called a half and four a quarter day, and the men submitwith the same patience as the women. 

For the former this is in part a question of nationality, the sweater'sworkmen being made up chiefly of German and Polish Jews and the poorerforeign element. An English worker has generally learned the trade as awhole, and is secure of better place and pay; but a Polish Jew, acarpenter at home, goes at once into a sweater's shop, and after a fewweeks has learned one branch of the trade, and is enrolled on the listof workers. For the women, however, there is a smaller proportioncomparatively of foreigners. The poor Englishwoman, like the poorAmerican, has no resource save her needle or some form of machine work. If ambitious, she learns button-holing, and in some cases makes as highas thirty shillings per week ($7. 50). This, however, is only for thebest paid work. Out of this she must find her own materials, which cannever be less than two and sixpence (60c. ). A woman of this order woulddo in a day twelve coats with six button-holes each, for the best classof work getting a penny a hole, or two cents. For commoner kinds theprices are a descending scale: three-quarters of a penny a hole, half apenny, eight holes for threepence, and the commonest kinds three holesfor a penny. These are the rates for coats. For waistcoats the price isusually a penny for four button-holes, a skilled worker making sixteenin an hour. Many of these button-hole makers have become sweaters ontheir own account, and display quite as much ingenuity at cutting ratesas the men at whose hands they may themselves have suffered. 

For the machinists and fellers the rates vary. A good machinist mayearn five shillings a day ($1. 25), but this only in the busy season; thefeller, at the best, can seldom go beyond three or four, and at theworst earns but six or eight per week; while learners and general handsmake from two to six shillings a week, much of their time being spent incarrying work between the shops and the warehouses. Six shillings a weekrepresents a purchasing power of about forty cents a day, half of whichmust be reserved for rent; and thus it will be seen that the Englishworkwoman of the lower grade is in much the same condition as theAmerican worker, hours, wages, and results being nearly identical. TheJewish women and girls represent a formidable element to contend with, as they are now coming over in great numbers, and the question has soorganized itself that each falls almost at once into her own place, andworks with machine-like regularity and efficiency. 

In one of the houses in a narrow little street opening off fromWhitechapel, were three women whose cases may be cited as representativeones. The first was a trouser machinist, and took her work from anotherwoman, a sweater, who had it from city and other houses. She was paidthreepence (6c. ) a pair, and could do ten pairs a day, if she got up atsix and worked till ten or eleven, which was her usual custom. In thenext room was a woman who stitched very thick large trousers, for whichshe received fourpence a pair. She also had them from a woman who tookthem from a sub-contractor. She could make six and sometimes sevenshillings a week, her rent being two shillings and sixpence. On thefloor above was a waistcoat maker, who, when work was brisk, could earneight and sometimes nine shillings a week; but who now, as work wasslack, seldom went beyond six or seven. Out of this must be takenthread, which she got for eightpence a dozen. She worked for a smallexporter in a street some ten minutes' walk away; but often had to spendtwo hours or more taking back her work and waiting for more to be givenout. She fared better than some, however, as she knew women who many atime had had to lose five or six hours--"just so much bread out of theirmouths. "

"The work has to be passed, " she said, "and there's never any doubtabout mine, because I was bound to the trade, and my mother paid a poundfor premium, and I worked three months for nothing--two months of thatwas clear gain to them, for I took to it and learned quick. But it's astarvation trade now, whatever it used to be. "

"Why don't some of the best workers among you combine and get your workdirect from the city house?"

"I've 'ad that in me mind, but there's never money enough. There's adeposit to be made for guarantee, and the machine-rent and all. No, there's never money enough. It's just keeping soul and body together, and barely that. We don't see butcher's meat half a dozen times a year;it's tea and bread, and you lose your relish for much of anything else, unless sprats maybe, or a taste of shrimps. I was in one workshop awhile where there was over-hours always, and one night the inspectorhappened along after hours, and no word passed down, and the man turnedme into the yard and turned off the gas; but I had to work two hoursafter he was gone. I'm better off than the woman in the next room. Shemakes children's suits--coats and knickerbockers--for ha'penny a piece, with tuppence for finishing, and her cotton to find; and, do 'er best, she won't make over four shillings and threepence a week, sometimesless. There's a mother and daughter next door that were bound to theirtrade for three months, and the daughter gave three months' work tolearn it; but the most they make on children's suits is eight shillingsand sixpence the two, and they work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. "

This record of a house or two in Whitechapel is the record of streetafter street in working London. No trade into which the needle entershas escaped the system which has been perfected little by little tillthere is no loophole by which the lower order of worker can escape. Thesweaters themselves are often kind-hearted men, ground by the system, but soon losing any sensitiveness; and the mass of eager applicants areconstantly reinforced, not only by the steady pressure of emigrants ofall nations, but by an influx from the country. In short, conditionsare generally the same for London as New York, but intensified for theformer by the enormous numbers, and the fact that outlying spaces do notmean a better chance. This problem of one great city is the problem ofall; and in each and all the sweater stands as an integral part ofmodern civilization. Often far less guilty than he is counted to be, andoften as much a sufferer as his workers from those above him, hismission has legitimate place only where ignorant and incompetent workersmust be kept in order, and may well give place to factory labor. Withskill comes organization and the power to claim better wages; and withboth skilled labor and co-operation the sweater has no further place, and is transformed to foreman or superintendent. Till this isaccomplished, the word must stand, as it does to-day, for all imaginableevil that can hedge about both worker and work. 

CHAPTER V. 

CHILD OF THE EAST END. 

"What is it to be a lady?" The voice was the voice of a small andexceedingly grimy child, who held in her arms one still smaller and evengrimier, known to the neighborhood as "Wemock's Orlando. " Under ordinarycircumstances, neither Wemock's nor anybody's youngest could haveexcited the least attention in Tower Hamlets where every doorway andpassage swarms with children. But Orlando had the proud distinction ofhaving spent three months of his short life in hospital, "summat wrongwith his inside" having resulted from the kick of a drunken father whoobjected to the sight or sound of the children he had brought into theworld, these at present numbering but seven, four having been mercifullyremoved from further dispensation of strap and fist and heavy boot. 

Such sympathy as the over-worked drudges who constituted the wives ofthe neighborhood had to spare, had concentrated on Orlando, whose"inside" still continued wrong, and who, though almost three, had neverbeen able to bear his weight on his feet, but became livid at once, ifthe experiment was tried, --a fact of perennial interest to the entirealley. 

Wemock's fury at this state of things was something indescribable. A"casual" at the Docks, with the uncertainty of work which is thedestruction of the casual laborer, he regarded the children as simply aspecies of investment, slow of making any return, but certain in theend. Up to five, say, they must be fed and housed somehow, but from fiveon a boy of any spirit ought to begin a career as mud-lark to graduatefrom it in time into anything for which this foundation had fitted him. The girls were less available, and he blessed his stars that there werebut three, and cursed them as he reflected that Polly was tied hand andfoot to Orlando, who persisted in living, and equally persisted inclinging to Polly, who mothered him more thoroughly than any previousWemock had been. 

Not that the actual mother had not some gleams of tenderness, at leastfor the babies. But life weighed heavily against any demonstration. Shewas simply a beast of burden, patient, and making small complaint, andadding to the intermittent family income in any way she could, --charing, tailoring, or sack-making when the machine was not in pawn, and standingin deadly terror of Wemock's fist. The casual, like most of the lowerorder of laborers, has small opinion of women as a class, and meets anyremonstrance from them as to his habits with an unvarying formula. 

"I'm yer 'usban', ain't I?" is the reply to request or objection alike, and "husband" by the casual is defined as "a man with a right to knockhis woman down when he likes. " This simplifies responsibility, and, being accepted with little or no question by the women, allows greatlatitude of action. 

Wemock had learned that the strap was safer than a knock-down, however, as a dose of it overnight did not hinder his wife from crawling out ofbed to prepare the breakfast and get to work, whereas a kick such as hepreferred, had been known to disable her for a week, with inconvenientresults as to his own dinners and suppers. 

"It's the liquor as does it. 'E's peaceable enough when the liquor's outof 'im. But their 'ands comes so 'eavy. They don't know how 'eavy their'ands comes. " Thus Mrs. Wemock, standing in the doorway, for the momentholding Orlando, who resented his transfer with a subdued howl of grief, and looked anxiously down the alley toward Polly's retreating figure. 

"'Ush now an' ma'll give him a winkle. Polly's gone for winkles. It'swinkles we'll 'ave for supper, and a blessing it's there's one thingcheap and with some taste to it. A penny-'orth even, goes quite a way, but a penny-'orth ain't much when there's a child to each winkle an' maybe two. "

"The churchyard's been a better friend to me than to you, " said a thinand haggard-looking woman, who had come across the street for a look atOrlando. "Out of my seventeen, there ain't but six left an' one o' themis in the Colonies. There's small call to wish 'em alive, when there'snought but sorrow ahead. If we was ladies I suppose it might all bedifferent. "

It was at this point that Polly's question was heard, --Polly, who hadrushed back with the winkles and put the dish into her mother's hand andcaught Orlando as if she had been separated from him hours instead ofminutes. And Orlando in turn put his skinny little arms about her neck. Whatever might be wrong with his inside, the malady had not reached hisheart, which beat only for Polly, his great dark eyes, hollow withsuffering, fixing themselves on her face with a sort of adoration. 

"A lady?" Mrs. Wemock said reflectively, eying her winkles, "there'smore than one kind, Polly. A lady's mostly one that has nought to do butwhat she likes, and goes in a carriage for fear she'll soil her feet. But I've seen real ladies that thought on the poor, and was in and outamong 'em. That kind is 'ard to find, Polly. I never knew but two an'they're both dead. It's them as has money, that's ladies, and them thathasn't--why they isn't. "

"Then I can't be a lady, " said Polly. "I heard Nelly Anderson say shemeant to be a lady. "

"Lord keep you from that kind!" said the mother hastily, with asignificant look at her neighbor, which Polly did not fail to note andpuzzle over. Tending Orlando gave her much time for puzzling. She wasknown as an "old fashioned" child, with ways quite her own, always to bedepended upon, and confiding in no one but Orlando, who answered her ina language of his own. 

"When I am a lady, we will go away somewhere together, " Polly said. "Ithink I shall be a lady sometime, Orlando, and then we'll have goodtimes. There are good times somewhere, only they don't get into theBuildings, " and with a look at the sooty walls and the dirty passage shefollowed her mother slowly up the stairs, and took her three winkles andthe big slice of bread and dripping, which she and Orlando were toshare, into the corner. Orlando must be coaxed to eat, which was alwaysa work of time, and before her own share had been swallowed, herfather's step was on the stairs, and her mother turned round from themachine. 

"Keep out of the way, Polly. 'E's taken too much, I know by the step of'im, and 'e won't 'alf know what he's about. "

Polly shrunk back. There was no time to get under the bed, which sheoften did, and she hugged Orlando close and waited fearfully. Both weresilent, but she put her bread behind her. To see them eating sometimesenraged him, and he had been known to fling loaf and teapot both fromthe windows. 

Both were on the table now, two or three slices spread with dripping forthe younger boys who would presently come in. Wemock sat down, his handsin his pockets and his legs stretched out to their utmost length, andlooked first at his wife who was stitching trousers, and then at Polly, whose eyes were fixed upon him. 

"I'll teach you to look at me like that, you brat, " he said, risingslowly. 

"For the Lord's sake, Wemock!" his wife cried, for there was deepermischief than usual in his tone. "Remember what you did to Orlando. "

"I'll do for him again. I've 'ad enough of him always hunder foot. Outo' the way, you fool. "

Polly looked toward the door. A beating for herself could be taken, butnever for Orlando. Her mother had come between, and she saw her fatherstrike her heavily, and then push her into the chair. 

"Go on with your trousers, " he said. "There's no money at the Docks, andthese children eating me out of house and home. A man might be master ofhis own. Come 'ere. You won't, won't you? Then--"

There were oaths and a shriek from Orlando, on whom the strap hadfallen; and then Polly, still holding him, rushed for the door, only tobe caught back and held, while the heavy fist came down with cruelweight. 

"Wemock's a bit worse than common, " they said in the next room as thesounds began; but the shrieks in another moment had drawn every one inthe Buildings, and the doorway filled with faces, no one volunteering, however, to interfere with the Briton's right to deal with his own ashe will. He had flung Polly from him, and she lay on the floorunconscious and bleeding. Orlando had crept under the bed, and lay thereparalyzed with terror; and the mother shrieked so loudly that the bruteslunk back and seated himself again with attempted indifference. 

"You've done for yourself this time, " a neighbor said, and Wemock sprangup, too late to escape the policemen who had been brought by the sounds, not usual in broad daylight, and who suddenly had their hands upon him, while another stooped doubtfully over the child. 

"She's alive, " he said. "They take a deal to kill 'em, such do, butshe'll need the 'ospital. Her arm's broke. "

He lifted the arm as he spoke, and it fell limp, a cry of pain comingfrom the child, whose eyes had opened a moment and then closed with alook of death on the face. An ambulance was passing. Some one had beenhurt on the Docks, where accidents are always happening, and was beingcarried to the hospital; and a neighbor ran down. 

"It's best to do it sudden, " she said, "or Orlando 'll never let her goor her mother either, " and she hailed the ambulance driver, whoobjected to taking two, but agreed when he found it was only a child. 

Polly came to herself at last, gasping with pain. A broken arm was theleast of it. There was a broken rib as well, and bruises innumerable. But worse than any pain was the separation from Orlando, for whom Pollywailed, till, in despair, the nurse promised to speak to the surgeon andsee if he might not be brought; and, satisfied with this hope, the childlay quiet and waited. 

She was in a clean bed, --such a bed as she had never seen, and her softdark eyes examined the nurse and all the strange surroundings in theintervals of pain. But fever came soon, and in long days of unconsciousmurmurings and tossings, all that was left of Polly's thin little framewasted away. 

"It is a hopeless case, " the doctor said, "though after all withchildren you can never tell. "

There came a day when Polly opened her eyes, quite conscious, and lookedup once more at the nurse with the old appeal. 

"I want Orlando. Where's Orlando?"

"He can't come, " the nurse said, after a moment, in which she turnedaway. 

"You promised, " Polly said faintly. 

"I know it, " the nurse said. "He should come if he could, but he can't. "

"Is he sick?" Polly said after a pause. "Did father hurt him?"

"Yes, he hurt him. He hurt him very much, but he can never hurt him anymore. Orlando is dead. "

Polly lay quite silent, nor did her face change as she heard the words;but a smile came presently, and her eyes lightened. 

"You didn't know, " she said. "Orlando has come. He is right here, andsomebody is carrying him. He is putting out his arms. "

The child had raised herself, and looked eagerly toward the foot of thebed, "She is bringing him to me. She says, 'Polly, you 're going to be alady and never do what you don't want to any more. ' I thought I shouldbe a lady sometime, because I wanted to so much; but I didn't think itwould be so soon. They won't know me in the Buildings. I'm going to be alady, and never--"

Polly's eyes had closed. She fell back. What she had seen no man couldknow, but the smile stayed. 

It was quite certain that something at least had come to her of what shewanted. 

CHAPTER VI. 

AMONG THE DRESSMAKERS. 

"An Englishman's house is his castle, " and an Englishwoman's no less, and both he and she ward off intruders with an energy inherited from thedays when all men were fighters, and intensified by generations ofpractice. Even a government inspector is looked upon with deep disfavoras one result of the demoralization brought about by liberal and otherloose ways of viewing public rights. The private, self-constituted one, it may then be judged rightly, is regarded as a meddlesome and pestilentbusybody seeking knowledge which nobody should wish to obtain, andanother illustration of what the nineteenth century is coming to. Various committees of inquiry, from the Organized Charities and fromprivate bodies of workers, visit manufactories and industries ingeneral, where women are employed, to make it evident that there is adesire to know how they fare. Why this wish has arisen, and why thingsare not allowed to remain as the fathers left them, are two questions atpresent distracting the British employer's mind, and likely, before theinquiry is ended, to distract it more, as, day by day, the numbersincrease of those who persist in believing that they are in some degreetheir brothers' keepers, --a doctrine questioned ever since the story oftime began. Obstacles of every nature are placed in the way of legalizedinspection, and evasion and subterfuge, masterly enough to furnish acongress of diplomatists with ideas, are in daily practice. Years ofexperience make the inspector no less astute, and so the war goes on. 

It will be seen then, what difficulties hedge about the privateinquirer, who must go armed with every obtainable guarantee, and eventhen leave the field quite conscious that the informants are chucklingover a series of misleading statements, and that not much will be madeof that case. So little organization exists among the workersthemselves, and there is such deadly fear of losing a place that womenand girls listen silently to statements, which they denounce afterwardsas absolutely false. Natural as this is, --and it is one of theinevitable results of the system, --it is one of the worst obstacles inthe way, not only of inquiry but any statements of results. 

"Of course he lied or she lied, " they say, "but don't for anything inthe world let them know that we said so or that you know anything aboutit. "

This injunction, which for the individual worker's sake must bescrupulously attended to, hampers not only inquiry but reform, anddelays still further the attempts at organization made here and there. The system applied to dressmaking, our present topic, differs fromanything known in America save in one of its phases, and merits somedescription, representing as it does some lingering remnant of the oldapprentice system. 

For the West End there is generally but one method. And here it may besaid that the West End ignores absolutely any knowledge of what the EastEnd methods may be. Between them there is a great gulf fixed, and thepoorest apprentice of a West End house regards herself as infinitelysuperior to the mistress of an East End business. For this charmedregion of the West, whether large or small, has spent years in buildingup a reputation, and this is a portion of the guarantee that goes withthe worker, who has learned her trade under their auspices. It is a slowprocess, --so slow, that the system is not likely to be adopted by hastyAmericans. In a first-class house in the West End, Oxford and RegentStreets having almost a monopoly of this title, the premium demanded foran apprentice is from forty to sixty pounds. This makes her what isknown as an "indoor apprentice, " and entitles her to board and lodgingsfor two years. Numbers are taken at once, beds are set close together inthe rooms provided, and board is made of the cheapest, to prevent loss. This would seem very small, but add to it the fact, that the apprenticegives from twelve to sixteen hours a day of time and a year of time asassistant after the first probation is past, and it will be seen, that, even with no fee, the house is hardly likely to lose much. 

The out-door apprentices pay usually ten pounds and board and lodge athome, but hours are the same; never less than twelve, and in the busyseason, fourteen and sixteen. Tea is furnished them once a day, but nofood, nor is there definite time for meals. In the case of in-doorapprentices, with any rush of work, a supper is provided at ten, but the"out-doors" must bring such food as is needed. For them there is, as forlearners, no pay for over-time; and the strain often costs the life ofthe country girls unused to confinement, who fall into quickconsumption, induced not only by long hours of sitting bent over work, but by breathing air foul with the vile gas and want of ventilation, aswell as, in many cases, the worst possible sanitary conditions. If theinitiatory period is safely past, the apprentice becomes an "improver;"that is, she is allowed larger choice of work, looks on or even triesher own hand when draping is to be done, and if quick is shortly rankedas an assistant. With this stage comes a small wage. An out-doorapprentice now earns from four to five shillings ($1. 25) a week. Thein-door one still receives only board, but soon graduates from secondto first assistant, though the whole process requires not less than fouryears and is often made to cover six. As first assistant she is likelyto have quarters slightly more comfortable than those of theapprentices, and she receives one pound a week, --often less, but nevermore. In case of over-time, this meaning anything over the twelve hourswhich is regarded as a day's work, various rates are paid. In themourning department of one of the best known Oxford Streetestablishments, fourpence an hour is allowed. This rate is exceptionallyhigh, being given because of the objection to evening work on black. Thesame house pays in the colored-suit department two and a half pence(5c. ) an hour, and provides tea for the hands. Twopence an hour is givenin several other houses, but for the majority nothing whatever. 

The forewoman of one of these establishments began as an apprenticesomething over thirty years ago, and in giving these details and manyothers not included, expressed her own surprise that the amount ofagitation as to over-time had produced so little tangible result. 

"The houses are on the lookout, it's true, " she said; "and each one isafraid of getting into the papers for violating the law, so theapprentice is looked out for a little better than she was in my time. I've worked many a time when there was a press of work--some suddenorder to be filled--all night long. They gave us plenty of tea, a hotsupper at ten, and something else at two, but they never paid afarthing, and it never came to one of us that we'd any right to ask it. There was one--a plucky little woman and a splendid hand. She was firstassistant and we'd been going on like this a week one year. The girlsfell fainting from their chairs. I did myself though I was used to it;and she stood up there at midnight, just before the manager came in andsaid, 'Girls, you've no right to take another stitch without pay. Who'llstand by me if I say so when Mr. B. Comes in. ' Not one spoke. 'Oh, youcowards!' she said. 'Not one? Then I'll speak for you. ' Two rose up thenand threw down their work. ''Tis a burning shame, ' says they. 'Say whatyou like!' Mr. B. Was there before the words were out of their mouths, 'What's this? what's this?' he said. 'Not at work and the order to goout at noon?' 'Pay us then for double work, and not drive us like galleyslaves, ' said Mrs. Colman, standing very straight, 'I speak for myselfand for the rest. We are going home. '

"The manager got purple. 'The first one that leaves this room, by G--, she'll never come back. What do you mean getting up this row, damn you?''I mean we're earning double, and ought to have it. Why shouldn't ourpockets hold some of the profits on this order as well as yours?' 'Willyou hush?' he says with his hand up as if he'd strike. 'No; not now, norever, ' she says, she white and he purple, and out she walked; but nonefollowed her. She never came back, and she was marked from that time, soshe found it hard to get work. But she married again and went out to theColonies, so she hadn't to fight longer. It's over-time now, as much asthen, that is the greatest trouble. We had a Mutual Improvement Societywhen I was young, but oh, what hard work it was to go to it after ninein the evening and try to work, and it's hard work now, though peoplethink you can be as brisk and wide awake after sewing twelve hours as ifyou'd been enjoying yourself. "

In 1875 a few dressmakers, who had observed intelligently variousorganizations among men-tailors, boot-makers, etc. , started anassociation of the "dressmakers, milliners, and mantua makers, " designedfor mutual benefit, a subscription of twopence per week being added to asmall entrance fee. Rules were drawn up, one or two of which are givenillustratively. 

