POOR GIRLS.
We cannot hope to do justice to this branch of our subject. To treat it
properly would require a volume, for it is full of the saddest,
sternest, and most truthful romance. A writer in _Putnam's Magazine_
for April, 1868, presented an able and authentic paper on this subject,
which is so full and interesting that we have decided to quote a few
extracts from it here, in place of any statement of our own.
Where the Bowery runs into Chatham street, we pause, and from within
our close-buttoned overcoats look out over our mufflers at the passing
throng. There are many novel features in it, but let them pass. Note
these thinly-clad creatures who hurry shivering past, while the keen
wind searches, with icy fingers, through their scanty garments, and
whirls the blinding snow in their pitiful, wearied faces. We count them
by tens, by scores, by hundreds, as we stand patiently here--all
bearing the same general aspect of countenance, all hurrying anxiously
forward, as if this morning's journey were the most momentous one of
their whole lives. But they take the same journey every morning, year
in and year out, whether the sun shines or the rain falls, or the bleak
winds whistle and the snow sweeps in their faces, with a pain like the
cutting of knives. The same faces go past in this dreary procession
month after month. Occasionally one will be missing--she is dead.
Another: she is worse than dead--_her_ face had beauty in it. Thus one
by one I have seen them drop away--caught by disease, born of their
work and their want, bringing speedy end to the weary, empty life;
caught by temptation and drawn into the giddy maelstrom of sin, to come
out no more forever.
To-morrow morning take your stand at Fulton or Catharine ferry, and
you shall see much such another procession go shivering by. The next
day station yourself somewhere on the west side, say in Canal street, a
few blocks from Broadway; here it is again. If Asmodeus-like, you could
hover in the air above the roofs of the town, and look down upon its
myriad streets at this hour, you would see such processions in every
quarter of the metropolis. The spectacle would help you to form some
idea of the vastness of the theme now on our hands.
Let us define the poor girls as those who are forced to earn whatever
food they eat, whatever clothing they wear, by hard toil; girls who do
not receive one cent, one crumb, from the dead, helpless, or recreant
parents who brought them into the world. It is, of course, impossible
to give their number accurately; but there is a result attainable by
persistent observation, day by day and week by week, at all hours, and
in all sorts of places, which is quite as reliable and satisfactory as
any that is obtainable through blundering census-takers; and I know
this army of poor girls to be one of great magnitude. The sewing girls
alone I have heard estimated at thirty thousand, by one whose life is
in every day contact with them, and has been for years. This is but a
single class among the poor girls, reflect. The estimate may be deemed
an exaggerated one. Then we will disarm criticism by taking it at half
its word. If, accordingly, we say thirty thousand for _the whole_--for
all classes--it is still a vague figure.... Few persons ever saw thirty
thousand people gathered together. But we all comprehend distances. _If
this army of poor girls were to form in a procession together, it would
be more than ten miles long_.
THE SEWING GIRLS.
There are two classes of sewing girls in New York. Those who work at
home, and those who go out to work at places provided by their
employers. Those who work at home are comparatively few. They stay
there not from choice, but from necessity. Bodily deformity, or
infirmity, or sickness, or invalid parents, or relatives, whom they are
unable to leave, keeps them there.
The writer in _Putnam_, to whose deeply interesting statement we refer
the reader for further information on this point, found a poor girl of
this class, who was kept at home by the sickness of her consumptive
father, living and working in a miserable tenement house in the upper
part of Mulberry street. After a brief conversation with her, he asked:
'What rent do you pay for this room, Mary?'
'Four dollars a month, sir.'
"That," he continues, "is little more than thirteen cents a day, you
will observe."
'What do you get for making such a shirt as that?'
'Six cents, sir.'
'What! You make a shirt for six cents?'
'Yes, sir, and furnish the thread.'
If my reader is incredulous, I can assure him that Mary does not tell a
falsehood; for I know that this price is paid by some of the most
'respectable' firms in New York. 'Can't you get work to do at higher
prices?'
'Sometimes, sir. But these folks are better than many others; they pay
regularly. Some who offer better prices will cheat, or they won't pay
when the work is carried home These folks give me plenty of work, and I
never have to wait; so I don't look around for better. I can't afford
to take the risk, sir; so many will cheat us.'
