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WAREHOUSE SEAMSTRESSES. 16j5
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
-«*9»- Any One Who Happens To Be In The ...
augments , and its course is quickened rapidly , or rather there is an impetuous confluence towards the neighbourhood of Wood Street and *
Aldermanbury . Besides these females , there are now troops of young men tending to the same centre , but these are well dressed ;
their toilet has beon made with care , and you get now and then , as they a whiff of Macassar or Cologne . Some of the faces are
very pass pale , albeit ; and occasionally a short cough may smite the heart with the momory of some loved form now reposing _^ in the
quiet cemetery . But it is not of these young men I propose to write . I do not know "what becomes of them during the day , or at
least , am not acquainted particularly with their habits and modes of existence , and I shall adhere scrupulously to what I do know , and
testify only to what I have seen . Accompany I do know what me . becomes Who shall of the we women follow . ? Those are 6 i fringe
and tassel" hands ; those are mourning flower makers ; these just before us are straw hat sewers , we will follow them . Aye , rush up
stairs for the clock is striking : another minute and you would have beer * locked out . Upupup—not that waysir , that is the fancy
, , ,, room , fifty women are at work there . No . 2 is th _§ wiring room ; then there are blocking rooms , bonnet rooms , and kitchen , where all
the people cook their rashers and beef sausages and what not . 'Tis oddthinkto see iles of cloaksshawls , furs , etc ., loading
, you , p , the bannisters ; but the " ladies " have nowhere else to hang them . I have been in many warehouses in London , but never _^ aw a single
accommodating nail , unless one of the hands had brought and driven it herself . " Faugh ! what a foul vapour— -suffocation ! Faugh !"
Forward , sir . These seventy women must sit twelve hours here ; besides you will not perceive the foulness of the vapour when you
have been breathing it a minute or two . Here space is economised , is it not ? Yes , you can touch the ceiling . I can , with my scissors .
" But are these the much commiserated seamstresses ? " you ask . are " Wh perfectly y they all radiant seem with as happy satisfaction as possible , and — they some are of talking the young of faces Sims
Reeves and the Surrey , and of going to the play again to night , surel Wait y ther awhile e mu . st Their be some walk mist has ake . refreshed " them , and the
atmosphere tells a tale of gin . Of these seventy women , forty are wives and mothers . Dare you
think of their homesif indeed it be not a profanation to apply the sacred term to abodes , like theirs ? What will become of the
children—of the babiesfor mother will not be back till nine , and then , she is sure to have an " order" in hand ; and , the husbands , where
will they be found ? Bat not just in this place must we consider these questions though I must here tell a secret;— -in eight cases
; out of ten , the husband expends more in drink , than the wife can
earn But by we all must her toil stay . awhile with the hatters . In less than an hour
Warehouse Seamstresses. 16j5
WAREHOUSE SEAMSTRESSES . 16 _j 5
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1859, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051859/page/21/
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