 "Each person on joining is required to pay _one penny_ for a copy of the rules, _one penny_ for a card on which her payments will be entered, and _one shilling_ entrance fee--but the last may be paid by instalments of fourpence each. After thirty years of age the entrance fee shall be 6_d. _ extra for every additional ten years. 

 "Members not working in a business house, or not working in the above trades, can only claim sick benefits, but the usual death levy shall also be made for them. 

 "In case of death each member will be called upon to contribute _sixpence_ to be expended as the deceased member may have directed. 

 "When a member is disabled by sickness (excepting in confinements), a notice must be signed by two members as vouchers to the secretary, who shall appoint the member living nearest to the sick member, with one member of the committee, to visit her weekly, and report to the committee before the allowance is paid, unless special circumstances require a relaxation of this rule. The committee may require a medical certificate. "

Excellent as every provision was, and admirable work as wasaccomplished, the women, as is too often the case with women, lostmutual confidence, or could not be made to see the advantage of payingpunctually, and the association dwindled down to a mere handful. In 1878it reorganized, and its secretary, a working dressmaker, who learned hertrade in a West End house, has labored in unwearied fashion to bringabout some _esprit du corps_ and though often baffled, speakscourageously still of the better time coming when women will have somesense of the value of organization. Her word confirms the facts gatheredat many points in both East and West End. The East has reduced wages tostarvation limit. A pound a week can still be earned in some houses atthe West End--though fourteen or sixteen shillings is more usual; butfor the other side, fourteen is still the highest point, and the scaledescends to five and six--in one case to three and sixpence. Over hours, scanty food, exhaustion, wasting sickness, and death, the friend atlast, when the weary days are done;--this is the day for most. TheAmerican worker has distinct advantages on her side, the long unpaidapprenticeship here having no counterpart there, and the frightfullylong working day being also shortened. Many other disabilities are thesame, but in this trade the advantage thus far is wholly for theAmerican worker. 

CHAPTER VII. 

NELLY, A WEST-END MILLINER'S APPRENTICE. 

What Polly had heard, listening silently, with "Wemock's Orlando" heldclose in her small arms, was quite true. Nelly Sanderson had determinedto be a lady, and though uncertain as yet as to how it was to be broughtabout, felt that it must come. This she had made up her mind to when notmuch older than Polly, and the desire had grown with her. It wasperfectly plain from the difference between her and Jim that Nature hadmeant her for something better than to stitch shirt-bodies endlessly. Attwelve she had begun to do this, portions of two or three previous yearshaving been spent in a Board School. Then her time for work andcontribution to the family support had come. She was only a "feller, "and took her weekly bundle of work from a woman, who, in turn, had itfrom another woman, who took it from a master-sweater, who dealtdirectly with the great city houses; and between them all, Nelly's wagewas kept at the lowest point. But she did her work well, and was quickto a marvel; and her hope for the future carried her on through themonotonous days, broken only by her mother's scolding and Jim'sinsolence. 

Jim was the typical East End loafer, --a bullet head, closely cropped;dull round eyes, and fat nose, also rounded; a thick neck, and fatcheeks, in which were plainly to be seen the overdoses of beer andspirits he had drunk since he was ten or twelve years old. 

His mother had tried to keep him respectable. She had been a lady'smaid; but that portion of her life was buried in mystery. It was onlyknown she had come to Norwood Street when Nelly was a baby, and thatvery shortly Judkins, a young omnibus conductor, had fallen in love withher; and they had married, and taken rooms, and lived very comfortablytill Jim was three or four years old. But the taste for liquor was toostrong; and long days in fog and rain, chilled to the marrow under theswollen gray clouds of the London winter, were some excuse for the rushto the "public" at the end of each trip. The day's wages at last wereall swallowed, and the wife, like a good proportion of workmen's wives, found herself chief bread-winner, and tried first one trade and thenanother, till Nelly's quick fingers grew serviceable. 

Nelly was pretty, --more than pretty. Even Jim had moments of admiration;and the Buildings, in which several of her admirers lived, had seenunending fights as to who had the best right to take her out on Sundays. Her waving red-brown hair, her great eyes matching it in tint to ashade, her long black lashes and delicate brows, the low white foreheadand clear pale cheeks, --anybody could see that these were far and awaybeyond any girl in the Buildings. The lips were too full, and the noseno particular shape; but the quick-moving, slender figure, like hermother's, and the delicate hands, which Nelly hated to soil, and kept ascarefully as possible, --all these were indications over which the women, in conclave over tea and shrimps, shook their heads. 

"'Er father was a gentleman, that's plain to see. She'll go the sameway her mother did. I'd not 'ave one of my hown boys take up with her, not for no money. "

This seemed the general verdict in the Buildings; and though Nelly sewedsteadily all day and every day, the women still held to it, the menhotly contesting it, and family quarrels over the subject confirming theimpression. Nelly worked on, however, unmoved by criticism or approval, spending all that could be saved from the housekeeping on the moststylish clothes to be found in Petticoat Lane market, and denyingherself even in these for the sake of a little hoard, which accumulated, oh! so slowly since it had been broken into, once for a new feather forher little hat, once for a day's pleasuring at Greenwich; and Nellyresolved firmly it should never happen again. 

One ambition filled her. This hateful East End must be left somehow. Somehow she must get to be the lady which she felt sure she ought to be. There were hints of this sometimes in her mother's talk; but it wasplain that there was nobody to help her to this but herself. AlreadyJim drank more than his share. He was going the way of his father, deadyears before in a drunken frolic; and the income made from the littleshop her mother had opened, to teach him how to make a living, coveredexpenses, and not much more. Whatever was done for Nelly must be done byherself. 

The way had opened, or begun to open, at Greenwich. A tall, delicategirl, who proved to be a milliner's apprentice, had taken a fancy toher, and given her her first real knowledge of the delights of West Endlife. She had nearly ended her apprenticeship, and would soon be aregular hand; and Nelly listened entranced to the description ofmarvellous hats and bonnets, and the people who tried them on, andlooked disgustingly at her own. 

"You've got a touch, I know, " the new friend said approvingly. "You'dget on. Isn't there anybody to pay the premium for you?"

Nelly shook her head sorrowfully. "They couldn't do without me, " shesaid. "There's mother and Jim, that won't try to earn anything, and Istitch now twelve hours a day. I'm off shirts, and on trousers. Trouserspay better. I've made eighteen shillings a week sometimes, but you mustkeep at it steady ahead for that. "

"It's a pity, " her companion said reflectively. "You'd learn quick. Inthree months you'd be an improver, and begin to earn, and then there'sno knowing where you'd stop. You might get to be owner. "

Nelly turned suddenly. She had felt for some time that some one waslistening to them. They were on the boat, sitting on the central seat, back to back with a row of merry-makers; but this was some onedifferent. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said; and Nelly flushed with pleasure at a toneno one had ever used before. "I have heard a little you were saying. Iam interested in this question of wages, and very anxious to know moreabout it. I wish you would tell me what you know about this stitching. "

He had come round to their side--a tall blond man of thirty, dressed inlight gray, and a note-book in his hand. He was so serious and gentlethat it was impossible to take offence, and very soon Nelly was tellinghim all she knew of prices in cheap clothing of every sort, and how theworkers lived. She hated it all, --the grime and sordidness, the drunkenmen and screaming children; and her eyes flashed as she talked of it, and a flush came to her cheeks. 

"You ought to have something better, " the young man said presently, hiseyes fixed upon her. "We must try to find something better. "

Nelly's companion smiled significantly, but he did not notice it. Evidently he was unlike most of the gentlemen she had seen in the WestEnd. Yet he certainly was a gentleman. He took them to a smallrestaurant when Nelly had answered all his questions, and they dinedsumptuously, or so it seemed to them, and he sat by them and toldstories, and entertained them generally all the way home. 

"I shall go down the river next Sunday, " he said low to Nelly as theylanded. "Do you like to row? If you do, come to Chelsea to the Bridge, and we will try it from there. "

This was the beginning, and for many weeks it meant simply that hepleased his æsthetic sense, as well as convinced himself that he wasdoing a good and righteous deed in making life brighter for an East Endtoiler. He had given her the premium, and Nelly, without any actual lie, had convinced her mother that the West End milliner was willing to takeher for only two months of time given, and then begin wages. She broughtout her own little fund, swollen by several shillings taken from one ofthe sovereigns given her, and proved that there was enough here to keepthem till she began to earn wages again; and Mrs. Judkins allowedherself at last to be persuaded, feeling that a chance had come for thegirl which must not be allowed to pass. 

So Nelly's apprenticeship began. There was less rose-color than she hadimagined. The hours were long, longer sometimes than her stitching hadbeen, and many of the girls looked at her jealously. But Maria, herfirst friend, remained her friend. The two sat side by side, and Nellycaught the knack by instinct almost, and even in the first week or twocaught a smile from Madame, who paused to consider the twist of a bow, quite Parisian in its effect, and said to herself that here was a handwho would prove valuable. 

Nelly went home triumphant that night, and even her mother's sour facerelaxed. She had taken up trouser-stitching again, forcing Jim to mindthe shop, and saying to herself that the family fortunes were going tomend, and that Nelly would do it. Sundays were always free. Nobodyquestioned the girl. The young men in the Buildings and the street gaveup pursuit. Plainly Nelly was not for them, but had found her properplace in the West End. They bowed sarcastically, and said, "'Ow's yourRoyal 'Ighness?" when they met; but Nelly hardly heeded them. The longwish had taken shape at last, --she was going to be a lady. 

Summer ended. There was no more boating, but there were still long walksand excursions. The apprenticeship was over, and Nelly was now a regularhand, and farther advanced than many who had worked a year or two. Shemade good wages, often a pound a week. Her dress was all that such ashop demanded; her manner quieter every day. 

"She's a lady, that's plain, " Maria said; and Madame agreed with her, and took the girl more and more into favor. Nelly had a little room ofher own now, next to Maria. She seldom went home, save to take money toher mother, and she never stayed long. 

"It's best not, " Mrs. Judkins said. "You're bound for something better, and you'll get it. This isn't your place. You're a bit pale, Nelly. It'sthe hours and the close room, I suppose?"

"Yes; it's the hours, " Nelly said. "When there's a press, we're oftenkept on till nine or ten; but it's a good place. "

She lingered to-day till Jim came in. Jim grew worse and worse, and shehurried away as she saw him swaggering toward the door; but there weretears in her eyes as she turned away. She passed her friend of thesummer in Regent Street, and looked back for a moment. He had nodded, but was talking busily with a tall man, who eyed Nelly sharply. She hadfound that he lived in Chelsea, and was a literary man of somesort, --she hardly knew what, --and that his name was Stanley; beyondthis she knew nothing. Some day he would make her a lady, --but when?There was need of haste. No one knew how great need. 

Another month or two, the winter well upon them, and there came a daywhen Madame, who, as Nelly entered the workroom, had stopped for amoment and looked at her, first in surprise, then in furious anger, burst out upon her in words that scorched the ears to hear. No girl likethat need sit down among decent girls. March, and never show hershameful face again. 

Nelly rose silently, and took down her hat and shawl, and as silentlywent out, Madame's shrill voice still sounding. What should she do? Theend was near. She could not go home. She must find Herbert, and tellhim; but he would not be at home before night. She knew his number now, and how to find him. He must make it all right. She went into Hyde Parkand walked about, and when she grew too cold, into a cocoa-room, and sothe day wore away; and at five she took a Chelsea omnibus, and leanedback in the corner thinking what to say. The place was easily found, and she knocked, with her heart beating heavily, and her voice tremblingas a maid opened the door and looked at her a moment. 

"Come this way, " she said, certain it must be a lady, --a visitor fromthe country, perhaps; and Nelly followed her into a back drawing-room, where a lady sat with a baby on her lap, and two or three children abouther. A little boy ran forward, then stood still, his frightened, surprised eyes on Nelly's eyes, which were fixed upon him in terror. 

"Whose is he?--whose?" she stammered. 

"He is Herbert Stanley, junior, " the lady said with a smile. "I'm Mrs. Stanley. Good Heaven! what is it?"

Nelly had stood for a moment, her hands reaching out blindly, the cardwith its name and number still in them. 

"I must go, " she said. "I must look for the real Herbert. This isanother. " She fell as the words ended, still holding the card tight; andwhen they had revived her, only shook her head as questions were asked. The boy stood looking at her with his father's eyes. There could be nodoubt. Nelly rose and looked around; then, with no word to tell who shemight be, went out into the night. She crossed the street, and stoodhesitating; and as she stood a figure came swiftly down the street onthe other side, and ran up the steps of the house she had left. Therewas no doubt any more; and with a long, bitter cry Nelly fled toward theriver. There was no pause. She knew the way well, and if she had not, instinct would have led her, and did lead, through narrow alleys andturnings till the embankment was reached. No stop, even then. Apoliceman saw the flying figure, and a man who tried to hinder her heardthe words, "I shall never be a lady now, " but that was all; and when hesaw her face again the river had done its work, and the story was plain, though for its inner pages only the man who was her murderer has thekey. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

LONDON SHIRT-MAKERS. 

Bloomsbury has a cheerful sound, and, like Hop Vine Garden and VioletLane, and other titles no less reassuring, seems to promise a breath ofsomething better than the soot-laden atmosphere offered by a Londonwinter. But Hop Vine Garden is but a passage between a line of oldbuildings, and ends in a dark court and a small and dirty "public, " thebeer-pots of which hold the only suggestion of hops to be discovered. Violet Lane is given over to cat's-meat and sausage makers, thecombination breeding painful suspicions in the seeker's mind, andBloomsbury has long since ceased to own sight or smell of any growingthing. 

But, in a gray and forlorn old group of houses known as Clark'sBuildings, will be found, on certain evenings in the month, a littleknot of women, each with open account-book, studying over small piles ofpence and silver, and if their looks are any indication, drawing verylittle satisfaction from the operation. They are the secretaries of thelittle societies organized by the late Mrs. Patterson, who, like manyother philanthropists, came to see that till the workers themselves wereroused to the consciousness of necessity for union, but little could beaccomplished for them. A few of the more intelligent, stirred by herdeep earnestness, banded together twelve years ago, and organized asociety known as "The Society of Women Employed in Shirt, Collar, andUnder-linen Making;" and here may be found the few who have, from longand sharp experience, discovered the chief needs of workers in thesetrades. When outward conditions as they show themselves at present havebeen studied, when homes and hours and wages and all the details of thevarious branches have become familiar, it is to this dim little hallthat one comes for a final puzzle over all that is wrong. 

For it is all wrong; nor in any corner of working London, can any factor figures make a right of the toil that is an old, old story; so oldthat there is even impatience if one tells it again. Numbers areunknown, each one who investigates giving a different result; but it isquite safe to say that five hundred thousand women live by theindustries named in the society's title, not one of whom has everreceived, or ever will receive, under the present system, a wage whichgoes beyond bare subsistence. Here, as in New York, or any other largecity of the United States, the conditions governing the trade are muchthe same. The women, untrained and unskilled in every other direction, turn to these branches of sewing as the possibility for all, and scoreswait for any and every chance of work from manufactory or small house. As with us, the work is chiefly put out, and necessarily at once arisesthe middle-man, or a gradation of middle-men, each of whom must have hisprofit, taken in every case--not from employer, but worker. The employerfixes his rates without reference to these. He is fighting, also, forsubsistence, plus as many luxuries as can be added from the profits ofhis superior power over conditions. He may be, and often is, to thosenearest him, kind, unselfish, eager for right. But the hands are"hands, " and that is all; and the middle-man, of whom the very samestatement may be true, deals with the hands with an equal obliviousnessas to their connection with bodies and souls. 

The original price per dozen of the garments made may be the highest inthe market, but before the woman who works is reached there are oftenfive, and sometimes more, transfers. Where workers are employed on thepremises, they fare better, being paid by the piece. The minutestdivisions of labor prevail, even more than with us--a shirt passingthrough many hands, the weekly wage differing for each. The "fitter, "for instance, must be a skilled workwoman, the flatness and proper setof the shirt front depending upon correct fitting at the neck. For thisfitting in West End houses, the fitter receives a penny a shirt, and canin a week fit twenty dozen--this meaning a pound a week. But slackseasons reduce the amount, so that often she earns but nine or tenshillings, her average for the year being about fourteen. For the gradesbelow her the sum is proportionately less. The most thoroughly skilledhand in either shirt-making or under-linen has been known to make ashigh as twenty-eight shillings a week ($7. 00), but this is phenomenal;nor, indeed, does any such possibility remain, prices having gone downsteadily for some years. A pound a week for a woman, as has been statedelsewhere, is regarded even by just employers as all that can berequired by the most exacting; and with this standard in mind, a fall ofthree or four shillings seems a matter of slight importance. 

Taking the various industries in which women are employed, the needle, as usual, leading, and the shirt-makers being a large per cent of thenumber, there are in London nearly a million women, self-supporting andself-respecting, and often the sole dependence of a family. Thisexcludes the numbers of thriftless and otherwise helpless poor whosework is variable, and who, at the best, can earn only the lowestpossible wages as unskilled laborers. For the skilled ones, doing theirbest in long days of work, never less than twelve hours, the averageearnings, after all chances of slack seasons and accidents have beentaken into account, is never over ten shillings a week. It is worthwhile to consider what ten shillings can do. 

The allowance per head for rations for the old people in the WhitechapelWorkhouse, one of the best of its class, is according to theauthorities, three shillings eleven pence (96c. ) per week, the quantityfalling somewhat below the amount which physiologists regard asnecessary for an able-bodied adult. These supplies are purchased bycontract, and thus a full third lower than the single buyer can command. But she has learned that appetite is not a point to be considered, andfor the most part confines herself to tea and bread and butter, with acheap relish now and then. Thus four shillings a week is made to coverfood, and three shillings gives her a small back room. For such lights, fire, and washing as cannot be dispensed with, must be counted anothershilling. Out of the remaining two shillings must come her twopence aweek, if she belongs to any trades-union, leaving one shilling andten-pence for clothes, holidays, amusements, saving, and the possibledoctor's bill, a sum for the year, at the utmost, of from four poundsfifteen shillings and ninepence, or a trifle under twenty dollars. Thesewomen are, every one of them, past-mistresses in the art of doingwithout; and they do without with a patient courage, and often acheerfulness, that is one of the most pathetic facts in their story. Itis the established order of things. Why should they cry or make ado?Yet, as the workshop has its own education for men, and gives us theorder known as the "intelligent workman, " so it gives us also the noless intelligent workwoman, possessing not only the natural womanly giftof many resources, but the added power of just so much technicaltraining as she may have received in her apprenticeship to her trade. 

Miss Simcox, who has made a study of the whole question, comments onthis, in an admirable article in one of the monthlies for 1887, emphasizing the fact that these women, fitted by experience and longtraining for larger work, must live permanently, with absolutely nooutlook or chance of change, on the border-land of poverty and want. They know all the needs, all the failings of their own class. Many ofthem give time, after the long day's work is done, to attempts atorganizing and to general missionary work among their order; and by suchefforts the few and feeble unions among them have been kept alive. Butvital statistics show what the end is where such double labor must beperformed. These women who have character and intelligence, andunselfish desire to work for others, have an average "expectation oflife" less by twenty years than that of the class who know thecomfortable ease of middle-class life. 

It is one of these workers who said not long ago, her words being putinto the mouth of one of Mr. Besant's characters: "Ladies deliberatelyshut their eyes; they won't take trouble; they won't think; they likethings about them to look smooth and comfortable; they will get thingscheap if they can. _What do they care if the cheapness is got bystarving women?_ Who is killing this girl here? Bad food and hard work. Cheapness! What do the ladies care how many working girls are killed?"

The individual woman brought face to face with the woman dying fromoverwork, would undoubtedly care. But the workers are out of sight, hidden away in attic and basement, or the upper rooms of greatmanufactories. The bargains are plain to see, every counter loaded, every window filled. And so society, which will have its bargains, ispractically in a conspiracy against the worker. The woman who spends onher cheapest dress the utmost sum which her working sister has fordress, amusements, culture, and saving, preaches thrift, and it iscertain the working classes would be better off if they had learned tosave. Small wonder that the workers doubt them and their professedfriendship, and that the breach widens day by day between classes andmasses, bridged only by the work of those who, like the workers in theWomen's Provident League, know that it is to the rich that the need forindustry must be preached, not to the poor. Organization holds educationfor both, and it is now quite possible to know something of the methodsof prominent firms with their workwomen, and to shun those which refuseto consider the questions of over-time, of unsanitary workrooms, ofunjust fines and reductions, and the thousand ways of emptying someportion of the workwoman's purse into that of the employer. It is womenwho must do this, and till it is done, justice is mute, and the voice ofour sisters' blood cries aloud from the ground. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE TALE OF A BARROW. 

If the West End knows not the East End, save as philanthropy and Mr. Walter Besant have compelled it, much less does it know Leather Lane, aremnant of old London, now given over chiefly to Italians, and thus alittle more picturesquely dirty than in its primal state of pure Englishgrime. The eager business man hurrying down "that part of Holbornchristened High, " is as little aware of the neighborhood of Leather Laneand what it stands for, as the New Yorker on Broadway is of MulberryStreet and the Great Bend. For either or both, entrance is entrance intoa world quite unknown to decorous respectability, and, if one looksaright, as full of wonders and discoveries as other unknown countriesunder our feet. Out of Leather Lane, with its ancient houses swarmingwith inhabitants and in all stages of decay and foulness, open otherlanes as unsavory, through which the costers drive their barrows, chaffering with dishevelled women, who bear a black eye or other tokenthat the British husband has been exercising his rights, and who findbargaining for a bunch of turnips or a head of cabbage an exhilaratingchange. 