Respectability is a good thing, you see. Let me whisper a few other
prices to you, which respectability pays its poor girls. Fifteen or
twenty cents for making a linen coat, complete; sixty-two cents _per
dozen_ for making men's heavy overalls; one dollar a dozen for making
flannel shirts. Figures are usually very humdrum affairs, but what a
story they tell here! These last prices I did not get from Mary. I got
them in the first place, from a benevolent lady who works with heart
and hand, day after day, all her time, in endeavoring to better the
condition of the poor girls of New York. But I got them, in the second
place, from the employers themselves. By going to them, pencil in hand,
and desiring the cheerful little particulars for publication? Hardly! I
sent my office-boy out in search of work for an imaginary 'sister,' and
to inquire what would be paid her. Having inquired, and got his answer,
it is needless to say that James concluded his sister could live
without taking in sewing.
So, you see, that in order merely to pay her rent, Mary must make two
shirts a day. That being done, she must make more to meet her other
expenses. She has fuel to buy--and a pail of coal costs her fifteen
cents. She has food to buy--but she eats very little, her father still
less. She has not tasted meat of any kind for over a year, she tells
us. What then does she eat? Bread and potatoes, principally; she drinks
a cup of cheap tea, without milk or sugar, at night--provided she has
any, which she frequently has not. She has also to buy (I am not
painting fancy pictures, I am stating facts, which are not regulated by
any rules known to our experience) 'a trifle of whiskey.' Mary's father
was not reared a teetotaller, and though I was, and have no taste for
liquor, I am able to see how a little whiskey may be the last physical
solace possible to this miserable man, whose feet press the edge of a
consumptive's grave.
"Perhaps you think it cannot be any of our first and wealthiest firms
that pay poor girls starvation prices for their work. But you are
mistaken. If my publishers did not deem it unwise to do so, I should
give the names of some of our best Broadway houses as among the
offenders against the poor girls."
A LIFE-STRUGGLE.
"Let us follow one of these poor girls," says the writer we have
quoted, "as she comes out of the den of this beast of prey, and moves
off, wringing her hands in an agony of distress. Day and night, with
wearying industry, she had been working upon the dozen shirts he had
given her to make. She had been looking forward--with what eagerness
you can hardly realize--to the hour when she could carry him her work
and get her pay, and recover her deposit money or receive more shirts
to do. Now she is turned into the street with nothing! She dares not
return to her miserable boarding-place in Delancey street, for her
Irish landlady is clamorous for the two weeks' board now due. Six
dollars! The sum is enormous to her. She had expected that to-night she
could hand the Irish woman the money she had earned, and that it, with
a promise of more soon, might appease her. But now she has nothing for
her--nothing. Despair settles down upon her. Hunger is its companion,
for she has had no supper. Where shall she go?"
Night has come down since she left Delancey street, carrying the heavy
bundle of new-made shirts. The streets are lighted up, and are alive
with bustle. Heedless what course she takes, unnoticed, uncared-for by
any in the great ocean of humanity whose waves surge about her, she
wanders on, and by-and-by turns into Broadway. Broadway, ever
brilliant--with shop windows where wealth gleams in a thousand rare
and beautiful shapes; Broadway, with its crowding omnibuses and
on-pouring current of life, its Niagara roar, its dazzle--is utter
loneliness to her. The fiery letters over the theatre entrances are
glowing in all the colors of the rainbow. Gayly-attired ladies, girls
of her own age, blest with lovers or brothers, are streaming in at the
portal, beyond which she imagines every delight--music, and beauty, and
perfume of flowers, and _warmth_. She looks in longingly, hugging her
shivering shoulders under her sleazy shawl, till a policeman bids her
'move on.' Out of the restaurants there float delicious odors of
cooking meats, making her hungrier still. Her eyes rest, with a look
half wild and desperate, on the painted women who pass, in rustling
silks, and wearing the _semblance_ of happiness. At least they are
fed--they are clothed--they can sit in bright parlors, though they sit
with sin. It is easy to yield to temptation. So many do! You little
know how many. In Paris, she might perhaps go and throw herself into
the Seine. In New York, such suicides are not common; but there is a
moral suicide, which is common. Thousands on thousands of poor girls
have thrown themselves into this stream, in the last agony of
desperation; sinking down in the dark current of sin, to be heard of no
more.
