I HAVE read, this story, this fragment of a life mingled with fragments
of other lives, and have been pleased, interested, and instructed. It
is filled with the pathos of truth, and has in it the humor that
accompanies actual experience. It has but little to do with the world
of imagination; certain feelings are not attributed to persons born
of fancy, but it is the history of a heart and brain interested in the
common things of life. There are no kings, no lords, no titled ladies,
but there are real people, the people of the shop and street whom every
reader knows, and there are lines intense and beautiful, and scenes
that touch the heart. You will find no theories of government, no hazy
outlines of reform, nothing but facts and folks, as they have been, as
they are, and probably will be for many centuries to come.
If you read this book you will be convinced that men and women are good
or bad, charitable or heartless, by reason of something within, and not
by virtue of any name they bear, or any trade or profession they follow,
or of any creed they may accept. You will also find that men sometimes
are honest and mean; that women may be very virtuous and very cruel;
that good, generous and sympathetic men are often disreputable, and that
some exceedingly worthy citizens are extremely mean and uncomfortable
neighbors.
It takes a great deal of genius and a good deal of selfdenial to be
very bad or to be very good. Few people understand the amount of energy,
industry, and self-denial it requires to be consistently vicious. People
who have a pride in being good and fail, and those who have a pride in
being bad and fail, in order to make their records consistent generally
rely upon hypocrisy. The people that live and hope and fear in this
book, are much like the people who live and hope and fear in the actual
world. The professor is much like the professor in the ordinary college.
You will find the conscientious, half-paid teacher, the hopeful poor,
the anxious rich, the true lover, the stingy philanthropist, who cares
for people only in the aggregate,--the individual atom being too small
to attract his notice or to enlist his heart; the sympathetic man who
loves himself, and gives, not for the sake of the beggar, but for
the sake of getting rid of the beggar, and you will also find the man
generous to a fault--with the money of others. And the reader will find
these people described naturally, truthfully and without exaggeration,
and he will feel certain that all these people have really lived.
The reader of this story will get some idea as to what is encountered
by a girl in an honest effort to gain her daily bread. He will find how
steep, how devious and how difficult is the path she treads.
There are so few occupations open to woman, so few things in which she
can hope for independence, that to be thrown upon her own resources
is almost equivalent to being cast away. Besides, she is an object of
continual suspicion, watched not only by men but by women. If she does
anything that other women are not doing, she is at once suspected,
her reputation is touched, and other women, for fear of being stained
themselves, withdraw not only the hand of help, but the smile of
recognition. A young woman cannot defend herself without telling the
charge that has been made against her. This, of itself, gives a kind of
currency to slander. To speak of the suspicion that has crawled across
her path, is to plant the seeds of doubt in other minds; to even deny
it, admits that it exists. To be suspected, that is enough. There is no
way of destroying this suspicion. There is no court in which suspicions
are tried; no juries that can render verdicts of not guilty. Most women
are driven at last to the needle, and this does not allow them to live;
it simply keeps them from dying.
It is hard to appreciate the dangers and difficulties that lie in wait
for woman. Even in this Christian country of ours, no girl is safe in
the streets of any city after the sun has gone down. After all, the sun
is the only god that has ever protected woman. In the darkness she has
been the prey of the wild beast in man.
Nearly all charitable people, so-called, imagine that nothing is easier
than to obtain work. They really feel that anybody, no matter what his
circumstances may be, can get work enough to do if he is only willing to
do the work. They cannot understand why any healthy human being should
lack food or clothes. Meeting the unfortunate and the wretched in the
streets of the great city, they ask them in a kind of wondering way, why
they do not go to the West, why they do not cultivate the soil, and why
they are so foolish, stupid, and reckless as to remain in the town. It
would be just as sensible to ask a beggar why he does not start a bank
or a line of steamships, as to ask him why he does not cultivate the
soil, or why he does not go to the West. The man has no money to pay his
fare, and if his fare were paid he would be, when he landed in the
West, in precisely the same condition as he was when he left the East.
