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    320 WORK AND WAGES OP WOMEN IN FRANCE.

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    »— The World Seems Now Astir. Many Are L...

    who and covering is perhaps 1 . at that very moment suffering' for lack of food

    Sad as may be the condition of the needlewomen at the present momentit can but grow daily more so . Three causes combine

    , to bring about this result . The needlewomen have to compete with three classes of women who work , and who are able and

    willing- to work for very small remuneration . 1 st . Women in prisons .

    2 nd . Women in convents . 3 rd . Women who are comfortably off , but who like to gain a

    little hy their own work . Add to these three causes of depression , the " ready-made" system in tradeand the introduction of the

    , sewing-machine , which threatens to bring about a complete revolution in sewing work .

    1 st . "With regard to prisons—such was felt to be the injury done to hand-labour by the amount of needlework of every sort done in

    the large prisons , that at one time there was an idea of stopping it altogether * but then it suggested itselfthat it would be altogether

    irrational and , wicked to shut up prisoners , without giving them the great blessing of workand that work , of a kind which was not

    , absolutely unproductive . 2 nd . What has been said of prison-labour holds good of

    conventlabour—of the " work-rooms " attached to each convent , and of the large number of women who are , thereby , added to the ranks

    of needlewomen . Takefor instancethe making of shirts wholesale : out of a

    , , hundred dozen shirts which come into the Parisian market , eightyfive dozen have been made in the convents .

    Not merely are the people in the workrooms the sempstresses , but the nuns themselveswomen who for the most part would

    , never have touched such work had they been living in the world , do their share . They gain nothing by their labour , as their

    earnings go either to the funds of the Institution , or to the poor , but they do it at any price they choose , and sohelp to keep the

    labourmarket low . _^ 3 rd . A third cause of depression has been named ; viz ., the amount

    of needlework done by married women and even young ladies , who make use of their spare time to acquire a little fund of money for

    their own use . Some amongst them may claim to be reckoned as regular

    workwomen , namely , those women who work for three or four hours a dayand spend the rest of their time in attending to a shopwalking *

    with , their children , and so on . They work , in all probability , , to earn the money to keep themselves in clothes . But there are

    many fathers of families who little think that their elegant drawingroom is a workshopand that the pretty things worked before their

    , very eyes have been bought beforehand , or ordered by some

    warehouse in the Rue St . Denis . Almost all the muslin work , the nets ,

    320 Work And Wages Op Women In France.

    320 WORK AND WAGES OP WOMEN IN FRANCE .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1863, page 320, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011863/page/32/