There were many costers and many barrows, but among them all hardly oneso popular as "old Widgeon, " who had been in the business forty years;and as he had chosen to remain a bachelor, an absolutely unheard-ofstate of things, he was an object of deepest interest to every woman inLeather Lane and its purlieus. It was always possible that he mightchange his mind; and from the oldest inhabitant down to the child justbeginning to ask questions, there was always a sense of expectationwhere Widgeon was concerned. He, in the meantime, did his day's workcontentedly, had a quick eye for all trouble, and in such cases was sureto give overweight, or even to let the heavy penny or two fallaccidentally into the purchase. His donkey had something the sameexpression of patient good-humored receptivity. The children climbedover the barrow and even on the donkey's back, and though Widgeon madegreat feint of driving them off with a very stubby whip, they knew wellthat it would always just miss them, and returned day after dayundismayed. He "did for himself" in a garret in a dark little house, upa darker court; and here it was popularly supposed he had hidden thegains of all these forty years. They might be there or in the donkey'sstable, but they were somewhere, and then came the question, who wouldhave them when he died?

To these speculations Nan listened silently, in the pauses of themachines on which her mother and three other women stitched trousers. Nothing was expected of her but to mind the baby, to see that the firekept in, just smouldering, and that there was always hot water enoughfor the tea. On the days when they all stitched she fared well enough;but when she had carried home the work, and received the money, therewas a day, sometimes two or three, in which gin ruled, and the womenfirst shouted and sang songs, and at last lay about the floor in everystage of drunkenness. Gradually chances for work slipped away; themachines were given up, and the partnership of workers dissolved, and attwelve, Nan and the baby were beggars and the mother in prison foraggravated assault on a neighbor. She died there, and thus settled oneproblem, and now came the other, how was Nan to live?

Old Widgeon answered this question. They had always been good friendsfrom the day he had seen her standing, holding the baby, crippled andhopelessly deformed from its birth. His barrow was almost empty, and thedonkey pointing his long ears toward the stable. 

"Get in, " he said, "an' I'll give you a bit of a ride, " and Nan, speechless with joy, climbed in and was driven to the stable, and oncethere, watched the unharnessing and received some stray oranges as shefinally turned away. From that day old Widgeon became her patron saint. She had shot up into a tall girl, shrinking from those about her, andabsorbed chiefly in the crooked little figure, still "the baby;" buttall as she might be, she was barely twelve, and how should she hire amachine and pay room rent and live?

Widgeon settled all that. 

"You know how to stitch away at them trousers?" he had said, and Nannodded. 

"Then I'll see you through the first week or two, " he said; "but, mind!don't you whisper it, or I'll 'ave hevery distressed female in the courtdown on me, and there's enough hof 'em now. "

Nan nodded again, but he saw the tears in her eyes, and regarded wordsas quite unnecessary. The sweater asked no questions when she came for abundle of work, nor did she tell him that she alone was now responsible. She had learned to stitch. Skill came with practice, and she might aswell have such slight advantage as arose from being her mother'smessenger. 

So Nan's independent life began, and so it went on. She grew no taller, but did grow older, her silent gravity making her seem older still. Itwas hard work. She had never liked tea, and she loathed the sight andsmell of either beer or spirits, old experience having made themhateful. Thus she had none of the nervous stimulant which keeps up theordinary worker, and with small knowledge of any cookery but boilingpotatoes and turnips, and frying bacon or sprats, fared worse than hercompanions. But she had learned to live on very little. She stitchedsteadily all day and every day, gaining more and more skill, but neverable to earn more than fourteen shillings a week. Prices went downsteadily. At fourteen shillings she could live, and had managed even notonly to pay Widgeon but to pick up some "bits of things. " She was likeher father, the old people in the alley said. He had been a silent, decent, hard-working man, who died broken-hearted at the turn his wifetook for drink. Nan had his patience and his faithfulness; and Johnny, who crawled about the room, and could light a fire and do some odds andends of house-keeping, was like her, and saved her much time as he grewolder, but hardly any bigger. He had even learned to fry sprats, and tosing, in a high, cracked, little voice, a song known throughout thealley:--

 "Oh, 'tis my delight of a Friday night, When sprats they isn't dear, To fry a couple o' dozen or so Upon a fire clear. "

There are many verses of this ditty, all ending with the chorus:--

 "Oh, 'tis my delight of a Friday night!"

and Johnny varied the facts ingeniously, and shouted "bacon, " oranything else that would fry, well pleased at his own ingenuity. 

"He was 'wanting. ' Nan might better put him away in some asylum, " theneighbors said; but Nan paid no attention. He was all she had, and hewas much better worth working for than herself, and so she went on. 

Old Widgeon had been spending the evening with them. Nan had stitched onas she must; for prices had gone down again, and she was earning butnine shillings a week. Widgeon seldom said much. He held Johnny on hisknee, and now and then looked at Nan. 

"It's a dog's life, " he said at last. "It's far worse than a dog's. You'd be better off going with a barrow, Nan. I'm a good mind to leaveyou mine, Nan. You'd get a bit of air, then, and you'd make--well, agood bit more than you do now. "

Widgeon had checked himself suddenly. Nobody knew what the weekly gainmight be, but people put it as high as three pounds; and this wasfabulous wealth. 

"I've thought of it, " Nan said. "I've thought of it ever since that dayyou rode me and Johnny in the barrow. Do you mind? The donkey knows menow, I think. He's a wise one. "

"Ay, he's a wise one, " the old man said. "Donkeys is wiser than folksthink. " He put Johnny down suddenly, and sat looking at him strangely;but Nan did not see. The machine whirred on, but it stopped suddenly asJohnny cried out. Widgeon had slipped silently from his chair; his eyeswere open, but he did not seem to see her, and he was breathing heavily. Nan ran into the passage and called an old neighbor, and the twotogether, using all their strength, managed to get him to the bed. 

"It's a stroke, " the woman said. "Lord love you, what'll you do? Hecan't stay here. He'd better be sent to 'ospital. "

"I'll be 'anged first, " said old Widgeon, who had opened his eyessuddenly and looked at them both. "I was a bit queer, but I'm rightenough now. Who talks about 'ospitals?"

He tried to move and his face changed. 

"I'm a bit queer yet, " he said, "but it'll pass; it'll pass. Nan, you'llnot mind my being in your way for a night. There's money in me pocket. Maybe there's another room to be 'ad. "

"There's a bit of a one off me own that was me John's, an' him only goneyesterday, " said the woman eagerly; "an' a bed an' all, an' openin'right off of this. The door's behind that press. It's one with this, an'the two belongs together, an' for two an' six a week without, an' threean' six with all that's in it, it's for anybody that wants it. "

"I'll take it a week, " said old Widgeon, "but I'll not want the use ofit more than this night. I'm a bit queer now, but it'll pass; it'llpass. "

The week went, but old Widgeon was still "a bit queer;" and the doctor, who was at last called in, said that he was likely to remain so. Oneside was paralyzed. It might lessen, but would never recover entirely. He would have to be looked out for. This was his daughter? She mustunderstand that he needed care, and would not be able to work any more. 

Old Widgeon heard him in silence, and then turned his face to the wall, and for hours made no sign. When he spoke at last, it was in his usualtone. 

"I thought to end my days in the free air, " he said, "but that ain't tobe. And I'm thinking the stroke's come to do you a good turn, Nan. There's the donkey and the barrow, and everybody knowing it as well asthey know me. I'll send you to my man in Covent Garden. He's a fair 'un. He don't cheat. He'll do well by you, an' you shall drive the barrow andsee what you make of it. We'll be partners, Nan. You look out for me abit, an' I'll teach you the business and 'ave an heye to Johnny. What doyou say? Will you try it? It'll break me 'art if that donkey and barrowgoes to hanybody that'll make light of 'em hand habuse 'em. There hain'tsuch another donkey and barrow in all London, and you're one that knowsit, Nan. "

"Yes, I know it, " Nan said. "You ought to know, if you think I could doit. "

"There's nought that can't be done if you sets your mind well to it, "said old Widgeon. "And now, Nan, 'ere's the key, and you get Billy justby the stable there to move my bits o' things over here. That court's noplace for you, an' there's more light here. Billy's a good 'un. He'll'elp you when you need it. "

This is the story of the fresh-faced, serious young woman who drives adonkey-barrow through certain quiet streets in northwest London, and hasa regular line of customers, who find her wares, straight from CoventGarden, exactly what she represents. Health and strength have come withthe new work, and though it has its hardships, they are as nothingcompared with the deadly, monotonous labor at the machine. Johnny, too, shares the benefit, and holds the reins or makes change, at least onceor twice a week, while old Widgeon, a little more helpless, butotherwise the same, regards his "stroke" as a providential interpositionon Nan's behalf, and Nan herself as better than any daughter. 

"I've all the good of a child, and none o' the hups hand downs o' themarried state, " he chuckles; "hand so, whathever you think, I'm lucky tothe hend. "

CHAPTER X. 

STREET TRADES AMONG WOMEN. 

"With hall the click there is to a woman's tongue you'd think she could'patter' with the best of the men, but, Lor' bless you! a woman can't'patter' any more'n she can make a coat, or sweep a chimley. And why shecan't beats me, and neither I nor nobody knows. "

"To patter" is a verb conjugated daily by the street seller of anypretensions. The coster needs less of it than most vendors, his waresspeaking for themselves; but the general seller of small-wares, bootlaces, toys, children's books, and what not, must have a naturalgift, or acquire it as fast as possible. To patter is to rattle off withincredible swiftness and fluency, not only recommendations of the goodsthemselves, but any side thoughts that occur; and often a street-selleris practically a humorous lecturer, a student of men and morals, andgives the result in shrewd sentences well worth listening to. Half adozen derivations are assigned to the word, one being that it comes fromthe rattled off _paternosters_ of the devout but hasty Catholic, whosays as many as possible in a given space of time. Be this as it may, itis quite true that pattering is an essential feature of any speciallysuccessful street-calling, and equally true that no woman has yetappeared who possesses the gift. 

In spite of this nearly fatal deficiency, innumerable women pursuestreet trades, and, notwithstanding exposure and privation and thescantiest of earnings, have every advantage over their sisters of theneedle. Rheumatism, born of bad diet and the penetrating rawness andfogs of eight months of the English year, is their chief enemy; but as awhole they are a strong, hardy, and healthy set of workers, who shudderat the thought of bending all day over machine or needle, and thank thefate that first turned them toward a street-calling. So conservative, however, is working England, that the needlewoman, even at starvationpoint, feels herself superior to a street-seller; and the latter isquite conscious of this feeling, and resents it accordingly. With manythe adoption of such employment is the result of accident, and the womenin it divide naturally into four classes: (1) The wives ofstreet-sellers; (2) Mechanics, or laborers' wives who go outstreet-selling while their husbands are at work, in order to swell thefamily income; (3) The widows of former street-sellers; (4) Singlewomen. 

Trades that necessitate pushing a heavy barrow, and, indeed, most ofthose involving the carrying of heavy weights, are in the hands of men, and also the more skilled trades, such as the selling of books orstationery, --in short, the business in which patter is demanded. Occasionally there is a partnership, and man and wife carry on the sametrade, she aiding him with his barrow, but for the most part they choosedifferent occupations. In the case of one man in Whitechapel who workedfor a sweater; the wife sold water-cresses morning and evening, whilethe wife of a bobbin turner had taken to small-wares, shoe-laces, etc. As a help. Both tailor and turner declared that, if things went on asthey were at present, they should take to the streets also; for earningswere less and less, and they were "treated like dirt, and worse. "

The women whose trades have been noted are dealers in fish, shrimps, andwinkles, and sometimes oysters, fruit, and vegetables, --fruitpredominating, orange-women and girls being as much a feature of Londonstreet life as in the days of pretty Nelly Gwynne. Sheep-trotters, too, are given over to women, with rice-milk, which is a favoritestreet-dainty, requiring a good deal of preparation; they sell curds andwhey, and now and then, though very seldom, they have a coffee orelder-wine stand, the latter being sold hot and spiced, as a preventiveof rheumatism and chill. To these sales they add fire-screens andornaments (the English grate in summer being filled with every order ofpaper ornamentation), laces, millinery, cut flowers, boot and corsetlaces, and small-wares of every description, including wash-leathers, dressed and undressed dolls, and every variety of knitted articles, mittens, cuffs, socks, etc. 

It will be seen that the range in street trades is far wider for theEnglish than for the American woman, to whom it would almost never occuras a possible means of livelihood. But London holds several thousands ofthese women, a large proportion Irish, it is true, with a mixture ofother nationalities, but English still predominating. The Irishwoman ismore fluent, and can even patter in slight degree, but has lessintelligence, and confines herself to the lower order of trades. Forboth Irish and English there is the same deep-seated horror of theworkhouse. All winter a young Irishwoman has sat at the corner of alittle street opening from the Commercial Road, a basket of apples ather side, and her thin garments no protection against the fearful chillof fog and mist. She had come to London, hoping to find a brother and goover with him to America; but no trace of him could be discovered, andso she borrowed a shilling and became an apple-seller. 

"God knows, " she said, "I'd be betther off in the house [workhouse], forit's half dead I am entirely; but I'd rather live on twopence a day thancome to that. "

Practically she was living on very little more. An aunt, also astreet-seller, had taken her in. She rented a small room near by, forwhich they paid two shillings a week, their whole expenses averagingsixpence each a day. Naturally they were half starved; but theypreferred this to "the house, " and no one who has examined theseretreats can blame them. 

It is the poor who chiefly patronize these street-sellers, and theyswarm where the poor are massed. The "Borough, " on the Surrey side ofthe river, with its innumerable little streets and lanes, each morewretched than the last, has hundreds of them, no less than thebetter-known East End. Leather Lane, one of the most crowded anddistinctive of the quarters of the poor, though comparatively littleknown, has also its network of alleys and courts opening from it, and isone of the most crowded markets in the city, rivalling even PetticoatLane. The latter, whose time-honored name has foolishly been changed toMiddlesex Street, is an old-clothes market, and presents one of the mostextraordinary sights in London; but the trade is chiefly in the handsof men, though their wives usually act as assistants and determine thequality of a garment till the masculine sense has been educated up tothe proper point. Any very small, very old, and very dirty street at anypoint has its proportion of street-sellers, whose dark, grimy, comfortless rooms are their refuge at night. Other rooms of a betterorder are occupied, it may be, by some relative or child to besupported; and higher still rank those that are counted homes, wherehusband and wife meet when the day's work is done. 

Like the needlewomen, the diet of the majority is meagre and poor to adegree. The Irishwoman is much more ready to try to make the meal hotand relishable than the Englishwoman, though even she confines herselfto cheap fish and potatoes, herring or plaice at two a penny. 

A quiet, very respectable looking woman, the widow of a coster, soldcakes of blacking and small-wares, and gave her view of this phase ofthe question. 

"It's cheaper, their way of doing. Oh, yes, but not so livening. I couldlive cheaper on fish and potatoes than tea and bread and butter; butthat ain't it. They're more trouble, an' when you've been on your legsall day, an' get to your bit of a home for a cup of tea, you want a bitof rest, and you can't be cooking and fussing with fish. There's alwaysa neighbor to give you a jug of boiling water, if you've no time forfire, or it's summer, and tea livens you up a bit where a herring won't. I take mine without milk, and like it better without, and often I don'thave butter on me bread. But I get along, and, please God, I'll be ableto keep out of the 'house' to the end. "

The married women fare better. The men decline to be put off with breadand tea, and the cook-shops and cheap markets help them to what theycall good living. They buy "good block ornaments, " that is, small piecesof meat, discolored but not dirty nor tainted, which are set out forsale on the butcher's block. Tripe and cowheel are regarded as dainties, and there is the whole range of mysterious English preparations ofquestionable meat, from sausage and polonies to saveloys and cheap pies. Soup can be had, pea or eel, at two or three pence a pint, and beer, anessential to most of them, is "threepence a pot [quart] in your ownjugs. " A savory dinner or supper is, therefore, an easy matter, and theEnglish worker fares better in this respect than the American, for whomthere is much less provision in the way of cheap food and cook-shops. Infact the last are almost unknown with us, the cheap restaurant by nomeans taking their place. Even with bread and tea alone, there is a gooddeal more nourishment, since English bread is never allowed to rise tothe over-lightness which appears an essential to the American buyer. Thelaw with English breads and cakes of whatever nature appears to be towork in all the flour the dough can hold, and pudding must be a slab, and bread compact and dense to satisfy the English palate. Dripping isthe substitute for butter, and the children eat the slice of bread anddripping contentedly. Fat of any sort is in demand, the piercing rawnessof an English winter seeming to call for heating food no less than thatof the Esquimaux for its rations of blubber and tallow. But the majorityof the women leave dripping for the children, and if a scrap of buttercannot be had, rest contented with bread and tea, and an occasional pintof beer. For workingwomen as a class, however, there is much lessindulgence in this than is supposed. To the men it is as essential asthe daily meals, and the women regard it in the same way. "We do wellenough with our tea, but a man must have his pint, " they say; and thisprinciple is applied to the children, the girls standing by while theboys take their turn at the "pot of mild. "

This for the best order of workers. Below this line are all grades ofindulgence ending with the woman who earns just enough for the measureof gin that will give her a day or an hour of unconsciousness andfreedom from any human claim. But the pressure of numbers and ofcompeting workers compels soberness, the steadiest and most capablebeing barely able to secure subsistence, while below them is everyconceivable phase of want and struggle, more sharply defined and withless possibility of remedy than anything found in the approximateconditions on American soil. 

CHAPTER XI. 

LONDON SHOP-GIRLS. 

"It's the ladies that's in the way, mum. Once get a lady to think that agirl isn't idling because she's sitting down, and the battle's won. Buta lady comes into a shop blacker 'n midnight if every soul in it isn'ton their feet and springing to serve her. I've got seats, but, blessyou! my trade 'd be ruined if the girls used them much. 'Tisn't that I'mnot willing, and me brother as well. It's the customers, the ladycustomers, that wouldn't stand it. Its them that you've got to talk to. "

Once more it is a woman who is apparently woman's worst enemy, andLondon sins far more heavily in this respect than New York, and for avery obvious reason, that of sharply defined lines of caste, and thenecessity of emphasizing them felt by all whose position does not speakfor itself. A "born lady" on entering a shop where women clerks weresitting, might realize that from eleven to fourteen hours' service dailymight well be punctuated by a few moments on the bits of board pushed inbetween boxes, which do duty for seats, and be glad that an opportunityhad been improved. Not so the wife of the prosperous butcher or baker orcandlestick maker, rejoicing, it may be, in the first appearance inplush and silk, and bent upon making it as impressive as possible. Toher, obsequiousness is the first essential of any dealing with the orderfrom which she is emerging; and her custom will go to the shop where itsoutward tokens are most profuse. A clerk found sitting is simplyembodied impertinence, and the floor manager who allows it an offenderagainst every law of propriety; and thus it happens that seats areslipped out of sight, and exhausted women smile and ask, as the purchaseis made, "And what is the next pleasure?" in a tone that makes theAmerican hearer cringe for the abject humility that is the firstcondition of success as seller. 

Even the best shops are not exempt from this, and as one passes fromwest to east the ratio increases, culminating in the oily glibness ofthe bargain-loving Jew, and his no less bargain-loving London brother ofWhitechapel, or any other district unknown to fashion. 

This, however, is a merely outward phase. The actual wrongs of thesystem lie deeper, but are soon as apparent. For the shop-girl, as forthe needlewoman or general worker of any description whatsoever, over-time is the standing difficulty, and a grievance almost impossibleto redress. That an act of parliament forbids the employment of anyyoung person under eighteen more than eleven hours a day, makes smalldifference. Inspectors cannot be everywhere at once, and violations arethe rule. In fact, the law is a dead letter, and the employer who findshimself suddenly arraigned for violation is as indignant as if noresponsibility rested upon him. A committee has for many months beendoing self-elected work in this direction, registering the names ofshops where over-hours are demanded, informing the clerks of the lawand its bearings, and urging them to make formal complaint. The samedifficulty confronts them here as in the attempts to reduce over-timefor tailoresses and general needlewomen--the fear of the workersthemselves that any complaint will involve the losing of the situation;and thus silent submission is the rule for all, any revolt bringing uponthem instant discharge. 

In a prolonged inquiry into the condition of shop-girls in both the Westand East End, the needs to be met first of all summed themselves up infour: (1) more seats and far more liberty in the use of them; (2) betterarrangements for midday dinner--on the premises if possible, the girlsnow losing much of the hour in a hurried rush to the nearesteatinghouse; (3) with this, some regularity as to time for dinner, thisbeing left at present to the caprice of the manager, who both delays andshortens time; (4) much greater care in the selection of managers. Afifth point might well be added, that of a free afternoon each week. This has been given by a few London firms, and has worked well in theadded efficiency and interest of the girls, but by the majority, isregarded as a wild and very useless innovation. 

The first point is often considered as settled, yet for both sides ofthe sea is actually in much the same case. Seats are kept out of sight, and for the majority of both sellers and buyers, there is the smallestcomprehension of the strain of continuous standing, or its final effect. It is the popular conviction that women "get used to it, " and to acertain extent this is true, the strong and robust adjusting themselvesto the conditions required. But the majority must spend the largerportion of the week's earnings on the neat clothing required by theposition, and to accomplish this they go underfed to a degree that ishalf starvation. It is this latter division of shop girls who suffer, not only from varicose veins brought on by long standing, but from manyother diseases, the result of the same cause; yet, till women, who comeas purchasers to the shops where women are employed, realize andremember this, reform under this head is practically impossible. Theemployer knows that, even if a few protest against the custom, his tradewould suffer were it done away with; and thus buyer and seller form acombination against which revolt is impossible. 

The inquiry brought one fact to light, which, so far as I know, has asyet no counterpart in the United States, and this is, that in certainWest End shops every girl must conform to a uniform size of waist, thisvarying from eighteen to twenty inches, but never above twenty. Tall orshort, fat or lean, Nature must stand aside, and the hour-glass serve asmodel, the results simply adding one more factor of destruction to thenumber already ranged against the girl. 