But this poor wanderer has memories of a home, and a mother, under
whose protection she had been taught to shudder at sin. She cannot
plunge into this ghastly river with wide-open eyes--at least, not yet.
She walks on.
Her ear is caught by sounds of music and laughter, songs and bursts of
applause, that come up out of these basement-haunting concert saloons.
She has heard of the 'pretty waiter girls'--the fine clothes they wear,
the gay lives they lead, their only labor to wait upon the patrons of
the saloon, and chat with them as they sit about the tables listening
to the music. 'It is a life of Paradise,' she murmurs, 'to this life I
lead!' At least, she thinks, there is no actual sin in being a waiter
girl. She perceives a wide distance between the descent of these
basement stairs to solicit employment, and that other dreadful
resource.
The poor girls who work in these underground hells do not get good pay,
and their work is not light. They are confined in these noisome places,
thick with tobacco smoke and foul with poisonous odors, till two
o'clock in the morning; in some places till five o'clock. Their pay is
four dollars to six dollars a week; higher figures, certainly, than
thousands of working-girls get, but, for two reasons, lower, in effect.
The first of these two reasons is, that the waiter girl must dress with
some degree of attractiveness. The second, and the most weighty, is,
that she must pay a high price for board. Going home long after
midnight, she must live somewhere in the vicinity of the saloon. Then
the woman who, having taken a girl to board, finds that she comes home
after two o'clock every night, draws her own conclusions at once. That
girl must pay _well_ for her board, if, indeed, she be not turned out
of the house without a word. It will scarcely help the matter, if the
girl explains that she is employed at a concert saloon. The woman knows
very well what 'pretty waiter girls' are. 'Those creatures' must pay
for what they have, and pay roundly. The result is, that the waiter
girl's occupation will not support her. The next result is, that there
are no virtuous girls in the concert saloons of Broadway--unless they
be such girls as this we are following tonight, as she wanders the
streets, pausing to look down into this fancied half-Paradise, only to
enter it at last, in search of 'good pay.'
Let us go down with her. She pushes open the green-baize door, and
walks timidly to the bar. A girl who is passably pretty can almost
always get a situation here. The big-armed prize-fighter-looking brute
behind the bar reads our wanderer's history at once. 'Fresh' girls are
rare in that quarter. She is assisted to improve her dress a little--
in some cases these girls are provided with a fancy costume, _à la
Turque_, which they don at coming, and doff at leaving each night--and
she commences her work. A crowd of half-drunk rowdies enter, and call
on her to serve them, attracted by her sweet face. The grossest insults
are put upon her, her character being taken for granted; infamous
liberties are taken with her person, and her confusion laughed at. She
would fly from the place at once, if she dared; but she does not dare--
she is afraid of the man behind the bar. Her experience with men has
taught her to expect nothing but brutality from them, if she offend
them in any way. When the weary hours have dragged along to the end,
and the place is closed, she goes out into the street again, with a
bevy of other girls. The street is still and lonely; the long lines of
lamps twinkle in silence; the shop windows are all shrouded in
darkness; there are no rumbling wheels, save when an occasional hack
passes with slow-trotting horses.
Now she must decide upon her course. This is the critical moment. Will
she adhere to her new-found employment? If she do, one of her
companions will volunteer to take her to a boarding-place--and from
that hour she is lost. But perhaps she breaks away: a policeman
saunters by, and she appeals to him, begging to be taken to a station-
house to sleep--a common resource with the homeless poor girl--and on
the morrow resumes her deathly struggle for existence. How long it will
last--how long she will fight her almost inevitable fate--no one can
tell.
"But the poor girls who work in shops provided by their employers, fare
better, you think. At least, they find shelter and warmth in the cold
winter, while at work? At least, they are permitted to breathe and
live."
THE WORKSHOPS OF THE POOR GIRLS.
