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WAREHOUSE SEAMSTRESSES. 169
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.
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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.
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-«*9»- Any One Who Happens To Be In The ...
them that they can look in in about a month , though he and they know that not in . two months will there he regular employment . In
the first -week of July , therefore , hundreds and thousands stand face to face with famine , and too many , alas ! in the recoil , become
entangled in the toils of vice . Some , by temperance and rigid economy , keep the wolf at bay during the trying time , and
othersbut I am not able to state how people live on nothing . When next the workpeople assemble , you are sure to see the
married people , and the decrepit old people , and the very plain women , but "where is Annie ? Where is the pretty girl that used
to sing on evenings after the candles were lit— : where ? It comes out that somebody has seen Annie with a 'fc lovely violet and silver
silk dress 'with three flounces , and a chip hat , and parasol that never cost less than a guinea ! " And a pair of pretty ears take in
this story , and when next the foreman throws her work in her face the . thought of that violet and silver silk with three flounces recurs ;
how nice it must be to have a chip hat , etc ., and there is a dark dire whisper within ; she has not assented , but she has listened /
Where is Miss 0 . ? Ill , dying . She waited till " slack time" ere she went to the doctor , for she was exceedingly delicate last season .
The doctor gave her a little medicine and muttered something about ' murder . ' She will never see her unhappy but kind friends again .
Another of the women has committed suicide under awful circumstances , and two or three others are near their end , but the places
are filled aup , and who cares . One word about remuneration , yet I hardly know what that word
is to be . The piece workers earn , by working all the day , half the night , and half the sabbath , from six shillings to a pound a week .
The pay depending less on labor and time than on the kind of work . I have known women earn twenty-five shillings per week for some
eight or nine weeks in succession , then fifteen , twelve , eight , or Rve , according to the time of the season . Many , many weeks the best
hands will not average Hive shillings , and inferior ones , two or three ; several months in the year they will earn even less . On an
average perhaps , mantle makers , straw hands , and flower makers will g * et six shilling's weekly , while inferior workers and skirt hands
brace hands , etc ., will earn four . , But the toil—oh , the . toil ! . Not for a fair day ' s work do they
realise these amounts—by a fair day ' s work I mea , n , that a woman , shall sew unremittingly ten hours , not twenty . Who can describe ,
the state of mind and body consequent on having sewn twenty hours per day for six weeks ? No one , yet there are thousands _,
who know exactly . Could the multitudes composing this wretched class be collected
into one host , what an appalling aggregate of misery would the scene present ! On what an immense majority would you see that
Disease Tfc is true had that fixed among his the mark refuse , and of Vice human the seal society of proprietorshi there sparkles p .
Warehouse Seamstresses. 169
WAREHOUSE SEAMSTRESSES . 169
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1859, page 169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051859/page/25/
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