The matter of regular meals has also far less attention than isnecessary. Dinner is a "movable feast. " The girls are allowed to go outonly two or three at once, and often it is three o'clock or even laterbefore some have broken the fast. Though there is often ample room fortea and coffee urns, the suggestion seems to be regarded as a dangerousinnovation, holding under the innocent seeming, a possible socialrevolution. The thing that hath been shall be, and the obstinatehide-bound conservatism of the English shop-keeper is beyond belieftill experience has made it certain. A few employers consider thismatter. The majority ignore it as beneath consideration. 

The question of suitable floor managers is really the comprehensive one, including almost every evil and every good that can come to the shopgirl, whether in the East or West End. Here, as with us, the girl isabsolutely in his power. He governs the whole system of fines, oneuncomfortable but necessary feature of any large establishment, andinjustice in these can have fullest possible play. 

"The fines are an awful nuisance, that they are, " said a bright-facedgirl in one of the best-known shops of London--a great bazar, much likeMacy's. "But then it all depends on the manager. Some of them are realnasty, you know, and if they happen not to like a girl, they stick onfines just to spite her. You see we're in their power, and some of themjust love to show it and bully the girls no end. And worse than that, they're impudent too if a girl is pretty, and often she doesn't darecomplain, for fear of losing the place, and he has it all his own way. This department's got a very fair manager, and we all like him. He'scareful about fines, and plans about our dinners and all that, so we'rebetter off than most. The manager does what he pleases everywhere. "

These facts are for the West End, where dealings are nominally fair, andwhere wages may, in some exceptional case, run as high as eighteenshillings or even a pound a week. But the average falls far below this, from ten to fourteen being the usual figures, while seven and eight maybe the sum. This, for the girl who lives at home, represents dress andpocket-money, but the great majority must support themselves entirely. We have already seen what this sum can do for the shirt-maker andgeneral needlewoman, and it is easy to judge how the girl fares for whomthe weekly wage is less. In the East End it falls sometimes as low asthree shillings and sixpence (84c. ). The girls club together, huddlingin small back rooms, and spending all that can be saved on dress. Naturally, unless with exceptionally keen consciences, they find what iscalled "sin" an easier fact than starvation; and so the story goes on, and out of greed is born the misery, which, at last, compels greed toheavier poor rates, and thus an approximation to the distribution of theprofit which should have been the worker's. 

Here, as in all cities, the place seems to beckon every girl ambitiousof something beyond domestic service. There are cheap amusements, "penny-gaffs" and the like, the "penny-gaff" being the equivalent of ourdime museum. There is the companionship of the fellow-worker; the lategoing home through brightly-lighted streets, and the crowding throng ofpeople, --all that makes the alleviation of the East End life; and thereis, too, the chance, always possible, of a lover and a husband, perhapsa grade above, or many grades above, their beginning or their presentlives. This alone is impulse and hope. It is much the same story forboth sides of the sea; and here, as in most cases where woman's work isinvolved, it is with women that any change lies, and from their effortsthat something better must come. 

CHAPTER XII. 

FROM COVENT GARDEN TO THE EEL-SOUP MAN IN THE BOROUGH. 

Now and then, in the long search into the underlying causes of effectswhich are plain to all men's eyes, one pauses till the rush ofimpressions has ceased, and it is possible again to ignore thismany-sided, demanding London, which makes a claim unknown to any othercity of the earth save Rome. But there is a certain justification inlingering at points where women and children congregate, since theirlife also is part of the quest, and nowhere can it better be seen thanin and about Covent Garden Market, --a thousand thoughts arising as theold square is entered from whatever point. 

It is not alone the first days of the pilgrim's wanderings in Londonthat are filled with the curious sense of home coming that makes up theconsciousness of many an American. It is as if an old story were toldagain, and the heir, stolen in childhood, returned, unrecognized bythose about him, but recalling with more and more freshness andcertainty the scenes of which he was once a part. The years slip away. Two hundred and more of them lie between, it is true; but not twohundred nor ten times two hundred can blot out the lines of a record inwhich the struggle and the hope of all English-speaking people was one. For past or present alike, London stands as the fountain-head; and thus, whatever pain may come from the oppressive sense of crowded, swarminglife pent up in these dull gray walls, whatever conviction that such amonster mass of human energy and human pain needs diffusion and notconcentration, London holds and will hold a fascination that is quiteapart from any outward aspect. 

To go to a point determined upon beforehand is good. To lose oneself inthe labyrinth of lanes and alleys and come suddenly upon something quiteas desirable, is even better; and this losing is as inevitable as thefinding also becomes. The first perplexity arises from the fact that aLondon street is "everything by turns and nothing long, " and that asolitary block of buildings owns often a name as long as itself. Theline of street which, on the map, appears continuous, gives a dozenchanges to the mile, and the pilgrim discovers quickly that he is alwayssomewhere else than at or on the point determined upon. Then thetemptation to add to this complication by sudden excursions into shadowycourts and dark little passages is irresistible, not to mention thedesire, equally pressing, of discovering at once if Violet Lane and HopVine Alley and Myrtle Court have really any relation to their names, orare simply the reaching out of their inhabitants for some touch ofNature's benefactions. Violet Lane may have had its hedgerows andviolets in a day long dead, precisely as hop vines may have flung theirpale green bells over cottage paling, for both are far outside the oldcity limits; but to-day they are simply the narrowest of passagesbetween the grimiest of buildings, given over to trade in its mostsordid form, with never a green leaf even to recall the countryhedgerows long since only memory. 

It is a matter of no surprise, then, to find that Covent Garden holds nohint of its past save in name, though from the noisy Strand one haspassed into so many sheltered, quiet nooks unknown to nine tenths of thehurrying throng in that great artery of London, that one half expects tosee the green trees and the box-bordered alleys of the old garden wherethe monks once walked. Far back in the very beginning of the thirteenthcentury it was the convent garden of Westminster, and its choice fruitsand flowers rejoiced the soul of the growers, who planted and prunedwith small thought of what the centuries were to bring. Through allchances and changes it remained a garden up to 1621, when much of theoriginal ground had been swallowed up by royal grants, and one duke andanother had built his town-house amid the spreading trees; for this"amorous and herbivorous parish, " as Sidney Smith calls it, was one ofthe most fashionable quarters of London. The Stuart kings and theircourts delighted in it, and the square was filled with houses designedby Inigo Jones, the north and east side of the market having an arcadecalled the "Portico Walk, " but soon changed to the name which it haslong borne, --the "Piazza. " The market went on behind these pillars, butyear by year, as London grew, pushed itself toward the centre of thesquare, till now not a foot of vacant space remains. At one of itsstalls may still be found an ancient marketman, whose name, AnthonyPiazza, is a memory of a parish custom which named after this favoritewalk many of the foundling children born in the parish. 

There is nothing more curious in all London than the transformationsknown to this once quiet spot. Drury Lane is close at hand, and CoventGarden Theatre is as well known as the market itself. The convent hasbecome a play-house. "Monks and nuns turn actors and actresses. Thegarden, formal and quiet, where a salad was cut for a lady abbess, andflowers were gathered to adorn images, becomes a market, noisy and fullof life, distributing its thousands of fruits and flowers to a viciousmetropolis. " Two quaint old inns are still here; two great nationaltheatres, and a churchyard full of mouldy but still famouscelebrities, --the church itself, bare and big, rising above them. In thedays of the Stuarts, people prayed to be buried here hardly less than inWestminster Abbey, and the lover of epitaph and monument will findoccupation for many an hour. This strange, squat old building, under theshadow of the church, is the market, its hundred columns andchapel-looking fronts always knee-deep and more in baskets and fruitsand vegetables, while its air still seems to breathe of old books, oldpainters, and old authors. 

"Night and morning are at meeting, " for Covent Garden makes smalldistinction between the two, and whether it is a late supper or an earlybreakfast that the coffee-rooms and stalls are furnishing, can hardly bedetermined by one who has elected to know how the market receives andhow it distributes its supplies. In November fog and mist, or theblackness of early winter, with snow on the ground, or cold rainfalling, resolution is needed for such an expedition, and still more, if one would see all that the deep night hides, and that comes to lightas the dawn struggles through. This business of feeding a city of fourmillion people seems the simplest and most natural of occupations; butthe facts involved are staggering, not alone in the mere matter ofquantities and the amazement at the first sight of them, but in thethousands of lives tangled with them. Quantity is the first impression. Every cellar runs over with green stuff, mountains of which come in onenormous wagons and fill up all spaces left vacant, heaving masses ofbasket stumbling from other wagons and filling with instant celerity. Inthe great vans pour, from every market garden and outlying district ofLondon, from all England, from the United Kingdom, from all the world, literally; for it is soon discovered that these enormous vehicles onhigh springs and with immense wheels, drawn by Normandy horses of sizeand strength to match, are chiefly from the railway stations, and thatthe drivers, who seem to be built on the same plan as the horses andvans, have big limbs and big voices and a high color, and that thebulging pockets of their velveteen suits show invoices and receiptbooks. 

Not alone from railway stations and trains, from which tons of cabbages, carrots, onions, and all the vegetable tribe issue, but from the dockswhere steamers from Rotterdam and Antwerp and India and America, and allthat lie between, come the contributions, ranged presently in due orderin stall and arcade. There is no hint of anything grosser than the greatcabbages, which appear to be London's favorite vegetable. Meat has itsplace at Smithfield, and fish at Billingsgate, but the old garden is, inone sense, true to its name, and gives us only the kindly fruits of theearth, with their transformations into butter and cheese. 

In the central arcade fruit has the honors, and no prettier picture canwell be imagined. For once under these gray skies there is a sense ofcolor and light, and there is no surprise in hearing that Turner camehere to study both, and that even the artist of to-day does not disdainthe same method. 

It is the flower-market, however, to which one turns with a certaintygained at once that no disappointment follows intimate acquaintancewith English flowers. There are exotics for those who will, but it isnot with them that one lingers. It is to the hundreds upon hundreds offlower-pots, in which grow roses and geraniums and mignonette and ascore with old-fashioned but forever beloved names. There are greatbunches of mignonette for a penny, and lesser bunches of sweet odors forthe same coin, while the violets have rows of baskets to themselves, asindeed they need, for scores of buyers flock about them, --little buyerschiefly, with tangled hair and bare feet and the purchase-money tied insome corner of their rags; for they buy to sell again, and havingtramped miles it may be to this fountain-head, will tramp other milesbefore night comes, making their way into court and alley and undersunless doorways, crying "Violets! sweet violets!" as they were cried inHerrick's time. A ha'penny will buy one of the tiny bunches which theyhave made up with swift fingers, and they are bought even by thepoorest; how, heaven only knows. But, in cracked jug or battered tin, the bunch of violets sweetens the foul air, or the bit of mignonettegrows and even thrives, where human kind cannot. 

So, though Covent Garden has in winter "flowers at guineas apiece, pineapples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a quart, "--these forthe rich only, --it has also its possibilities for the poor. They throngabout it at all times, for there is always a chance of some stray orangeor apple or rejected vegetable that will help out a meal. They throngabove all in these terrible days when the "unemployed" are huddlingunder arches and in dark places where they lay their homeless heads, andwhere, in the hours between night and morning, the cocoa-rooms open forthe hungry drivers of the big vans, who pour down great mugs of coffeeand cocoa, and make away with mountains of bread and butter. A pennygives a small mug of cocoa and a slice of bread and butter, and theowner of a penny is rich. Often it is shared, and the sharer, half drunkstill, it may be, and foul with the mud and refuse into which hecrawled, can hardly be known as human, save for this one gleam ofsomething beyond the human. Gaunt forms barely covered with rags, hollow eyes fierce with hunger, meet one at every turn in this earlymorning; and for many there is not even the penny, and they wait, sometimes with appeal, but as often silently, the chance gift of thebuyer. Food for all the world, it would seem, and yet London is not fed;and having once looked upon these waifs that are floated against thepillars of the old market, one fancies almost a curse on the piles offood that is not for them save as charity gives it, and the flowers thateven on graves will never be theirs. 

Men and women huddle here, and under the arches, children skulk awaylike young rats, feeding on offal, lying close in dark corners forwarmth, and hunted about also like rats. It is a poverty desperate andhorrible beyond that that any other civilized city can show; and whoshall say who is responsible, or what the end will be?

So the question lingers with one, as the market is left, and one passeson and out to the Strand and its motley stream of life, lingeringthrough Fleet Street and the winding ways into the City, past St. Paul's, and still on till London Bridge is reached and the Borough isnear. Fare as one may, north or south, west or east, there is no escapefrom the sullen roar of the great city, a roar like the beat of a stormysea against cliffs. An hour and more ago, that perplexed and baffledluminary the sun has struggled up through strange shapes and hues ofmorning cloud, and for a few minutes asserted his right to rule. But thegleam of gold and crimson brought with him has given way to the graysand black which make up chiefly what the Londoners call sky, and overLondon Bridge one passes on into the dim grayness merging into somethingdarker and more cheerless. On the Borough Road there should be someescape, --that Borough Road on which the Canterbury Pilgrims rode out ona morning less complicated, it is certain, by fog and mist and smoke andsoot than mornings that dawn for this generation. Every foot of the wayis history; the old Tower at one's back, and the past as alive as thepresent. "Merrie England" was at its best, they say, when the pages weknow were making; but here as elsewhere, the name is a tradition, belied by every fact of the present. 

The old inns along the way still hold their promise of good cheer, andthe great kitchens and tap-rooms have seen wild revelry enough; but evenfor them has been the sight of political or other martyr done to deathin their court-yards, while no foot of playground, no matter how muchthe people's own, but has been steeped in blood and watered with tearsof English matron and maid. If "Merrie England" deserved its name, itmust have come from a determination as fixed as Mark Tapley's, to bejolly under any and all circumstances, and certainly circumstances havedone their best to favor such resolution. The peasant of the past, usually represented as dancing heavily about a Maypole, or gazingcontentedly at some procession of his lords and masters as it swept by, has no counterpart to-day, nor will his like come again. For here aboutthe old Borough, where every stone means history and the "making of theEnglish people, " there are faces of all types that England holds, but noface yet seen carries any sense of merriment, or any good thing thatmight bear its name. It is the burden of living that looks from dulleyes and stolid faces, and a hopelessness, unconscious it may be butalways apparent, that better things may come. The typical Englishman, aswe know him, has but occasional place, and the mass, hurrying to and froin the midst of this roar of traffic, are thin and eager and restless ofcountenance as any crowd of Americans in the same type of surroundings. Innumerable little streets, each dingier and more sordid than the last, open on either side. Hot coffee and cocoa cans are at every corner, their shining brass presided over by men chiefly. Here, as throughoutEast London, sellers of every sort of eatable and drinkable thing wanderup and down. 

Paris is credited with living most of its life under all men's eyes, andLondon certainly may share this reputation as far as eating goes. Infact, working London, taking the poorest class both in pay and rank, hassmall space at home for much cookery, and finds more satisfaction in theflavor of food prepared outside. The throats, tanned and parched by muchbeer, are sensitive only to something with the most distinct anddefined taste of its own; and so it is that whelks and winkles andmussels and all forms of fish and flesh, that are to the Americanuneatably strong and unpleasant, make the luxuries of the English poor. They are conservative, also, like all the poor, and prefer oldacquaintances to new; and the costers and sellers of all sorts realizethis, and seldom go beyond an established list. 

It is always "somethin' 'ot" that the workman craves; and small wonder, when one has once tested London climate, and found that, nine months outof twelve, fog and mist creep chill into bones and marrow, and that afire is comfortable even in July. November accents this fact sharply, and by November the pea-soup and eel-soup men are at their posts, andabout market and dock, and in lane and alley, the trade is brisk. NearPetticoat Lane, one of the oddest of London's odd corners, smallnewsboys rush up and take a cupful as critically as I have seen themtake waffles from the old women purveyors of these delicacies about CityHall Park and Park Row, while hungry costers and workmen appear to findit the most satisfactory of meals. 

One must have watched the eel baskets at Billingsgate, and then read theannual consumption, before it is possible to understand how street afterstreet has its eel-pie house, and how the stacks of small pies in thewindows are always disappearing and always being renewed. It would seemwith eel pies as with oysters, of which Sam Weller stated his convictionthat the surprising number of shops and stalls came from the fact thatthe moment a man found himself in difficulties he "rushed out and ateoysters in reg'lar desperation. " It is certain that some of the eaterslook desperate enough; but the seller is a middle-aged, quiet-lookingman, who eyes his customers sharply, but serves them with generouscupfuls. The sharpness is evidently acquired, and not native, and he hasneed of it, the London newsboys, who are his best patrons, being readyto drive a bargain as keen as their fellows on the other side of thesea. His stand is opposite a cat's-meat market, a sausage shop insignificant proximity, and he endures much chaffing as to the make-upof his pea soup, which he sells in its season. But it is eels for whichthe demand is heaviest and always certain, and the eel-soup man's daybegins early and ends late, on Saturdays lasting well into Sundaymorning. He is prosperous as such business goes, and buys four"draughts" of eels on a Friday for the Saturday's work, a "draught"being twenty pounds, while now and then he has been known to get rid ofa hundred pounds. 

This stall, to which the newsboys flock as being more "stylish" thanmost of its kind, is fitted with a cast-iron fireplace holding two largekettles of four or five gallon capacity. A dozen pint bowls, or basinsas the Englishman prefers to call them, and an equal number of half-pintcups, with spoons for all, constitute the outfit; and even for thepoorest establishment of the sort, a capital of not less than a pound isrequired. This stall has four lamps with "Hot Eels" painted on them, andone side of it is given to whelks, which are boiled at home and alwayseaten cold with abundance of vinegar, of which the newsboy is prodigal. At times fried fish are added to the stock, but eels lead, and mean thelargest profit on the amount invested. 

Dutch eels are preferred, and the large buyer likes to go directly tothe eel boats at the Billingsgate Wharf and buy the squirming draughts, fresh from the tanks in which they have been brought. To dress andprepare a draught takes about three hours, and the daughter of thestall-owner stands at one side engaged in this operation, cleaning, washing, and cutting up the eels into small pieces from half an inch toan inch long. These are boiled, the liquor being made smooth and thickwith flour, and flavored with chopped parsley and mixed spices, principally allspice. For half a penny, from five to seven pieces may behad, the cup being then filled up with the liquor, to which the buyer isallowed to add vinegar at discretion. There is a tradition of onecustomer so partial to hot eels that he used to come twice a day andtake eight cupfuls a day, four at noon and four as a night-cap. 

The hot-eel season ends with early autumn, and pea soup takes its place, though a small proportion of eels is always to be had. Split peas, celery, and beef bones are needed for this, and it is here that thecat's-meat man is supposed to be an active partner. In any case thesmell is savory, and the hot steam a constant invitation to theshivering passers-by. This man has no cry of "Hot Eels!" like many ofthe sellers. 

"I touches up people's noses; 't ain't their heyes or their hears I'mhafter, " he says, though the neat stall makes its own claim on the"heyes. "

In another alley is another pea-soup man, one-legged, but not at alldepressed by this or any other circumstance of fate. He makes, or hiswife makes, the pea soup at home, and he keeps it hot by means of acharcoal fire in two old tin saucepans. 

"Hard work?" he says. "You wouldn't think so if you'd been on your backseven months and four days in Middlesex Orspital. I was a coal heaver, and going along easy and natural over the plank from one barge toanother, and there come the swell from some steamers and throwed up theplank and chucked me off, and I broke my knee against the barge. It'sbad now. I'd ought to 'ad it hoff, an' so the surgeons said; but Iwouldn't, an' me wife wouldn't, and the bone keeps workin' out, and I've'ad nineteen months all told in the 'orspital, and Lord knows how mewife and the young uns got on. I was bad enough off, I was, till aneighbor o' mine, a master butcher, told me there was a man up in ClareMarket, makin' a fortune at hot eels and pea soup, and he lent me tenshillings to start in that line. He and me wife's the best friends I'veever had in the world; for I've no memory of a mother, and me fatherdied at sea. My oldest daughter, she's a good un, goes for the eels andcuts 'em up, and she an' me wife does all the hard work. I've only tosit at the stall and sell, and they do make 'em tasty. There's nobetter. But we're hard up. I'd do better if I'd a little more money tobuy with. I can't get a draught like some of the men, and them that getsby the quantity can give more. The boys tells me there's one man gives'em as much as eight pieces; that's what they calls a lumpingha'p'worth. And the liquor's richer when you boils up so many eels. What's my tin pot ag'in' his five-gallon one? There's even some thatboils the 'eads, and sells 'em for a farthing a cupful; but I've notcome to that. But we're badly off. The missus has a pair o' shoes, andshe offs with 'em when my daughter goes to market, and my boy theyoungest 's got no shoes; but we do very well, and would do better, onlythe cheap pie shop takes off a lot o' trade. I wouldn't eat them pies. It's the dead eels that goes into 'em, and we that handles eels knowswell enough that they're rank poison if they ain't cut up alive, and theflesh of 'em squirming still when they goes into the boiling water. Thempies is uncertain, anyway, whatever kind you buy. I've seen a man getoff a lot a week old, just with the dodge of hot spiced gravy poured outof an oil can into a hole in the lid, and that gravy no more'n a littlebrown flour and water; but the spice did it. The cat's-meat men knows;oh, yes! they knows what becomes of what's left when Saturday nightcomes, though I've naught to say ag'in' the cat's-meat men, for it's arespectable business enough. 