There are hoop-skirt manufactories where, in the incessant din of
machinery, girls stand upon weary feet all day long for fifty cents.
There are photograph galleries--you pass them in Broadway admiringly--
where girls 'mount' photographs in dark rooms, which are hot in summer
and cold in winter, for the same money. There are girls who make fans,
who work in feathers, who pick over and assort rags for paper
warehouses, who act as 'strippers' in tobacco shops, who make caps, and
paper boxes, and toys, and almost all imaginable things. There are
milliners' girls, and bindery girls, and printers' girls--press-
feeders, bookfolders, hat-trimmers. It is not to be supposed that all
these places are objectionable; it is not to be supposed that all the
places where sewing-girls work are objectionable; but among each class
there are very many--far _too_ many--where evils of the gravest
character exist, where the poor girls are wronged, the innocents
suffer. There are places where there are not sufficient fires kept, in
cold weather, and where the poor girl, coming in wet and shivering from
the storm, must go immediately to work, wet as she is, and so continue
all day. There are places where the 'silent system' of prisons is
rigidly enforced, where there are severe penalties for whispering to
one's neighbor, and where the windows are closely curtained, so that no
girl can look out upon the street; thus, in advance, inuring the girls
to the hardships of prison discipline, in view of the possibility that
they may some day become criminals! There are places where the employer
treats his girls like slaves, in every sense of the word. Pause a
moment, and reflect on _all_ that signifies. As in the South 'as it
was,' some of these girls are given curses, and even blows, and even
_kicks_; while others are special favorites either of 'the boss,' or of
some of his male subordinates, and dress well, pay four dollars a week
for board, and fare well generally--on a salary of three dollars a
week.
TEMPTATIONS.
Until you have lived the life of the working girl, lady, reading this
page, you cannot know what their temptation is--how hard it is to keep
away sin and shame. By all the doors at which temptation can enter to
you, it enters to them; and by many other doors of which you know
nothing by experience. It comes in the guise of friendship to them, who
are utterly friendless in the world. It comes in the guise of love--and
do you think the poor girl never yearns for the caressing touch of
love's palm on her aching brow? never longs to be folded in the
comforting embrace of love's strong arms? Ah, _she_ knows the worth of
love! It comes, too, through womanly vanity, as it does to her happier
sisters, who sit higher in the social scale. But in addition to these,
temptation comes to the poor girl through the tortures of a hunger
which gnaws upon the vitals--of a cold which chills the young blood
with its ice--of a weariness under which the limbs tremble, the head
reels, the whole frame sinks prostrate.
"If you were starving, and could not otherwise get food, possibly you
would steal it. I would. If hunger will rouse strong men to active
crime, how easy must it be for it to lead the poor girl to a merely
passive sin! Yet she struggles with a bravery which few would give her
credit for--with this, as with all her temptations. There was Agnes--,
a beautiful girl of seventeen, who resisted the temptation that came
to her through her own employer. He discharged her. Unable to pay her
board, she was turned into the streets. It was a bitter day in January.
For _four days_ she wandered the streets, looking for work--only for
work. 'I envied the boys who shoveled snow from the sidewalks. I would
gladly have done their work for half they got.' Hungry, she pawned her
shawl. When that was gone, she went twenty-four hours without a crumb,
shivering through the streets. At night, she slept in the station-
house--without a bed, thankful for mere shelter. Again and again she
was tempted; but she did not yield. She found work at last, and leads
her cruel life still, patiently and uncomplaining. There was Caroline
G---, who came from the West to New York, fancying the great city would
have plenty of work to give her. She, too, wandered the streets, and
slept at night in the station-house. On the third day--which was the
Christian Sabbath--mercy seemed to have found her. A gentlemanly
appearing person spoke to her, and learning her want, offered to give
her a place as seamstress in his family. He lived a short distance in
the country, he said, and took her to a hotel to stay till next day,
when they would take the cars for his home. The hotel was an elegant
one; the room given her was hung with silk and lace; but she preferred
the hard floor of the station-house, that night, to its luxurious
state--for her 'protector' was a wolf in sheep's clothing."