Societies and institutions and individuals supply the immediate wants
of the hungry and the ragged, but they afford only the relief of the
moment.
Articles by the thousand have been written for the purpose of showing
that women should become servants in houses, and the writers of these
articles are filled with astonishment that any girl should hesitate to
enter domestic service. They tell us that nearly every family needs a
good cook, a good chambermaid, a good sweeper of floors and washer of
dishes, a good stout girl to carry the baby and draw the wagon, and
these good people express the greatest astonishment that all girls
are not anxious to become domestics. They tell them that they will be
supplied with good food, that they will have comfortable beds and warm
clothing, and they ask, "What more do you want?" These people have
not, however, solved the problem. If girls, as a rule, keep away from
kitchens and chambers, if they hate to be controlled by other women,
there must be a reason. When we see a young woman prefer a clerkship in
a store,--a business which keeps her upon her feet all day, and sends
her to her lonely room, filled with weariness and despair, and when we
see other girls who are willing to sew for a few cents a day rather than
become the maid of "my lady," there must be some reason, and this reason
must be deemed sufficient by the persons who are actuated by it. What is
it?
Every human being imagines that the future has something in store for
him. It is natural to build these castles in Spain. It is natural for
a girl to dream of being loved by the noble, by the superb, and it is
natural for the young man to dream of success, of a home, of a good, a
beautiful and loving wife. These dreams are the solace of poverty; they
keep back the tears in the eyes of the young and the hungry. To engage
in any labor that degrades, in any work that leaves a stain, in any
business the mention of which is liable to redden the cheek, seems to be
a destruction of the foundation of hope, a destruction of the future; it
seems to be a crucifixion of his or her better self. It assassinates the
ideal.
It may be said that labor is noble, that work is a kind of religion, and
whoever says this tells the truth, But after all, what has the truth
to do with this question? What is the opinion of society?--What is the
result? It cures no wound to say that it was wrongfully inflicted.
The opinion of sensible people is one way, the action of society is
inconsistent with that opinion. Domestic servants are treated as
though their employment was and is a degradation. Bankers, merchants,
professional men, ministers of the gospel, do not want their sons
to become the husbands of chambermaids and cooks. Small hands are
beautiful; they do not tell of labor.
I have given one reason; there is another. The work of a domestic is
never done. She is liable to be called at any moment, day or night. She
has no time that she can call her own. A woman who works by the piece
can take a little rest; if she is a clerk she has certain hours of labor
and the rest of the day is her own.
And there is still another reason that I almost hate to give, and that
is this: As a rule, woman is exacting with woman. As a rule, woman does
not treat woman as well as man treats man, or as well as man treats
woman. There are many other reasons, but I have given enough.
For many years, women have been seeking employment other than that of
domestic service. They have so hated this occupation, that they have
sought in every possible direction for other ways to win their bread.
At last hundreds of employments are open to them, and, as a consequence,
domestic servants are those who can get nothing else to do.
In the olden time, servants sat at the table with the family; they were
treated something like human beings, harshly enough to be sure, but
in many cases almost as equals. Now the kitchen is far away from the
parlor. It is another world, occupied by individuals of a different
race. There is no bond of sympathy--no common ground. This is especially
true in a Republic. In the Old World, people occupying menial places
account for their positions by calling attention to the laws--to the
hereditary nobility and the universal spirit of caste. Here, there are
no such excuses. All are supposed to have equal opportunities, and those
who are compelled to labor for their daily bread, in avocations that
require only bodily strength, are regarded as failures. It is this fact
that stabs like a knife. And yet in the conclusion drawn, there is but
little truth. Some of the noblest and best pass their lives in daily
drudgery and unremunerative toil--while many of the mean, vicious and
stupid reach place and power.
This story is filled with sympathy for the destitute, for the
struggling, and tends to keep the star of hope above the horizon of the
unfortunate. After all, we know but little of the world, and have but a
faint conception of the burdens that are borne, and of the courage and
heroism displayed by the unregarded poor. Let the rich read these pages;
they will have a kinder feeling toward those who toil; let the workers
read them, and they will think better of themselves.