"I've thought of other ways. There's the baked-potato men, but the'ansome can and fixin's for keeping 'em 'ot is what costs, you see. Trotters is profitable, too, if you've a start, that is, though it'swomen mostly that 'andles trotters, blest if I know why! I've a cousinin the boiled pudding business--meat puddings and fruit, too;--but it'sall going out, along of the bakers that don't give poor folks a chance. They has their big coppers, and boils up their puddings by the 'undred;but I dare say there's no more need o' street-sellers, for folks go toshops for most things now. She's in Leather Lane, this cousin o' mine, and makes plum-duff as isn't to be beat; but she sells Saturday nightsmostly, and for Sunday dinners. Ginger nuts goes off well, but thereagain the shops 'as you, and unless you can make a great show, withbrass things shining to put your eyes out, and a stall that looks aswell as a shop, you're nowhere. There's no chance for the poor anyhow, it seems to me; for even if you get a start, there's always some onewith more money to do the thing better, and so take the bread out ofyour mouth. But 'better' 's only more show often, and me wife can't bebeat for tastiness, whether it's hot eels or pea soup, and I'll say thatlong as I stand. "

So many small trades have been ruined by the larger shops taking themup, that the street-seller's case becomes daily a more complicated one, and the making a living by old-fashioned and time-honored methods almostimpossible. It is all part of the general problem of the day, and thestreet-sellers, whether costers or those of lower degree, look forwardapprehensively to changes which seem on the way, and puzzle theiruntaught minds as to why each avenue of livelihood seems more and morebarred against them. For the poorest there seems only a helpless, dumbacquiescence in the order of things which they are powerless to change;but the looker-on, who watches the mass of misery crowding Londonstreets or hiding away in attic and cellar, knows that out of suchconditions sudden fury and revolt is born, and that, if the prosperouswill not heed and help while they may, the time comes when help will bewith no choice of theirs. It is plain that even the most conservativebegin to feel this, and effort constantly takes more practical form;but this is but the beginning of what must be, --the inauguration of asocial revolution in ideas, and one to which all civilization must come. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

WOMEN IN GENERAL TRADES. 

As investigation progresses, it becomes at times a question as to whichof two great factors must dominate the present status of women asworkers; competition, which blinds the eyes to anything but the surestway of obtaining the proper per cent, or the inherited Anglo-Saxonbrutality, which, in its lowest form of manifestation, makes the Englishwife-beater. It is certain that the English workingwoman has not onlythe disabilities which her American sister also faces, --some inherent inherself, and as many arising from the press of the present system, --butadded to this the apparent incapacity of the employer to see that theyhave rights of any description whatsoever. Even the factory act and thevarious attempts to legislate in behalf of women and child workersstrikes the average employer as a gross interference with hisconstitutional rights. Where he can he evades. Where he cannot he is aptto grow purple over the impertinence of meddling reformers who cannotlet well-enough alone. 

Such a representative of one class of English employers is to be foundin a little street, not a stone's throw from Fleet Street, the greatnewspaper centre, where all day long one meets authors, editors, andjournalists of every degree. Toward eight in the morning, as at the samehour in the evening, another crowd is to be seen, made up of hundredsupon hundreds of girls hurrying to the countless printing establishmentsof every grade, which are to be found in every street and court openingfrom or near Fleet Street. It is not newspaper interests alone that arerepresented there. The Temple, Inner, Outer, and Middle, with themagnificent group of buildings, also a part of the Temple'sworkings--the new courts of law, have each and all their quota of lawprinting, and a throng made up of every order of ability, from thereader of Greek proof down to the folder of Mother Siegel's Almanac, hurries through Fleet Street to the day's work. 

In a building devoted to the printing and sending out of a popularweekly of the cheaper order, the lower rooms met all requisitions as tospace and proper ventilation. 

"We have nothing to hide, " said the manager, "nothing at all. You may gofrom top to bottom if you will. "

This was said at what appeared to be the end of an hour or two of goingfrom room to room, watching the girls at work at the multitudinousphases involved, and wondering how energy enough remained after twelvehours of it, for getting home. 

A flight of dark little stairs led up to a region even darker, and hechanged color as we turned toward them. 

"This is all temporary, " he said hastily. "We are very much crowded forspace, and we are going to move soon. We do the best we can in the meantime. It's only temporary. "

This was the reason for the darkness. Stumbling up the open stairs, hardly more than a ladder, one came into a half story added to theoriginal building, and so low that the manager bowed his head as heentered; nor was there any point at which he could stand freelyupright, this well-fed Englishman nearly six feet tall. For the girlsthere was no such difficulty, and nearly two hundred were packed intothe space, in which folding and stitching machines ran by steam, whileat long tables other branches of the same work were going on by hand. The noise and the heat from gas-jets, steam, and the crowd of workersmade the place hideous. The girls themselves appeared in no worsecondition than many others seen that day, but were all alike, pale andanemic. Their hours were from 8 A. M. To 8 P. M. , with an hour fordinner, usually from one to two. The law also allows half an hour fortea, but in all cases investigated, this time is docked if the girltakes it. Cheap "cocoa rooms" are all about, where a cup of tea or cocoaand a bun may be had for twopence; but even this is a heavy item to agirl who earns never more than ten shillings ($2. 50) a week, and asoften from four to seven or eight. No arrangement for making tea on thepremises was to be found here or anywhere. 

"We mean to have a room, " the employers said, "but we have so manyexpenses attendant on the growing business that there doesn't seem anychance yet. "

This employer brought his wage-book forward and showed with pride thatseveral of his girls earned a pound a week ($5. 00). But on turning backsome pages, the record showed only fourteen and sixteen shillings forthese same names, and after a pause the manager admitted that the poundhad been earned by adding night work. 

This question of whether night work is ever done had been a mostdifficult one to determine. The girls themselves declared that it oftenwas, and that they liked it because they got three shillings and theirbreakfast; but the managers had in more than one case denied the chargewith fury. 

"It's over-work, " the present one said, his eyes on the rows of figures. 

"When?" asked my companion quietly, and he burst into a laugh. 

"You've got me this time, " he said. "You've given your word not tomention names, so I don't mind telling you. It's like this. There's anew firm to be floated, and they want two hundred thousand circulars ontwo days' notice. Of course it has to be night-work, and we put itthrough, but we give the girls time for supper, and provide a goodbreakfast, and there's hundreds waiting for the chance. But you've seenfor yourselves. Some of them make a pound a week. What in reason does awoman want of more than a pound a week?"

This remark is the stereotyped one of quite two-thirds the employers, whether men or women. The old delusion still holds that a man works forothers, a woman solely for herself, and although each woman shouldappear with those dependent upon her in entire or partial degreearranged in line, it would make no difference in the conviction. It isquite true that many married women work for pocket-money, and havinghomes, can afford to underbid legitimate workers. But they are thesmallest proportion of this vast army of London toilers, whose pitifulwage is earned by a day's labor which happily has no counterpart inlength with us, save among the lowest grade of needlewomen. 

In the case under present consideration pay for over-time was allowedat the rate of fourpence an hour and a penny extra. If late five minutesthe workwoman is fined twopence, and if not there by nine is "drilled, "that is, sent away, or kept waiting near until two, when she goes on forhalf a day. If tardy, as must often happen with fogs and other causes, she is often "drilled" for a week, though "drilling" in this trade isused more often with men than with women, who are less liable toirregularities caused by drink. In some establishments the bait ofsixpence a week for good conduct is offered, but this is deducted on thefaintest pretext, and the worker fined as well, for any violation ofregulations tacit or written. 

In another establishment piece-work alone was done, a popular almanacbeing folded at fourpence a thousand sheets. Railway tickets brought infrom eight to ten shillings a week, and prize packages of stationery, fourpence a score, the folding and packing of prize doubling the lengthof time required and thus lessening wages in the same ratio. 

I have given phases of this one trade in detail, because the samegeneral rules govern all. The confectionery workers' wages are at aboutthe same rate, although a pound a week is almost unknown, the girlsmaking from three shillings and sixpence (84c. ) to fourteen and sixteenshillings weekly. A large "butter-scotch" factory pays these rates andallows the weekly good-conduct sixpence which, however, few succeed inearning. This factory is managed by two brothers who take alternateweeks, and the younger one exacts from the girls an hour more a day thanthe older one. Here the factory act applies, and inspectors appearperiodically; but this does not hinder the carrying out of individualtheories as to what constitutes a day. If five minutes late, sevenpenceis deducted from the week's wages, which begin at three and sixpence andascend to nine, the latter price being the utmost to be earned in thisbranch of the trade. 

In the cocoa rooms which are to be found everywhere in London wherebusiness of any sort is carried on, the pay ranges from ten to twelveshillings a week. The work is hard and incessant, although hours areoften shorter. In both confectionery factories and the majority offactory trades, an hour is allowed for dinner, but the tea half hourrefused or deducted from time. London in this respect, and indeed inmost points affecting the comfort and well-being of operatives of everyclass, is far behind countries, the great manufacturing cities of whichare doing much to lighten oppressive conditions and give somepossibility of relaxation and improvement. Some of the best reforms in afactory life have begun in England, and it is thus all the more puzzlingto find that indifference, often to a brutal degree, characterizes theattitude of many London employers, who have reduced wages to the lowest, and brought profits to the highest, attainable point. It is true that heis driven by a force often quite beyond his control, foreigncompetition, French and German, being no less sharp than that on his ownsoil. He must study chances of profit to a farthing, and in such studythere is naturally small thought of his workers, save as hands in whichthe farthings may be found. Many a woman goes to her place of work, leaving behind her children who have breakfasted with her on "kettlebroth, " and will be happy if the same is certain at supper time. 

"There's six of us have had nought but kettle broth for a fortnight, "said one. "You know what that is? It's half a quarter loaf, soaked inhot water with a hap'orth of dripping and a spoonful of salt. Whenyou've lived on that night and morning for a week or two, you can't helpbut long for a change, though, God forgive me! there's them that faresworse. But it'll be the broth without the bread before we're through. There's no living to be had in old England any more, and yet the richfolks don't want less. Do you know how it is, ma'am? Is there any chanceof better times, do you think? Is it that they _want_ us to starve? I'veheard that said, but somehow it seems as if there must be hearts still, and they'll see soon, and then things'll be different. Oh, yes, theymust be different. "

Will they be different? It is unskilled workers who have just spoken, but do the skilled fare much better? I append a portion of a table ofearnings, prepared a year or two since by the chaplain of theClerkenwell prison, a thoughtful and earnest worker among the poor, this table ranking as one of the best of the attempts to discover theactual position of the workingwoman at present:--

 "Making paper bags, 4½_d. _ to 5½_d. _ per thousand; possible earnings, 5_s. _ to 9_s. _ a week. Button-holes, 3_d. _ per dozen; possible earnings, 8_s. _ per week. 

 "Shirts 2_d. _ each, worker finding her own cotton; can get six done between 6 A. M. And 11 P. M. 

 "Sack-sewing, 6_d. _ for twenty-five, 8_d. _ to 1_s. _ 6_d. _ per hundred; possible earnings, 7_s. _ per week. 

 "Pill-box making, 1s. For thirty-six gross; possible earnings, 1_s. _ 3_d. _ a day. 

 "Button-hole making, 1_d. _ per dozen; can do three or four dozen between 5 A. M. And dark. 

 "Whip-making, 1_s. _ per dozen; can do a dozen per day. 

 "Trousers-finishing, 3_d. _ to 5_d. _ each, finding own cotton; can do four per day. 

 "Shirt-finishing, 3_d. _ to 4_d. _ per dozen. "

So the list runs on through all the trades open to women. A pound a weekis a fortune; half or a third of that amount the wages of two-thirds thewomen who earn in working London; nor are there indications that thescale will rise or that better days are in store for one of thesetoilers, patient, heavy-eyed, well-nigh hopeless of any good to come, and yet saying among themselves the words already given:--

"There must be hearts still, and they'll see soon, and then things'll bedifferent. Oh, yes, they must be different. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

FRENCH AND ENGLISH WORKERS. 

It is but a narrow streak of silver main that separates the twocountries, whose story has been that of constant mutual distrust, variedby intervals of armed truce, in which each nation elected to believethat it understood the other. Not only the nation as a whole, however, but the worker in each, is far from any such possibility; and themethods of one are likely to remain, for a long time to come, a sourceof bewilderment to the other. That conditions on both sides of theChannel are in many points at their worst, and that the labor problem isstill unsolved for both England and the Continent, remains a truth, though it is at once evident to the student of this problem that Francehas solved one or two phases of the equation over which England is stillquite helpless. 

There is a famous chapter in the history of Ireland, entitled "Snakesin Ireland, " the contents of which are as follows:--

"There are no snakes in Ireland. "

On the same principle it becomes at once necessary in writing on theslums of Paris, to arrange the summary of the situation: "There are noslums in Paris. "

In the English sense there certainly are none; and for the difference invisible conditions, several causes are responsible. The searcher forsuch regions discovers before the first day ends that there are nonepractically; and though now and then, as all byways are visited, onefinds remnants of old Paris, and a court or narrow lane in which crimemight lurk or poverty hide itself, as a whole there is hardly a spotwhere sunshine cannot come, and the hideous squalor of London isabsolutely unknown. One quarter alone is to be excepted in thisstatement, and with that we are to deal farther on. The seamstress in aLondon garret or the shop-worker in the narrow rooms of the East Endlives in a gloom for which there is neither outward nor inwardalleviation. Soot is king of the great city, and his prime ministers, Smoke and Fog, work together to darken every haunt of man, and to shutout every glimpse of sun or moon. The flying flakes are in the air. Every breath draws them in; every moment leaves its deposit on wall andfloor and person. The neatest and most determined fighter of dirt muststill be bond slave to its power; and eating and drinking and breathingsoot all day and every day, there comes at last an acquiescence in theconsequences, and only an instinctive battle with the outward effects. 

For the average worker, at the needle at least, wages are too low toadmit of much soap; hot water is equally a luxury, and time if takenmeans just so much less of the scanty pay; and thus it happens thatLondon poverty takes on a hopelessly grimy character, and that thevisitor in the house of the workers learns to wear a uniform which showsas little as possible of the results of rising up and sitting down inthe soot, which, if less evident in the home of the millionnaire, worksits will no less surely. 

Fresh from such experience, and with the memory of home and work room, manufactory or great shop, all alike sombre and depressing, thecleanliness of Paris, enforced by countless municipal regulations, is atfirst a constant surprise. The French workwoman, even of the lowestorder, shares in the national characteristic which demands a fairexterior whatever may be the interior condition, and she shares also inthe thrift which is equally a national possession, and the exercise ofwhich has freed France from the largest portion of her enormous debt. The English workwoman of the lowest order, the trouser-stitcher orbag-maker, is not only worn and haggard to the eye, but wears a uniformof ancient bonnet and shawl, both of which represent the extremity ofdejection. She clings to this bonnet as the type and suggestion ofrespectability and to the shawl no less; but the first has reached apoint wherein it is not only grotesque but pitiful, the remnants offlowers and ribbons and any shadowy hint of ornamentation having longago yielded to weather and age and other agents of destruction. Theshawl or cloak is no less abject and forlorn, both being the badge of acondition from which emergence has become practically impossible. Theselank figures carry no charm of womanhood, --nothing that can draw fromsweater or general employer more than a sneer at the quality of thelabor of those waiting always in numbers far beyond any real demand, until for both the adjective comes to be "superfluous, " and employer andemployed alike wonder why the earth holds them, and what good there isin an existence made up simply of want and struggle. 

Precisely the opposite condition holds for the French worker, who, inthe midst of problems as grave, faces them with the light-heartedness ofher nation. She has learned to the minutest fraction what can beextracted from every centime, and though she too must shiver with cold, and go half-fed and half-clothed, every to-morrow holds the promise ofsomething better, and to-day is thus made more bearable. She shares toothe conviction, which has come to be part of the general faithconcerning Paris, which seems always an embodied assurance, that sadnessand want are impossible. Even her beggars, a good proportion of themlaboriously made up for the parts they are to fill, find repression ofcheerfulness their most difficult task, and smile confidingly on thesceptical observer of their methods, as if to make him a partner in theencouraging and satisfactory nature of things in general. The littleseamstress who descends from her attic for the bread with its possiblesalad or bit of cheese which will form her day's ration, smiles also asshe pauses to feel the thrill of life in the thronging boulevards andbeautiful avenues, the long sweeps of which have wiped out for Paris asa whole everything that could by any chance be called slum. 

Even in the narrowest street this stir of eager life penetrates, andevery Parisian shares it and counts it as a necessity of dailyexistence. If shoes are too great a luxury, the workwoman clatters alongin _sabots_, congratulating herself that they are cheap and that theynever wear out. Custom, long-established and imperative, orders that sheshall wear no head-covering, and thus she escapes the revelation boundup in the London worker's bonnet. Inherited instinct and training frombirth have taught her hands the utmost skill with the needle. She makesher own dress, and wears it with an air which may in time transferitself to something choicer; and this quality is in no whit affected bythe the cheapness of the material. It may be only a print or somewoollen stuff of the poorest order; but it and every detail of her dressrepresent something to which the English woman has not attained, andwhich temperament and every fact of life will hinder her attaining. 

As I write, the charcoal-woman has climbed the long flights to the fifthfloor, bending under the burden of an enormous sack of _charbon àterre_, but smiling as she puts it down. She is mistress of a littleshop just round the corner, and she keeps the accounts of the wood andcoal bought by her patrons by a system best known to herself, herearnings hardly going beyond three francs a day. Even she, black withthe coal-dust which she wastes no time in scrubbing off save on Sundayswhen she too makes one of the throng in the boulevards, faces the hardlabor with light-hearted confidence, and plans to save a sou here andthere for the _dot_ of the baby who shares in the distribution ofcoal-dust, and will presently trot by her side as assistant. 

In the laundry just beyond, the women are singing or chattering, thevoices rising in that sudden fury of words which comes upon this people, and makes the foreigner certain that bloodshed is near, but which ebbsinstantly and peacefully, to rise again on due occasion. Long hours, exhausting labor, small wages, make no difference. The best workercounts from three to four francs daily as prosperity, and the rate haseven fallen below this; yet they make no complaint, quite content withthe sense of companionship, and with the satisfaction of making eacharticle as perfect a specimen of skill as can be produced. 

Here lies a difference deeper than that of temperament, --the fact thatthe French worker finds pleasure in the work itself, and counts itssatisfactory appearance as a portion of the reward. Slop work, with itsdemand for speedy turning out of as many specimens of the poorest orderper day as the hours will allow, is repugnant to every instinct of theFrench workwoman; and thus it happens that even slop work on this sideof the Channel holds some hint of ornamentation and the desire to liftit out of the depth to which it has fallen. But it is gaining ground, fierce competition producing this effect everywhere; and the alwayslessening ratio of wages which attends its production, must in timebring about the same disastrous results here as elsewhere, unless thetide is arrested, and some form of co-operative production takes itsplace. With the French worker in the higher forms of needle industry weshall deal in the next chapter, finding what differences are to be methere also between French and English methods. 

CHAPTER XV. 

FRENCH BARGAIN COUNTERS. 

"Yes, it is the great shops that have done that, madame. Once, you sawwhat was only well finished and a credit to the worker, and, even if thereward was small, she had pride in the work and her own skill, and didalways her best. But now, what will you? The thing must be cheap, cheapest. The machine to sew hurries everything, and you find theworkwoman sans ambition and busy only to hurry and be one with themachine. It is wrong, all wrong, but that is progress, and one mustsubmit. When the small shops had place to live, and the great _magasins_were not for ladies or any who wished the best, then it was different, but now all is changed, and work has no character. It is all the same;always the machine. "

More than once this plaint has been made, and the sewing-machineaccused as the cause of depression in wages, of deterioration of allhand needlework, and of the originality that once distinguished Frenchproductions; and there is some truth in the charge, not only for Paris, but for all cities to which needlewomen throng. Machinery has graduallyrevolutionized all feminine industries in Paris, and its effect is notonly on the general system of wages, but upon the moral condition of theworker, and family life as a whole has become to the student of socialquestions one of gravest importance. On the one hand is the conviction, already quoted, that it has brought with it deterioration in every phaseof the work; on the other, that it is an educating and beneficent agent, raising the general standard of wages, and putting three garments whereonce but one could be owned. It is an old story, and will give food forspeculation in the future, quite as much as in the past. But in talkingwith skilled workers, from dressmakers to the needlewomen employed ontrousseaux and the most delicate forms of this industry, each hasexpressed the same conviction, and this quite apart from the politicaleconomist's view that there must be a return to hand production, if thestandard is not to remain hopelessly below its old place. Such returnwould not necessarily exclude machinery, which must be regarded as anindispensable adjunct to the worker's life. It would simply put it inits proper place, --that of aid, but never master. It is the spirit ofcompetition which is motive power to-day, and which drives the whirringwheels and crowds the counters of every shop with productions which haveno merit but that of cheapness, and the price of which means no returnto the worker beyond the barest subsistence. 

Subsistence in Paris has come to mean something far different from thefacts of a generation ago. Wages have always been fixed at a standardbarely above subsistence; but, even under these conditions, Frenchfrugality has succeeded not only in living, but in putting by a triflemonth by month. As the great manufactories have sprung up, possibilitieshave lessened and altered, till the workwoman, however cheerfully shemay face conditions, knows that saving has become impossible. If, insome cases, wages have risen, prices have advanced with them till onlynecessities are possible, the useful having dropped away from the plan, and the agreeable ceased to have place even in thought. Even before thelong siege, and the semi-starvation that came to all within the walls ofParis, prices had been rising, and no reduction has come which evenapproximates to the old figures. Every article of daily need is at thehighest point, sugar alone being an illustration of what thedetermination to protect an industry has brought about. The Londonworkwoman buys a pound for one penny, or at the most twopence. TheFrench workwoman must give eleven or twelve sous, and then have onlybeet sugar, which has not much over half the saccharine quality of canesugar. Flour, milk, eggs, all are equally high, meat alone being atnearly the same prices as in London. Fruit is a nearly impossibleluxury, and fuel so dear that shivering is the law for all but the rich, while rents are also far beyond London prices, with no "improveddwellings" system to give the utmost for the scanty sum at disposal. Forthe needlewoman the food question has resolved itself into bread alone, for at least one meal, with a little coffee, chiefly chicory, andpossibly some vegetable for the others. But many a one lives on breadfor six days in the week, reserving the few sous that can be saved for aSunday bit of meat, or bones for soup. Even the system which allows ofbuying "portions, " just enough for a single individual, is valueless forher, since the smallest and poorest portion is far beyond the sum whichcan never be made to stretch far enough for such indulgence. 

"I have tried it, madame, " said the same speaker, who had mourned overthe degeneration of finish among the workwomen. "It was the siege thatcompelled it in the beginning, and then there was no complaining, sinceit was the will of the good God for all. But there came a time whensickness had been with me long, and I found no work but to stitch in mylittle room far up under the roof, and all the long hours bringing solittle, --never more than two and a half francs, and days when it waseven less; and then I found how one must live. I was proud, and wishedto tell no one; but there was an _ouvrière_ next me, in a little room, even smaller than mine, and she saw well that she could help, and thattogether some things might be possible that were not alone. She had herfurnace for the fire, and we used it together on the days when we couldmake our soup, or the coffee that I missed more than all, --more, even, than wine, which is for us the same as water to you. It was months thatI went not beyond fifty centimes a day for food, save the Sundays, andthen but little more, since one grows at last to care little, and a goodmeal for one day makes the next that is wanting harder, I think, thanwhen one wants always. But I am glad that I know; so glad that I couldeven wish the same knowledge for many who say, 'Why do they not live onwhat they earn? Why do they not have thrift, and make ready for oldage?' Old age comes fast, it is true. Such years as I have known aredouble, yes, and treble, and one knows that they have shortened life. But when I say now 'the poor, ' I know what that word means, and havesuch compassion as never before. It is the workers who are the realpoor, and for them there is little hope, since it is the system thatmust change. It is the middleman who makes the money, and there are somany of them, how can there be much left for the one who comes last, andis only the machine that works?

"All that is true of England, and I have had two years there, and thusknow well; all that is true, too, here, though we know better how we canlive, and not be always so _triste_ and sombre. But each day, as I go bythe great new shops that have killed all the little ones, and by thegreat factory where electricity makes the machines go, and the women toobecome machines, --each day I know that these counters, where one can buyfor a song, are counters where flesh and blood are sold. For, madame, itis starvation for the one who has made these garments; and why must onewoman starve that another may wear what her own hands could make if shewould? Everywhere it is _occasions_ [bargains] that the great shopsadvertise. Everywhere they must be more and more, and so wages lessen, till there is no more hope of living; and, because they lessen, marriagewaits, and all that the good God meant for us waits also. "

On the surface it is all well. There is less incompetency among Frenchthan English workers, and thus the class who furnish them need lessarraignment for their lack of thoroughness. They contend, also, with oneform of competition, which has its counterpart in America among thefarmers' wives, who take the work at less than regular rates. This formis the convent work, which piles the counters, and is one of the mostformidable obstacles to better rates for the worker. Innumerableconvents make the preparation of underwear one of their industries, and, in the classes of girls whom they train to the needle, find workersrequiring no wages, the training being regarded as equivalent. Naturally, their prices can be far below the ordinary market one, andthus the worker, benefited on the one hand, is defrauded on the other. In short, the evil is a universal one, --an integral portion of thepresent manufacturing system, --and its abolition can come only fromroused public sentiment, and combination among the workers themselves. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE CITY OF THE SUN. 

It is only with weeks of experience that the searcher into the underworld of Paris life comes to any sense of real conditions, or discoversin what directions to look for the misery which seldom floats to thesurface, and which even wears the face of content. That there are noslums, and that acute suffering is in the nature of things impossible, is the first conviction, and it remains in degree even when both miseryand its lurking-places have become familiar sights. Paris itself, gay, bright, beautiful, beloved of every dweller within its walls, sodominates that shadows seem impossible, and as one watches the eagerthrong in boulevard or avenue, or the laughing, chattering groups beforeeven the poorest café, other life than this sinks out of sight. The mostmeagrely paid needlewoman, the most overworked toiler in trades, indoors or out, seizes any stray moment for rest or small pleasures, andfrom a half-franc bottle of wine, or some pretence of lemonade or sugarwater, extracts entertainment for half a dozen. The pressure in actualfact remains the same. Always behind in the shadow lurks starvation, andthere is one street, now very nearly wiped out, known to its inhabitantsstill as "_la rue où l'on ne meurt jamais_"--the street where one neverdies, since every soul therein finds their last bed in the hospital. This is the _quartier_ Mouffetard, where bits of old Paris are stilldiscernible, and where strange trades are in operation; industries whichonly a people so pinched and driven by sharp necessity could ever haveinvented. 

The descent to these is a gradual one, and most often the women who arefound in them have known more than one occupation, and have been, in thebeginning at least, needlewomen of greater or less degree of skill. Depression of wages, which now are at the lowest limit of subsistence, drives them into experiments in other directions, and often failingsight or utter weariness of the monotonous employment is another cause. These form but a small proportion of such workers, who generally are aspecies of guild, a family having begun some small new industry andgradually drawn in others, till a body of workers in the same line isformed, strong enough to withstand any interlopers. 

"What becomes of the women who are too old to sew, and who have nevergained skill enough to earn more than a bare living?" I asked one day ofa seamstress whose own skill was unquestioned, but who, even with thisin her favor, averages only three francs a day. 

"They do many things, madame. One who is my neighbor is now scrubber andcleaner, and is happily friends with a '_concierge_, ' who allows her toaid him. That is a difficulty for all who would do that work. It is thatthe '_concierges_, ' whether men or women, think that any pay from the'_locataires_' must be for them; and so they will never tell the tenantof a woman who seeks work, but will say always, 'It is I who can do itall. One cannot trust these from the outside. ' But for her, as I say, there is opportunity, and at last she has food, when as '_couturière_'it was quite--yes, quite impossible. There was a child, an idiot--thechild of her daughter who is dead, and from whom she refuses always tobe separated, and she sews always on the sewing-machine, till sicknesscomes, and it is sold for rent and many things. She is proud. She hasnot wished to scrub and clean, but for such work is twenty-five centimesan hour, and often food that the tenant does not wish. At times theygive her less, and in any case one calculates always the time andwatches very closely, but for her, at least, is more money than for manyyears; sometimes even three francs, if a day has been good. But that isbut seldom, and she must carry her own soap and brush, and pay for all. 

"That is one way, and there is another that fills me with terror, madame, lest I, too, may one day find myself in it. It is last and worstof all for women, I think. It is when they wear '_le cachemired'osier_. ' You do not know it, madame. It is the chiffonieress basketwhich she bears as a badge, and which she hangs at night, it may be, inthe City of the Sun. _Voila_, madame. There are now two who are on theirway. If madame has curiosity, it is easy to follow them. "

"But the City of the Sun? What is that? Do you mean Paris?"

"No, madame. It is a mockery like the '_cachemire d'osier_. ' You willsee. "

It is in this following that the polished veneer which makes the outwardParis showed what may lie beneath. Certainly, no one who walks throughthe Avenue Victor Hugo, one of the twelve avenues radiating from the Arcde Triomphe, and including some of the gayest and most brilliant life ofmodern Paris, the creation of Napoleon III. And of Baron Haussman, woulddream that hint of corruption could enter in. The ancient Rue de laRévolte has changed form and title, and the beautiful avenue is nodishonor to its present name. But far down there opens nearlyimperceptibly a narrow alley almost subterranean, and it is through thisalley that the two figures which had moved silently down the avenuepassed and went on; the man solid and compact, as if well-fed, his faceas he turned, however, giving the lie to such impression, but his keenalert eyes seeing every shade of difference in the merest scrap ofcalico or tufts of hair. For the woman, it was plain to see why theneedle had been of small service, her wandering, undecided blue eyespassing over everything to which the man's hook had not first directedher. 

Through the narrow way the pair passed into a sombre court, closed atthe end by a door of wood with rusty latch, which creaks and objects asone seeks to lift it. Once within, and the door closed, the place has noreminder of the Paris just without. On the contrary, it might be a bitfrom the beggars' quarter in a village of Syria or Palestine, for hereis only a line of flat-roofed huts, the walls whitewashed, the floorslevel with the soil, and the sun of the warm spring day pouring downupon sleeping dogs, and heaps of refuse alternating with piles of rags, in the midst of which work two or three women, silent at present, andbarely looking up as the new comers lay down their burdens. A fat yetacrid odor rises about these huts, drawn out from the rags by theafternoon heat; yet, repulsive as it is, there is more sense ofcleanliness about it than in the hideous basements where the same tradeis plied in London or New York. There is a space here not yet occupiedby buildings. The line of huts faces the south; a fence encloses them;and so silent and alone seems the spot that it is easy to understand whyit bears its own individual name, and to the colony of _chiffoniers_ whodwell here has long been known as the City of the Sun. Doors stand openfreely; honesty is a tradition of this profession; and the police knowthat these delvers in dust heaps will bring to them any precious objectfound therein, and that he who should remove the slightest article fromone of these dwellings would be banished ignominiously and deprived ofall rights of association. 

These huts are all alike; two rooms, the larger reserved for the bed, the smaller for kitchen, and in both rags of every variety. In thecorner is a heap chiefly of silk, wool, and linen. This is the pile fromwhich rent is to come, and every precious bit goes to it, since renthere is paid in advance, --three francs a week for the hut alone, andtwenty francs a month if a scrap of court is added in which the rags canbe sorted. On a fixed day the proprietor appears, and, if the sum is notready, simply carries off the door and windows, and expels the unluckytenant with no further formality. How the stipulated amount is scrapedtogether, only the half-starved _chiffoniers_ know, since prices havefallen so that the hundred kilogrammes (about two hundred pounds) ofrags, which, before the war, sold for eighty francs, to-day bringprecisely eight. 

"In a good day, madame, " said the woman, "we can earn three francs. Weare always together, I and my man, and we never cease. But the deadseason comes, that is, the summer, when Paris is in the country or atthe sea; then we can earn never more than two francs, and often not morethan thirty sous, when they clean the streets so much, and so carry awayeverything that little is left for us. It is five years that I havefollowed my man, and he is born to it, and works always, but the time ischanged. There is no more a living in this, or in anything we can do. Ihave gone hungry when it is the sewing that I do, and I go hungry now, but I am not alone. It is so for all of us, and we care not if only thechildren are fed. They are not, and it is because of them that wesuffer. See, madame, this is the child of my niece, who came with mehere, and has also her man, but never has any one of them eaten to thefull, even of crusts, which often are in what we gather. "

The child ran toward her, --a girl three or four years old, wearing apair of women's shoes ten times too large, and the remainder of achemise. Other clothing had not been attempted, or was not considerednecessary, and the child looked up with hollow eyes and a face pinchedand sharpened by want, while the swollen belly of the meagre littlefigure showed how wretched had been the supply they called food. All daythese children fare as they can, since all day the parents must rangethe streets collecting their harvest; but fortunately for such future asthey can know, these little savages, fighting together like wildanimals, have within the last twenty years been gradually gathered intofree schools, the work beginning with a devoted woman, who, having seenthe City of the Sun, never rested till a school was opened for itschildren. All effort, however, was quite fruitless, till an old_chiffonier_, also once a seamstress, united with her, and persuaded themothers that they must prepare their children, or, at least, not preventthem from going. At present the school stands as one of the wisestphilanthropies of Paris, but neither this, nor any other attempt tobetter conditions, alters the fact that twelve and fourteen hours oflabor have for sole result from thirty to forty sous a day, and thatthis sum represents the earnings of the average women-workers of Paris, the better class of trades and occupations being no less limited inpossibilities. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

DRESSMAKERS AND MILLINERS IN PARIS. 

"If a revolution come again, I think well, madame, it will be the greatshops that will fall, and that it is workwomen who will bear the torchand even consent to the name of terror, _pétroleuses_. For see a momentwhat thing they do, madame. Everywhere, the girl who desires to learn as_modiste_, and who, in the day when I had learned, became one of thehouse that she served, and, if talent were there, could rise and in timebe mistress herself, with a name that had fame even, --that girl must nowattempt the great shop and bury her talent in always the same thing. Nomore invention, no more grace, but a hundred robes always the same, andwith no mark of difference for her who wears it, or way to tell whichmay be mistress and which the servant. It is not well for one or theother, madame; it is ill for both. Then, too, many must stand aside whowould learn, since it is always the machine to sew that needs not many. It is true there are still houses that care for a name, and where onemay be _artiste_, and have pride in an inspiration. But they are rare;and now one sits all day, and this one stitches sleeves, perhaps, orseams of waists or skirts, and knows not effects, or how to plan thewhole, or any joy of composition or result. It is bad, and all bad, andI willingly would see the great shops go, and myself urge well theirdestruction. "

These words, and a flood of more in the same direction, came as hotprotest against any visit to the Magasins du Louvre, an enormousestablishment of the same order as the Bon Marché, but slightly higherin price, where hundreds are employed as saleswomen, and where, side byside with the most expensive productions of French skill, are to befound the _occasions_, --the bargains in which the foreigner delightseven more than the native. 

"Let them go there, " pursued the little _modiste_, well on in middlelife, whose eager face and sad dark eyes lighted with indignation asshe spoke. "Let those go there who have money, always money, but notaste, no perception, no feeling for a true combination. I know that ifone orders a robe that one comes to regard to say, 'Yes, so and so mustbe for madame, ' but how shall she know well when she is blunted and deadwith numbers? How shall she feel what is best? I, madame, when one comesto me, I study. There are many things that make the suitability of aconfection; there is not only complexion and figure and age, but when Ihave said all these, the thought that blends the whole and sees arisingwhat must be for the perfect robe. This was the method of MadameDesmoulins, and I have learned of her. When it is an important case, atrousseau perhaps, she has neither eaten nor slept till she hasconceived her list and sees each design clear. And then what joy! Sheselects, she blends with tears of happiness; she cuts with solemnityeven. Is there such a spirit in your Bon Marché? Is there such a spiritanywhere but here and there to one who remembers; who has an ideal andwho refuses to make it less by selling it in the shops? Again, madame, Itell you it is a debasement so to do. I will none of it. "

Madame, who had clasped her hands and half risen in her excited protest, sank back in her chair and fixed her eyes on a robe just ready to sendhome, --a creation so simply elegant and so charming that her browsmoothed and she smiled, well pleased. But her words were simply theecho of others of the same order, spoken by others who had watched thecourse of women's occupations and who had actual love for the professionthey had chosen. 

Questions brought out a state of things much the same for both Paris andLondon, where the system of learning the business had few differences. For both millinery and dressmaking, apprenticeship had been the rule, the more important houses taking an entrance fee and lessening thenumber of years required; the others demanding simply the full time ofthe learner, from two to four years. In these latter cases food andlodging were given, and after the first six months a small weekly wage, barely sufficient to provide the Sunday food and lodging. If more waspaid, the learner lived outside entirely; and the first year or two wasa sharp struggle to make ends meet. But if any talent showed itself, promotion was rapid, and with it the prospect of independence in theend, the directress of a group of girls regarding such talent asdeveloped by the house and a part of its reputation. In some cases suchgirls by the end of the third year received often five or six thousandfrancs, and in five were their own mistresses absolutely, with an incomeof ten or twelve thousand and often more. 

This for the exception; for the majority was the most rigidtraining, --with its result in what we know as French finish, which issimply delicate painstaking with every item of the work, --and a wage offrom thirty to forty francs a week, often below but seldom above thissum. 

In the early stages of the apprenticeship there was simply an allowanceof from six to ten francs per month for incidental expenses, and evenwhen skill increased and services became valuable, five francs a weekwas considered an ample return. In all these cases the week passed underthe roof of the employer, and Sunday alone became the actual change ofthe worker. The excessive hours of the London apprentice had nocounterpart here or had not until the great houses were founded andsteam and electric power came with the sewing-machine. With this newregime over-time was often claimed, and two sous an hour allowed, thesebeing given in special cases. But exhausting hours were left for thelower forms of needle-work. The food provided was abundant and good, andsharp overseer as madame might prove, she demanded some relaxation forherself and allowed it to her employés. The different conditions of lifemade over-work in Paris a far different thing from over-work in London. For both milliners and _modistes_ was the keen ambition to develop atalent, and the workroom, as has already been stated, felt personalpride in any member of the force who showed special lightness of touchor skill in combination. 

"Work, madame!" exclaimed little Madame M. , as she described a day'swork under the system which had trained her. "But yes, I could not sowork now, but then I saw always before me an end. I had the sentiment. It was always that the colors arranged themselves, and so with mysister, who is _modiste_ and whose compositions are a marvel. My backhas ached, my eyes have burned, I have seen sparks before them and havefelt that I could no more, when the days are long and the heat perhapsis great, or even in winter crowded together and the air so heavy. Butwe laughed and sang; we thought of a future; we watched for talent, andif there was envy or jealousy, it was well smothered. I remember onetalented Italian who would learn and who hated one other who had greatgifts; hated her so, she has stabbed her suddenly with sharp scissors inthe arm. But such things are not often. We French care always forgenius, even if it be but to make a shoe most perfect, and we do nothate--no, we love well, whoever shows it. But to-day all is different, and once more I say, madame, that too much is made, and that thus talentwill die and gifts be no more needed. "

There is something more in this feeling than the mere sense of rivalryor money loss from the new system represented by the Bon Marché andother great establishments of the same nature. But this is a questionin one sense apart from actual conditions, save as the concentration oflabor has had its effect on the general rate of wages. Five francs a dayis considered riches, and the ordinary worker or assistant in eitherdressmaking or millinery department receives from two and a half tothree and a half francs, on which sum she must subsist as she can. Witha home where earnings go into a common fund, or if the worker has no onedependent upon her, French thrift makes existence on this sum quitepossible; but when it becomes a question of children to be fed andclothed, more than mere existence is impossible, and starvation standsalways in the background. For the younger workers the greatestablishments, offer many advantages over the old system, and hourshave been shortened and attempts made in a few cases to improve generalconditions of those employed. But there is always a dull season, inwhich wages lessen, or even cease for a time, the actual number ofworking days averaging two hundred and eighty. Where work is private andreputation is established, the year's earnings are a matter ofindividual ability, but the mass of workers in these directions driftnaturally toward the great shops which may be found now in everyimportant street of Paris, and which have altered every feature of theold system. Whether this alteration is a permanent one, is a question towhich no answer can yet be made. Wages have reached a point barely abovesubsistence, and the outlook for the worker is a very shadowy one; butthe question as a whole has as yet small interest for any but thepolitical economists, while the women themselves have no thought oforganization or of any method of bettering general conditions, beyondthe little societies to which some of the ordinary workers belong, andwhich are half religious, half educational, in their character. As arule, these are for the lower ranks of needlewomen, but necessity willcompel something more definite in form for the two classes we have beenconsidering, as well as for those below them, and the time approacheswhen this will be plain to the workers themselves, and some positiveaction take the place of the present dumb acceptance of whatever comes. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A SILK-WEAVER OF PARIS. 

"No, madame, there is no more any old Paris. The Paris that I rememberis gone, all gone, save here and there a corner that soon they will pulldown as all the rest. All changes, manners no less than these streetsthat I know not in their new dress, and where I go seeking a trace ofwhat is past. It is only in the churches that one feels that all is thesame, and even with them one wonders why, if it is the same, fewer andfewer come, and that men smile often at those that enter the doors, andwould close them to us who still must pray in the old places. Is therethat consolation for the worker in America, madame? Can she forget hersorrow and want at a shrine that is holy, and feel the light resting onher, full of the glory of the painted windows and the color that is joyand rest? Because, if there had not been the church, my St. Etienne duMont, that I know from a child, if there had not been that, I must havedied. And so I have wondered if your country had this gift also for theworker, and, if it has not bread enough, has at least something thatfeeds the soul. Is it so, madame?"

Poor old Rose, once weaver in silk and with cheeks like her name, looking at me now with her sad eyes, blue and clear still in spite ofher almost seventy years, and full of the patience born of long struggleand acceptance! St. Etienne had drawn me as it had drawn her, and it wasin the apse, the light streaming from the ancient windows, each one amarvel of color whose secret no man to-day has penetrated, that I sawfirst the patient face and the clasped hands of this suppliant, whoprayed there undisturbed by any thought of watching eyes, and who rosepresently and went slowly down the aisles, with a face that might havetaken its place beside the pictured saints to whom she had knelt. Her_sabots_ clicked against the pavement worn by many generations of feet, and her old fingers still moved mechanically, telling the beads whichshe had slipped out of sight. 

"You love the little church, " I said; and she answered instantly, with asmile that illumined the old face, "Indeed, yes; and why not? It is homeand all that is good, and it is so beautiful, madame. There is none likeit. I go to the others sometimes, above all to Nôtre Dame, which also isvenerable and dear, and where one may worship well. But always I returnhere; for the great church seems to carry my prayers away, and they arehalf lost in such bigness, and it is not so bright and so joyous asthis. For here the color lifts the heart, and I seem to rise in my soulalso, and I know every pillar and ornament, for my eyes study often whenmy lips pray; but it is all one worship, madame, else I should shut themclose. But the good God and the saints know well that I am alwayspraying, and that it is my St. Etienne that helps, and that is sobeautiful I must pray when I see it. "

This was the beginning of knowing Rose, and in good time her whole storywas told, --a very simple one, but a record that stands for many like it. There was neither discontent nor repining. Born among workers, she hadfilled her place, content to fill it, and only wondering as years wenton why there were not better days, and, if they were to mend for others, whether she had part in it or not. Far up under the roof of an oldhouse, clung to because it was old, Rose climbed, well satisfied afterthe minutes in the little church in which she laid down the burden thatlong ago had become too heavy for her, and which, if it returned at all, could always be dropped again at the shrine which had heard her firstprayer. 

"It is Paris that I know best, " she said, "and that I love always, but Iam not born in it, nor none of mine. It is my father that desired muchthat we should gain more, and who is come here when I am so little thatI can be carried on the back. He is a weaver, madame, a weaver of silk, and my mother knows silk also from the beginning. Why not, when it is toher mother who also has known it, and she winds cocoons, too, when sheis little? I have played with them for the first plaything, and indeedthe only one, madame, since, when I learn what they are and how onemust use them, I have knowledge enough to hold the threads, and sobegin. It was work, yes, but not the work of to-day. We worked together. If my father brought us here, it was that all things might be better;for he loved us well. He sang as he wove, and we sang with him. If handswere tired, he said always: 'Think how you are earning for us all, andfor the _dot_ that some day you shall have when your blue eyes areolder, and some one comes who will see that they are wise eyes that, ifthey laugh, know also all the ways that these threads must go. ' Thatpleased me, for I was learning, too, and together we earned well, andhad our _pot au feu_ and good wine and no lack of bread. 

"That was the hand-loom, and when at last is come another that goes withsteam, the weavers have revolted and sworn to destroy them all, sinceone could do the work of many. I hear it all, and listen, and think howit is that a man's mind can think a thing that takes bread from othermen. I am sixteen, then, and skilful and with good wages for every day, and it is then that Armand is come, --Armand, who was weaver, too, butwho had been soldier with the great Emperor, and seen the girls of allcountries. But he cared for none of them till he saw me, for his thoughtwas always on his work; and he, too, planned machines, and fretted thathe had not education enough to make them with drawings and figures sothat the masters would understand. When machines have come he hasfretted more; for one at least had been clear in his own thought, andnow he cannot have it as he will, since another's thought has beenbefore him. He told me all this, believing I could understand; and so Icould, madame, since love made me wise enough to see what he might mean, and if I had not words, at least I had ears, and always I have used themwell. We are still one family when the time comes that I marry, and myfather has good wages in spite of machines, and all are reconciled tothem, save my brother. But the owners build factories. It is no longerat home that one can work; and in these the children go, yes, evenlittle ones, and hours are longer, and there is no song to cheer them, and no mother who can speak sometimes or tell a tale as they wind, andall is different. And so my mother says always: 'It is not good forFrance that the loom is taken out of the houses;' and if she makes moremoney because of more silk, she loses things that are more precious thanmoney, and it is all bad that it must be so. My father shakes his head. There are wages for every child; and he sees this, and does not so wellsee that they earned also at home, and had some things that the factorystops, for always. 

"For me, I am weaver of ribbons, and I love them well, all the bright, beautiful colors. I look at the windows of my St. Etienne and feel thecolor like a song in my heart, and while I weave I see them always, andcould even think that I spin them from my own mind. 

"That is a fancy that has rest when the days are long, and the sound ofthe mill in my ears, and the beat of the machines, that I feel sometimesare cruel, for one can never stop, but must go on always. I think inmyself, as I see the children, that I shall never let mine stand withthem, and indeed there is no need, since we are all earning, and thereis money saved, and this is all true for long. The children are come. Three boys are mine; two with Armand's eyes, and one with mine, whomArmand loves best because of this, but seeks well to make no difference, and we call him Etienne for my saint and my church. And, madame, I thinkoften that more heaven is in him than we often know, and perhaps becauseI have prayed always under the window where the lights are all at lastone glory, and the color itself is a prayer, Etienne is so born that hemust have it, too. I take him there a baby, and he stretches his handsand smiles. He does not shout like the others, but his smile seems fromheaven. He is an artist. He draws always with a bit of charcoal, withanything, and I think that he shall study, and, it may be, make otherbeautiful things that may live in a new St. Etienne, or in some otherplace in this Paris that I love; and I am happy. 

"Then comes the time, madame, that one remembers and prays to forget, till one knows that it may be the good God's way of telling us how wrongwe are and what we must learn. First it is Armand, who has becomerevolutionary, --what you call to-day communist, --and who is found inwhat are called plots, and tried and imprisoned. It was not for long. Hewould have come to me again, but the fever comes and kills many; he diesand I cannot be with him, --no, nor even see him when they take him toburial. I go in a dream. I will not believe it; and then my father ishurt. He is caught in one of those machines that my mother so hates, andhis hand is gone and his arm crushed. 

"Now the children must earn. There is no other way. For Armand andPierre I could bear it, since they are stronger, but for Etienne, no. Hecomes from school that he loves, and must take his place behind theloom. He is patient; he says, even, he is glad to earn for us all; buthe is pale, and the light in his eyes grows dim, save when, night andmorning, he kneels with me under my window and feels it as I do. 

"Then evil days are here, and always more and more evil. Month by monthwages are less and food is more. My mother is dead, too, and my fatherquite helpless, and my brother that has never been quite as others, andso cannot earn. We work always. My boys know well all that must beknown, but at seventeen Armand is tall and strong as a man, and he istaken for soldier, and he, too, never comes to us again. I work more andmore, and if I earn two francs for the day am glad, but now Etienne issick and I see well that he cannot escape. 'It is the country he needs, 'says the doctor. 'He must be taken to the country if he is to live;' butthese are words. I pray, --I pray always that succor may come, but itcomes not, nor can I even be with him in his pain, since I must workalways. And so it is, madame, that one day when I return, my father lieson his bed weeping, and the priest is there and looks with pity upon me, and my Etienne lies there still, and the smile that was his only is onhis face. 

"That is all, madame. My life has ended there. But it goes on for othersstill and can. My father has lived till I too am almost old. My brotherlives yet, and my boy, Pierre, who was shot at Balaklava, he has twochildren and his wife, who is _couturière_, and I must aid them. Iremain weaver, and I earn always the same. Wages stay as in thebeginning, but all else is more and more. One may live, but that isall. Many days we have only bread; sometimes not enough even of that. But the end comes. I have always my St. Etienne, and often under thewindow I see my Etienne's smile, and know well the good God has caredfor him, and I need no more. I could wish only that the children mightbe saved, but I cannot tell. France needs them; but I think well sheneeds them more as souls than as hands that earn wages, though truly Iam old and it may be that I do not know what is best. Tell me, madame, must the children also work always with you, or do you care for otherthings than work, and is there time for one to live and grow as a plantin the sunshine? That is what I wish for the children; but Paris knowsno such life, nor can it, since we must live, and so I must wait, andthat is all. "

CHAPTER XIX. 

IN THE RUE JEANNE D'ARC. 

"No, madame, unless one has genius or much money in the beginning, it isonly possible to live, and sometimes one believes that it is not living. If it were not that all in Paris is so beautiful, how would I have bornemuch that I have known? But always, when even the hunger has been mostsharp, has been the sky so blue and clear, and the sun shining down onthe beautiful boulevards, and all so bright, so gay, why should I show aface of sorrow?

"I have seen the war, it is true. I have known almost the starving, forin those days all go hungry; most of all, those who have little to buywith. But one bears the hunger better when one has been born to it, andthat is what has been for me. 

"In the Rue Jeanne d'Arc we are all hungry, and it is as true to-day, yes, more true, than in the days when I was young. The charitable, whogive more and more each year in Paris, will not believe there is such aquarter, but for us, we know. Have you seen the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, madame? Do you know what can be for this Paris that is so fair?"

This question came in the square before old Nôtre Dame, still the churchof the poor, its gray towers and carved portals dearer to them than tothe Paris which counts the Madeleine a far better possession than thisnoblest of all French cathedrals. Save for such reminder this quartermight have remained unvisited, since even philanthropic Paris appears tohave little or no knowledge of it, and it is far beyond the distance towhich the most curious tourist is likely to penetrate. 

On by the Halle aux Vins, with its stifling, fermenting, alcoholicodors, and then by the Jardin des Plantes, and beyond, the blank wallsof many manufactories stretching along the Seine, --this for one shore. On the other lies La Rapée, with the windows of innumerable wine shopsflaming in the sun, and further on, Bercy, the ship bank of the river, covered with wine-casks and a throng of drays and draymen; of_débardeurs_, whose business it is to unload wood or to break up oldboats into material for kindling; and of the host whose business is onand about the river. 

They are of the same order as the London Dock laborers, and, like themajority of this class there and here, know every extremity of want. Butit is a pretty picture from which one turns from the right, passing upthe noisy boulevard of the Gare d'Orléans, toward the quarter of theGobelins. This quarter has its independent name and place like the "Cityof the Sun. " Like that it knows every depth of poverty, but, unlikethat, sunshine and space are quite unknown. The buildings are piledtogether, great masses separated by blind alleys, some fifteen hundredlodgings in all, and the owner of many of them is a prominentphilanthropist, whose name heads the list of directors for variouscharitable institutions, but whose feet, we must believe, can hardly beacquainted with those alleys and stairways, narrow, dark, and foul. Theunpaved ways show gaping holes in which the greasy mud lies thick ormingles with the pools of standing water, fed from every house andfermenting with rottenness. 

The sidewalks, once asphalted, are cracked in long seams and holes, where the same water does its work, and where hideous exhalations poisonthe air. Within it is still worse; filth trickles down the walls andmingles under foot, the corridors seeming rather sewers than passagesfor human beings, while the cellars are simply reservoirs for the samedeposits. Above in the narrow rooms huddle the dwellers in thoselodgings; whole families in one room, its single window looking on adark court where one sees swarms of half-naked children, massed togetherlike so many maggots, their flabby flesh a dirty white, their facesprematurely aged and with a diabolical intelligence in their sharp eyes. The children are always old. The old have reached the extremity ofhideous decrepitude. One would say that these veins had never heldhealthy human blood, and that for young and old pus had become itssubstitute. To these homes return many of the men who wait for work onthe quays, and thus this population, born to crime and every foulnessthat human life can know, has its proportion also of honest workers, whose fortunes have ebbed till they have been left stranded in thisslime, of a quality so tenacious that escape seems impossible. Many ofthe lodgings are unoccupied, and at night they become simply dens ofwild beasts, --men and boys who live by petty thieving climbing thewalls, stealing along the passages and up the dark stairways, andsheltering themselves in every niche and corner. Now and then, when theoutrages become too evident, the police descend suddenly on thedrinking, shouting tenants at will, and for a day or two there is peacefor the rest. 

But the quarter is shut in and hedged about by streets of a generalrespectable appearance, and thus it is felt to be impossible that such aspot can exist. It is, however, the breeding-ground of criminals; andeach year swells the quota, whose lives can have but one ending, and whocost the city in the end many times the amount that in the beginningwould have insured decent homes and training in an industrial school. 

It is only the dregs of humanity that remain in such quarters. Thebetter elements, unless compelled by starvation, flee from it, thoughwith the tenacity of the Parisian for his own _quartier_, they settlenear it still. All about are strange trades, invented often by thefollowers of them, and unknown outside a country which has learned everymethod of not only turning an honest penny, but doing it in the mosteffective way. Among them all not one can be stranger than that adoptedby Madame Agathe, whose soft voice and plaintive intonations are insharpest contrast with her huge proportions, and who began life as oneof the great army of _couturières_. 

With failing eyesight and the terror of starvation upon her, she wentone Sunday, with her last two francs in her pocket, to share them with asick cousin, who had been one of the workmen at the Jardin des Plantes. He, too, was in despair; for an accident had taken from him the use ofhis right arm, and there were two children who must be fed. 

"What to do! what to do!" he cried; and then, as he saw the tearsrunning down Madame Agathe's cheeks, he in turn, with the ease of hisnation, wept also. 

"That is what has determined me, " said Madame Agathe, as not long agoshe told of the day when she had given up hope. "Tears are for women, and even for them it is not well to shed many. I say to myself, 'I am onthe earth: the good God wills it. There must be something that I may do, and that will help these even more helpless ones. ' And as I say it therecomes in from the Jardin des Plantes a man who has been a companion toPierre, and who, as he sees him so despairing, first embraces him andthen tells him this: 'Pierre, it is true you cannot again hold spade orhoe, but here is something. There are never enough ants' eggs for thezoölogical gardens and for those that feed pheasants. I know already onewoman who supplies them, and she will some day be rich. Why not youalso?'

"'I have no hands for any work. This hand is useless, ' said Pierre; andthen I spoke: 'But mine are here and are strong; you have eyes, whichfor me are well nigh gone. It shall be your eyes and my hands that willdo this work if I may learn all the ways. It is only that ants haveteeth and bite and we must fear that. '

"Then Claude has laughed. 'Teeth! yes, if you will, but they do not gnawlike hunger. Come with me, Madame Agathe, and we will talk with her ofwhom I speak, --she who knows it all and has the good heart and will telland help. '

"That is how I begun, madame. It is Blanche who has taught me, and Ihave lived with her a month and watched all her ways, and learned allthat these ants can do. At first one must renounce thought to beanything but bitten, yes, bitten always. See me, I am tanned as leather. It is the skin of an apple that has dried that you see on me and withher it is the same. We wear pantaloons and gauntlets of leather. It isalmost a coat of mail, but close it as one may, they are alwaysunderneath. She can sleep when hundreds run on her, but I, I am franticat first till I am bitten everywhere; and then, at last, as withbee-keepers, I can be poisoned no longer, and they may gnaw as theywill. They are very lively. They love the heat, and we must keep upgreat heat always and feed them very high, and then they lay many eggs, which we gather for the bird-breeders and others who want them. Twice wehave been forced to move, since our ants will wander, and the neighborscomplain when their pantries are full, and justly. 

"Now eight and even ten sacks of ants come to me from Germany and manyplaces. I am busy always, and there is money enough for all; but I havesent the children away, for they are girls, and for each I save a little_dot_, and I will not have them know this _métier_, and be so bittenthat they, too, are tanned like me and have never more their prettyfresh skins. Near us now, madame, is another woman, but her trade isless good than mine. She is a bait-breeder, '_une éleveure desasticots_. ' All about her room hang old stockings. In them she puts branand flour and bits of cork, and soon the red worms show themselves, andonce there she has no more thought than to let them grow and to sellthem for eight and sometimes ten sous a hundred. But I like better myants, which are clean, and which, if they run everywhere, do notwriggle nor squirm nor make you think always of corruption and death. She breeds other worms for the fishermen, who buy them at the shops forfishing tackle; but often she also buys worms from others and feeds thema little time till plump, but I find them even more disgusting. 

"An ant has so much intelligence. I can watch mine, madame, as if theywere people almost, and would even believe they know me. But that doesnot hinder them from biting me; no, never; and because they are alwaysupon me the neighbors and all who know me have chosen to call me the'sister-in-law of ants. '

"It is not a trade for women, it is true, save for one only here andthere. But it is better than sewing; yes, far better; and I wish allwomen might have something as good, since now I prosper when once I ateonly bread. What shall be done, madame, to make it that more than breadbecomes possible for these workers?"

CHAPTER XX. 

FROM FRANCE TO ITALY. 

In Paris, its fulness of brilliant life so dominates that all shadowsseem to fly before it and poverty and pain to have no place, and thesame feeling holds for the chief cities of the continent. It is Paristhat is the key-note of social life, and in less degree its influencemakes itself felt even at remote distances, governing production andfixing the rate of wages paid. Modern improvement has swept away slums, and it is only here and there, in cities like Berlin or Vienna, that onecomes upon anything which deserves the name. 

The Ghetto is still a part of Rome, and likely to remain so, since theconservatism of the lowest order is stronger even in the Italian than inthe French or German worker. 

But if civilization does not abolish the effects of low wages andinterminable hours of labor, it at least removes them from sight, andhaving made its avenues through what once were dens, is certain that alldens are done away with. The fact that the avenue is made, that sunshineenters dark courts and noisome alleys, and that often court and alleyare swept away absolutely, is a step gained; yet, as is true ofShaftesbury Avenue in London cut through the old quarters of St. Giles, the squalor and misery is condensed instead of destroyed, and thebuilding that held one hundred holds now double or triple that number. For Paris the Rue Jeanne d'Arc already described is an illustration ofwhat may lie within a stone's throw of quiet and reputable streets, andof what chances await the worker, whose scanty wages offer onlyexistence, and for whom the laying up of any fund for old age is animpossibility. 

The chief misfortune, however, and one mourned by the few Frenchpolitical economists who have looked below the surface, is the gradualdisappearance of family life and its absorption into that of thefactory. 

With this absorption has come other vices, that follow where the familyhas no further place, and, recognizing this at last, the heads ofvarious great manufactories--notably in Lyons and other points where thesilk industry centres--have sought to reorganize labor as much aspossible on the family basis. In the old days, when the loom was a partof the furniture of every home, the various phases of weaving werelearned one by one, and the child who began by filling bobbins, passedon gradually to the mastery of every branch involved, and became judgeof qualities as well as maker of quantities. In this phase, if hourswere long, there were at least the breaks of the ordinary familylife, --the care of details taken by each in turn, and thus a knowledgeacquired, which, with the development of the factory system on itsearliest basis, was quite impossible. There were other alleviations, too, as the store of songs and of traditions testifies, both thesepossibilities ceasing when home labor was transferred to the factory. 

On the other hand, there were certain compensations, in the fixing of adefinite number of hours, of the rate of wages, and at first in freeingthe home from the workshop element, the loom having usurped the largestand best place in every household. But, as machinery developed, the timeof mother and children was again absorbed, and so absolutely that anyhousehold knowledge ended then and there, with no further possibility ofits acquisition. It was this state of things, with its accumulatedresults, which, a generation or so later, faced the few investigatorswho puzzled over the decadence of morals, the enfeebled physiques, thegeneral helplessness of the young women who married, and the wholeseries of natural consequences. So startling were the facts developed, that it became at once evident that a change must be brought about, ifonly as a measure of wise political economy; and thus it has happenedfor Lyons that the factory system has perfected itself, and matches oreven goes beyond that of any other country, with the exception ofisolated points like Saltaire in England, or the Chenney village inConnecticut. When it became evident that the ordinary factorygirl-worker at sixteen or seventeen could not sew a seam, or make abroth, or care for a child's needs so well as the brute, the time foraction had come; and schools of various orders, industrial andotherwise, have gradually risen and sought to undo the work of the yearsthat made them necessary. Perfect in many points as the system hasbecome, however, competition has so followed and pressed upon themanufacturer that the wage standard has lowered to little more thansubsistence point, this fact including all forms of woman's work, without the factory as well as within. 

Leaving France and Germany and looking at Swiss and Italian workers, much the same statements may be made, the lace-workers in Switzerland, for instance, being an illustration of the very minimum of result forhuman labor. Like the lace-workers of Germany, the fabric must oftengrow in the dark almost, basements being chosen that dampness may makethe thread follow more perfectly the will of the worker, whose day isnever less than fifteen hours long, whose food seldom goes beyond blackbread with occasional milk or cabbage soup, and whose average of lifeseldom exceeds forty years. There is not a thread in the exquisitedesigns that has not been spun from a human nerve stretched to itsutmost tension, and the face of these workers once seen are a shadowforever on the lovely webs that every woman covets instinctively. 

Why an industry demanding so many delicate qualities--patience, perfection of touch, and long practice--should represent a return barelyremoved from starvation, no man has told us; but so the facts are, andso they stand for every country of Europe where the work is known. InGermany and Italy alike, the sewing-machine has found its way even tothe remotest village, manufacturers in the large towns finding it oftenfor their interest to send their work to points where the lowest ratepossible in cities seems to the simple people far beyond what they woulddream of asking. It is neither in attic nor basement that the Italianworker runs her machine, but in the open doorway, or even the streetitself, sunshine pouring upon her, neighbors chatting in the pauses forbasting or other preparation, and the sense of human companionship andinterest never for an instant lost. For the Anglo-Saxon such methods arealien to every instinct. For the Italian they are as natural as thereverse would be unnatural; and thus, even with actual wage conditionsat the worst, the privations and suffering, which are as inevitable forone as the other, are made bearable, and even sink out of sight almost. They are very tangible facts, but they have had to mean something verynear starvation before the Italian turned his face toward America, --theone point where, it is still believed, the worker can escape such fear. 

It is hard for the searcher into these places to realize that sufferingin any form can have place under such sunshine, or with the apparentjoyousness of Italian life; and it is certain that this life holds acompensation unknown to the North. 

In Genoa, late in May, I paused in one of the old streets leading upfrom the quays, where hundreds of sailors daily come and go, and whereone of the chief industries for women is the making of various forms ofsailor garments. Every doorway opening on the street held itssewing-machine or the low table where cutters and basters were at work, fingers and tongues flying in concert, and a babel of happy soundissuing between the grand old walls of houses seven and eight storieshigh, flowers in every window, many-colored garments waving from linesstretched across the front, and, far above, a proud mother handing her_bambino_ across for examination by her opposite neighbor, a very simpleoperation where streets are but four or five feet wide. 

Life here is reduced to its simplest elements. Abstemious to a degreeimpossible in a more northern climate, the Italian worker in town orvillage demands little beyond macaroni, polenta, or chestnuts, with oilor soup, and wine as the occasional luxury; and thus a woman who worksfourteen or even fifteen hours a day for a lire and a half, and at timesonly a lire (20c. ), still has enough for absolute needs, and barelylooks beyond. 

It is only when the little bundle has ceased to be _bambino_ that shethinks of a larger life as possible, or wonders why women who work morehours than men, and often do a man's labor, are paid only half the men'srate. 

In Rome, where these lines are written, the story is the same. There arefew statistics from which one can glean any definite idea of numbers, or even of occupations. The army swallows all the young men, preciselyas in France; but women slip less readily into responsible positions, and thus earn in less degree than in either France or Germany. 

In the Ghetto swarm the crowds that have filled it for hundreds ofyears, and its narrow ways hold every trade known to man's hands, aswell as every form of drudgery which here reaches its climax. 

The church has decreed the relieving of poverty as one chief method ofsaving rich men's souls, and thus the few attempts made by the Englishcolony to bring about some reconstruction of methods as well as thoughthave met with every possible opposition, till, within recent years, thenecessity of industrial education has become apparent, and Italy hasinaugurated some of the best work in this direction. Beyond Italy therehas been no attempt at experiment. The work at best has been chieflyfrom the outside; but whether in this form, or assisted by actualstatistics or the general investigation of others, the conclusion isalways the same, and sums up as the demand for every worker and everymaster the resurrection of the old ideal of work; the doing away ofcompetition as it at present rules, and the substitution ofco-operation, productive as well as distributive; industrial educationfor every child, rich or poor; and that and recognition of the interestsof all as a portion of our personal charge and responsibility, which, ifI name it Socialism, will be scouted as a dream of an impossible future, but which none the less bears that name in its highest interpretation, and is the one solution for every problem on either side the great sea, between the eastern and western worker. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PRESENT AND FUTURE. 

At the first glance, and even when longer survey has been made, bothParis and Berlin, --and these may stand as the representative Continentalcities, --seem to offer every possible facility for the work of women. Everywhere, behind counter, in shop or café, in the markets, on thestreets, wherever it is a question of any phase of the ordinary businessof life, women are in the ascendant, and would seem to have conqueredfor themselves a larger place and better opportunities than eitherEngland or America have to show. But, as investigation goes on, thislarger employment makes itself evident as obstacle rather than help tothe better forms of work, and the woman's shoulders bear not only hernatural burden, but that also belonging to the man. The army lays itshand on the boy at sixteen or seventeen. The companies and regimentsperpetually moving from point to point in Paris seem to be composedchiefly of boys; every student is enrolled, and the period of servicemust always be deducted in any plan for life made by the family. 

Naturally, then, these gaps are filled by women, --not only in allordinary avocations, but in the trades which are equally affected bythis perpetual drain. In every town of France or Germany wheremanufacturing is of old or present date, the story is the same, andwomen are the chief workers; but, in spite of this fact, the sameinequalities in wages prevail that are found in England and America, while conditions include every form of the sharpest privation. 

For England and America as well is the fact that law regulates or seeksto regulate every detail, no matter how minute, and that themanufacturer or artisan of any description is subject to such laws. Onthe continent, save where gross wrongs have brought about some slightattempt at regulation by the State, the law is merely a matter ofgeneral principles, legislation simply indicating certain ends to beaccomplished, but leaving the means entirely in the hands of the headsof industries. Germany has a far more clearly defined code than France;but legislation, while it has touched upon child labor, has neglectedthat of women-workers entirely. Within a year or two the report of theBelgian commissioners has shown a state of things in the coal mines, pictured with tremendous power by Zola in his novel "Germinal, " but inno sense a new story, since the conditions of Belgian workers arepractically identical with those of women-workers in Silesia, or at anyor all of the points on the continent where women are employed. Philanthropists have cried out; political economists have shown thesuicidal nature of non-interference, and demonstrated that if the Stategains to-day a slight surplus in her treasury, she has, on the otherhand, lost something for which no money equivalent can be given, andthat the women who labor from twelve to sixteen hours in the mines, orat any industry equally confining, have no power left to shape thecoming generations into men, but leave to the State an inheritance ofweak-bodied and often weak-minded successors to the same toil. ForFrance and Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, at every point where women areemployed, the story is the same; and the fact remains that, while in thebetter order of trades women may prosper, in the large proportion, constant and exhausting labor simply keeps off actual starvation, buthas no margin for anything that can really be called living. 

For Paris and Berlin, but in greater degree for Paris, a fact holds truewhich has almost equal place for New York. Women-workers, whose onlysupport is the needle, contend with an army of women for whom such workis not a support, but who follow it as a means of increasing an alreadycertain income. For these women there is no pressing necessity, and inParis they are of the _bourgeoisie_, whose desires are always a littlebeyond their means, who have ungratified caprices, ardent wishes toshine like women in the rank above them, to dress, and to fascinate. They are the wives and daughters of petty clerks, or employés of oneorder and another, of small government functionaries and the like, whoembroider or sew three or four hours a day, and sell the work for whatit will bring. The money swells the housekeeping fund, gives a dinnerperhaps, or aids in buying a shawl, or some coveted and otherwiseunattainable bit of jewelry. The work is done secretly, since they havenot the simplicity either of the real _ouvrière_ or of the _grandedame_, both of whom sew openly, the one for charity, the other for aliving. But this middle class, despising the worker and aspiring alwaystoward the luxurious side of life, feels that embroidery or tapestry ofsome description is the only suitable thing for their fingers, and busyon this, preserve the appearance of the dignity they covet. Often theiryearly gains are not more than one hundred francs, and they seldomexceed two hundred; for they accept whatever is offered them, and themerchants who deal with them know that they submit to any extortion solong as their secret is kept. 

This class is one of the obstacles in the way of the ordinary worker, and one that grows more numerous with every year of the growing love ofluxury. There must be added to it another, --and in Paris it is a verylarge one, --that that of women who have known better days, who aredetermined to keep up appearances and to hide their misery absolutelyfrom former friends. They are timid to excess, and spend days of laboron a piece of work which, in the end, brings them hardly more than amorsel of bread. One who goes below the surface of Paris industries isamazed to discover how large a proportion of women-workers come underthis head; and their numbers have been one of the strongest argumentsfor industrial education, and some development of the sense of whatvalue lies in good work of any order. In one industry alone, --that ofbonnet-making in general, it was found a year or two since that overeight hundred women of this order were at work secretly, and though theyare found in several other industries, embroidery is their chief sourceof income. Thus they are in one sense a combination against other women, and one more reason given by merchants of every order for the unequalpay of men and women. It is only another confirmation of the fact that, so long as women are practically arrayed against women, any adjustmentof the questions involved in all work is impossible. Hours, wages, allthe points at issue that make up the sum of wrong represented by manyphases of modern industry, wait for the organization among womenthemselves; and such organization is impossible till the sense ofkinship and mutual obligation has been born. With competition as theheart of every industry, men are driven apart by a force as inevitableand irresistible as its counterpart in the material world, and it isonly when an experiment like that of Guise has succeeded, and thepatient work and waiting of Père Godin borne fruit that all menpronounce good, that we know what possibilities lie in industrialco-operation. Such co-operation as has there proved itself not onlypossible but profitable for every member concerned, comes at last, toone who has faced women-workers in every trade they count their own, andunder every phase of want and misery, born of ignorance first, and thenof the essential conditions of competition, under-pay, and over-work, asone great hope for the future. The instant demand, if it is to becomepossible, is for an education sufficiently technical to give each memberof society the hand-skill necessary to make a fair livelihood. Suchknowledge is impossible without perfectly equipped industrial schools;and the need of these has so demonstrated itself that further argumentfor their adoption is hardly necessary. The constant advance ininvention and the fact that the worker, unless exceptionally skilled, ismore and more the servant of machinery, is an appeal no less powerful inthe same direction. Twenty years ago one of the wisest thinkers inFrance, conservative, yet with the clearest sense of what the futuremust bring for all workers, wrote:--

 "From the economic point of view, woman, who has next to no material force and whose arms are advantageously replaced by the least machine, can have useful place and obtain fair remuneration only by the development of the best qualities of her intelligence. It is the inexorable law of our civilization--the principle and formula even of social progress, that _mechanical engines are to accomplish every operation of human labor which does not proceed directly from the mind_. The hand of man is each day deprived of a portion of its original task, but this general gain is a loss for the particular, and for the classes whose only instrument of labor and of earning daily bread is a pair of feeble arms. "

The machine, the synonym for production at large, has refined andsubtilized--even spiritualized itself to a degree almost inconceivable, nor is there any doubt but that the future has far greater surprises instore. But if metal has come to wellnigh its utmost power of service, the worker's capacity has had no equality of development, and the storyof labor to-day for the whole working world is one of degradation. Thatmen are becoming alive to this; that students of political economysolemnly warn the producer what responsibility is his; and that thecertainty of some instant step as vital and inevitable is plain, --aregleams of light in this murky and sombre sky, from which it would seemat times only the thunderbolt could be certain. 

Organization and its result in industrial co-operation is one goal, buteven this must count in the end only as corrective and palliative unlesswith it are associated other reforms which this generation is hardlylikely to see, yet which more and more outline themselves as a part ofthose better days for which we work and hope. As to America thus far, our great spaces, our sense of unlimited opportunity, of the chance forall which we still count as the portion of every one on American soil, and a hundred other standard and little-questioned beliefs, have allseemed testimony to the reality and certainty of our faith. But as onefaces the same or worse industrial conditions in London or any greatcity, English or Continental, with its congestion of labor and its massof resultant misery, the same solution suggests itself and the cry comesfrom philanthropist and Philistine alike, "Send them into the country!Give them homes and work there!"

Naturally this would seem the answer; but where? For when search is madefor any bit of land on which a home may rise and food be given back fromthe soil, all England is found to be in the hands of a few thousandland-owners, while London itself practically belongs to less than adozen, with rents at such rates that when paid no living wage remains. When once this land question is touched, it is found made up ofimmemorial injustices, absurdities, outrages, and for America no lessthan for the whole world of workers. It cannot be that man has right toair and sunshine, but never right to the earth under his feet. Standing-place there must be for this long battle for existence, and inyielding this standing-place comes instant solution of a myriadproblems. 

This is no place for extended argument as to the necessity of landnationalization, or the advantages or disadvantages of Mr. George'sscheme of a single tax on land values, with the consequent dropping ofour whole complicated tariff. But believing that the experiment is atleast worth trying, and trying patiently and thoroughly, the belief, slowly made plain and protested against till further protest becamesenseless and impossible, stands here, as one more phase of work to bedone. In it are bound up many of the reforms, without which the merefact of granted standing-room would be valueless. The day must come whenno one can question that the natural opportunities of life can neverrightfully be monopolized by individuals, and when the education thatfits for earning, and the means of earning are under wise control, monopolies, combinations, "trusts, "--all the facts which representorganized injustice sink once for all to their own place. 

Differ as we may, then, regarding methods and possibilities, onequestion rises always for every soul alike, --What part have I in thisawakening, and what work with hands or head can I do to speed this timeto which all men are born, and of which to-day they know only thepromise? From lowest to highest, the material side has so dominated thatother needs have slipped out of sight; and to-day, often, the hands thatfollow the machine in its almost human operations, are less human thanit. Matter is God, and for scientist and speculative philosopher, andtoo often for social reformer also, the place and need of another Godceases, and there is no hope for the toiler but to lie down at last inthe dust and find it sweet to him. Yet for him, and for each child ofman, is something as certain. Not the God of theology; not the God madethe fetich and blindly worshipped; but the Power whose essence is loveand inward constraint to righteousness, and to whom all men must one daycome, no matter through what dark ways or with what stumbling feet. 

The vision is plain and clear of what the State must one day mean andwhat the work of the world must be, when once more the devil ofself-seeking and greed flees to his own place, and each man knows thathis life is his own only as he gives it to high service, and to lovingthought for every weaker soul. The co-operative commonwealth must come;and when it has come, all men will know that it is but the vision ofevery age in which high souls have seen what future is for every childof man, and have known that when the spirit of brotherhood rules oncefor all, the city of God has in very truth descended from the heavens, and men at last have found their own inheritance. 

This is the future, remote even when most ardently desired; impossible, unless with the dream is bound up the act that brings realization. Andwhen the nature and method of such act comes as question, and the wordis, What can be done to-day, in the hour that now is?--how shallunlearned, unthinking minds bend themselves to these problems, when thewisest have failed, and the world still struggles in bondage to custom, the accumulated force of long-tolerated wrong--what can the answer be?

There is no enlightener like even the simplest act of real justice. Itis impossible that the most limited mind should not feel expansion andknow illumination in even the effort to comprehend what justice actuallyis and involves. Instantly when its demand is heard and met, custom, tradition, old beliefs, everything that hampers progress, slip away, andactual values show themselves. The first step taken in such directionmeans always a second. It is the beginning of the real march onward; theending of any blind drifting in the mass, with no consciousness ofindividual power to move. 

A deep conviction founded on eternal law is itself an education, andwhoever has once determined what the personal demand in life is, hasentered the wicket-gate and sees before him a plain public road, onwhich all humanity may journey to the end. 

Here then lies the answer, no less than in these last words, the endingof one phase of work which still has only begun. For the day is comingwhen every child born will be taught the meaning of wealth, of capital, of labor. Then there will be small need of any further schools ofpolitical economy, since wealth will be known to be only what the soulcan earn, --that which adheres and passes on with it; and capital, allforces that the commonwealth can use to make the man develop to hisutmost possibility every power of soul and body; and labor, the joyful, voluntary acceptance of all work to this end, whether with hands orhead. Till then, in the fearless and faithful acceptance of everyconsequence of a conviction, in personal consecration to the highestdemand, in increasing effort to make happiness the portion of all, liesthe task set for each one, --the securing to every soul the naturalopportunity denied by the whole industrial system, both of land andlabor, as it stands to-day. This is the goal for all; and by whateverpath it is reached, to each and every walker in it, good cheer andunflagging courage, and a leaving the way smoother for feet that willfollow, till all paths are at last made plain, and every face set towardthe city we seek!

 * * * * *

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. _

PRISONERS OF POVERTY

WOMEN WAGE-WORKERS: THEIR TRADES AND THEIR LIVES. 

BY HELEN CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB, " "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME, " "MISSMELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY, " ETC. 

16mo. Cloth. $1. 00. Paper, 50 cents. 

 The author writes earnestly and warmly, but without prejudice, and her volume is an eloquent plea for the amelioration of the evils with which she deals. In the present importance into which the labor question generally has loomed, this volume is a timely and valuable contribution to its literature, and merits wide reading and careful thought. --_Saturday Evening Gazette. _

 She has given us a most effective picture of the condition of New York working-women, because she has brought to the study of the subject not only great care but uncommon aptitude. She has made a close personal investigation, extending apparently over a long time; she has had the penetration to search many queer and dark corners which are not often thought of by similar explorers; and we suspect that, unlike too many philanthropists, she has the faculty of winning confidence and extracting the truth. She is sympathetic, but not a sentimentalist; she appreciates exactness in facts and figures; she can see both sides of a question, and she has abundant common sense. --_New York Tribune. _

 Helen Campbell's "Prisoners of Poverty" is a striking example of the trite phrase that "truth is stranger than fiction. " It is a series of pictures of the lives of women wage-workers in New York, based on the minutest personal inquiry and observation. No work of fiction has ever presented more startling pictures, and, indeed, if they occurred in a novel would at once be stamped as a figment of the brain. . . . Altogether, Mrs. Campbell's book is a notable contribution to the labor literature of the day, and will undoubtedly enlist sympathy for the cause of the oppressed working-women whose stories do their own pleading. --_Springfield Union. _

 It is good to see a new book by Helen Campbell. She has written several for the cause of working-women, and now comes her latest and best work, called "Prisoners of Poverty, " on women wage-workers and their lives. It is compiled from a series of papers written for the Sunday edition of a New York paper. The author is well qualified to write on these topics, having personally investigated the horrible situation of a vast army of working-women in New York, --a reflection of the same conditions that exist in all large cities. 

 It is glad tidings to hear that at last a voice is raised for the woman side of these great labor questions that are seething below the surface calm of society. And it is well that one so eloquent and sympathetic as Helen Campbell has spoken in behalf of the victims and against the horrors, the injustices, and the crimes that have forced them into conditions of living--if it can be called living--that are worse than death. It is painful to read of these terrors that exist so near our doors, but none the less necessary, for no person of mind or heart can thrust this knowledge aside. It is the first step towards a solution of the labor complications, some of which have assumed foul shapes and colossal proportions, through ignorance, weakness, and wickedness. --_Hartford Times. _

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by thepublishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 

 * * * * *

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. _

MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY. 

A STORY. 

BY HELEN CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB, " "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME, " "PRISONERS OFPOVERTY. "

16mo. Cloth. Price, $1. 00. 

 "Mrs. Helen Campbell has written 'Miss Melinda's Opportunity' with a definite purpose in view, and this purpose will reveal itself to the eyes of all of its philanthropic readers. The true aim of the story is to make life more real and pleasant to the young girls who spend the greater part of the day toiling in the busy stores of New York. Just as in the 'What-to-do Club' the social level of village life was lifted several grades higher, so are the little friendly circles of shop-girls made to enlarge and form clubs in 'Miss Melinda's Opportunity. '"--_Boston Herald. _

 "'Miss Melinda's Opportunity, ' a story by Helen Campbell, is in a somewhat lighter vein than are the earlier books of this clever author; but it is none the less interesting and none the less realistic. The plot is unpretentious, and deals with the simplest and most conventional of themes; but the character-drawing is uncommonly strong, especially that of Miss Melinda, which is a remarkably vigorous and interesting transcript from real life, and highly finished to the slightest details. There is much quiet humor in the book, and it is handled with skill and reserve. Those who have been attracted to Mrs. Campbell's other works will welcome the latest of them with pleasure and satisfaction. "--_Saturday Gazette. _

 "The best book that Helen Campbell has yet produced is her latest story, 'Miss Melinda's Opportunity, ' which is especially strong in character-drawing, and its life sketches are realistic and full of vigor, with a rich vein of humor running through them. Miss Melinda is a dear lady of middle life, who has finally found her opportunity to do a great amount of good with her ample pecuniary means by helping those who have the disposition to help themselves. The story of how some bright and energetic girls who had gone to New York to earn their living put a portion of their earnings into a common treasury, and provided themselves with a comfortable home and good fare for a very small sum per week, is not only of lively interest, but furnishes hints for other girls in similar circumstances that may prove of great value. An unpretentious but well-sustained plot runs through the book, with a happy ending, in which Miss Melinda figures as the angel that she is. "--_Home Journal. _

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid on receipt of price, by thepublishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 

 * * * * *

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. _

MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME. 

A NOVEL. 

BY HELEN CAMPBELL. 

AUTHOR OF "THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. "

One volume. 16mo. Cloth. $1. 50

 "Confirmed novel-leaders who have regarded fiction as created for amusement and luxury alone, lay down this book with a new and serious purpose in life. The social scientist reads it, and finds the solution of many a tangled problem; the philanthropist finds in it direction and counsel. A novel written with a purpose, of which never for an instant does the author lose sight, it is yet absorbing in its interest. It reveals the narrow motives and the intrinsic selfishness of certain grades of social life; the corruption of business methods; the 'false, fairy gold, ' of fashionable charities, and 'advanced' thought. Margaret Wentworth is a typical New England girl, reflective, absorbed, full of passionate and repressed intensity under a quiet and apparently cold exterior. The events that group themselves about her life are the natural result of such a character brought into contact with real life. The book cannot be too widely read. "--_Boston Traveller. _

 "If the 'What-to-do Club' was clever, this is decidedly more so. It is a powerful story, and is evidently written in some degree, we cannot quite say how great a degree, from fact. The personages of the story are very well drawn, --indeed, 'Amanda Briggs' is as good as anything American fiction has produced. We fancy we could pencil on the margin the real names of at least half the characters. It is a book for the wealthy to read that they may know something that is required of them, because it does not ignore the difficulties in their way, and especially does not overlook the differences which social standing puts between class and class. It is a deeply interesting story considered as mere fiction, one of the best which has lately appeared. We hope the authoress will go on in a path where she has shown herself so capable. "--_The Churchman. _

 "In Mrs. Campbell's novel we have a work that is not to be judged by ordinary standards. The story holds the reader's interest by its realistic pictures of the local life around us, by its constant and progressive action, and by the striking dramatic quality of scenes and incidents, described in a style clear, connected, and harmonious. The novel-reader who is not taken up and made to share the author's enthusiasm before getting half-way through the book must possess a taste satiated and depraved by indulgence in exciting and sensational fiction. The earnestness of the author's presentation of essentially great purposes lends intensity to her narrative. Succeeding as she does in impressing us strongly with her convictions, there is nothing of dogmatism in their preaching. But the suggestiveness of every chapter is backed by pictures of real life. "--_New York World. _

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by thepublishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON. 

 * * * * *

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. _

THE WHAT-TO-DO CLUB. 

A STORY FOR GIRLS. 

BY HELEN CAMPBELL. 

16mo. Cloth. Price $1. 50. 

 "'The What-to-do Club' is an unpretending story. It introduces us to a dozen or more village girls of varying ranks. One has had superior opportunities; another exceptional training; two or three have been 'away to school;' some are farmers' daughters; there is a teacher, two or three poor self-supporters, --in fact, about such an assemblage as any town between New York and Chicago might give us. But while there is a large enough company to furnish a delightful coterie, there is absolutely no social life among them. . . . Town and country need more improving, enthusiastic work to redeem them from barrenness and indolence. Our girls need a chance to do independent work, to study practical business, to fill their minds with other thoughts than the petty doings of neighbors. A What-to-do Club is one step toward higher village life. It is one step toward disinfecting a neighborhood of the poisonous gossip which floats like a pestilence around localities which ought to furnish the most desirable homes in our country. "--_The Chautauquan. _

 'The What-to-do Club' is a delightful story for girls, especially for New England girls, by Helen Campbell. The heroine of the story is Sybil Waite, the beautiful, resolute, and devoted daughter of a broken-down but highly educated Vermont lawyer. The story shows how much it is possible for a well-trained and determined young woman to accomplish when she sets out to earn her own living, or help others. Sybil begins with odd jobs of carpentering, and becomes an artist in woodwork. She is first jeered at, then admired, respected, and finally loved by a worthy man. The book closes pleasantly with John claiming Sybil as his own. The labors of Sybil and her friends and of the New Jersey 'Busy Bodies, ' which are said to be actual facts, ought to encourage many young women to more successful competition in the battles of life. "--_Golden Rule. _

 "In the form of a story, this book suggests ways in which young women may make money at home, with practical directions for so doing. Stories with a moral are not usually interesting, but this one is an exception to the rule. The narrative is lively, the incidents probable and amusing, the characters well-drawn, and the dialects various and characteristic. Mrs. Campbell is a natural storyteller, and has the gift of making a tale interesting. Even the recipes for pickles and preserves, evaporating fruits, raising poultry, and keeping bees, are made poetic and invested with a certain ideal glamour, and we are thrilled and absorbed by an array of figures of receipts and expenditures, equally with the changeful incidents of flirtation, courtship, and matrimony. Fun and pathos, sense and sentiment, are mingled throughout, and the combination has resulted in one of the brightest stories of the season. "--_Woman's Journal. _

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post paid, by publishers_, ROBERTS BROTHERS. BOSTON.