United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I am not, I hope, urging my readers to any active benevolence, or counselling them to share their pleasures with others; it has been accurately ascertained that there are not pleasures enough to go round, as things now are; but I would seriously entreat them to consider whether they could not somewhat alleviate the hardships of their own lot at the sea-side or among the mountains, by contrasting it with the lot of others in the sweat-shops and the boiler-factories of life.
It does a fellow good once in a while to get away from the grip of the tenements, the shades of the skyscrapers, the roar of the factories, and the shuffling, tired footsteps of the crowds, the smell of the sweat-shops. "But, do you know, it seemed to me that that minister missed something; that he was too contented.
"Magen admits that the world in general is a muddle, and she thinks offices are heaven because by comparison with sweat-shops they are half-way decent." The universal discussion was on. Everybody but Una and the nun of business threw everything from facts to bread pills about the table, and they enjoyed themselves in as unfeminized and brutal a manner as men in a café.
The Journeymen Tailors' National Union, in its fifth annual report, describes in detail one of these New York sweat-shops, similar to those which the recent commission, appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts, found to be the manufactories of enormous quantities of clothing for Boston firms: "On the first floor, which was occupied by two families, was a contractor, or 'sweater, who made overcoats.
Think of a Germany armed in a weaponless world, and, if empire and mastery convey nothing to you, think of oh! American women walking the streets in Berlin, comic English waiters in German cafe's, slavish French laborers in German sweat-shops. And all this boxed into a machine on a tripod by a monomaniac whose price we can pay!" He paused and walked towards the window.
Working with men, or alone, they have perfected organization, agitated, raised money, printed appeals, and carried cases through the courts, until factories and stores have been made safer, excessive working hours have been cut down, young children have been exempted from labor, many sweat-shops have been closed, and women workers have begun to be organized to care for their own needs.
"I am told that those 'sweat-shops' are disgustingly dirty places." "Oh, the Board of Health looks after that," said the buyer quickly, "and, besides, I saw a good many of Finckelstein's hands they were mostly clean, respectable looking women." "How much do they get apiece for these?" questioned Mr. Denton again, as he picked up a garment and held it at arm's length to inspect it.
It is claimed that the Jewesses, who have always had the most unblemished character of any women in the world, are being ruined in the sweat-shops of London, where they are herded together with all classes of men in a way which renders morality and decency next to impossible.
To hear that paragon, that queen among women, descant of work done in the slums and of the mysteries of sweat-shops; to hear her state off-hand that there were seventeen hundred and fifty thousand children between the ages of ten and fifteen years employed in the mines and factories of the United States; to hear her discourse of foreign missions as glibly as though she had been born and nurtured in Zambesi Land: all these things filled him with an odd sense of alienation.
The starch which had been taken out of the Civil Service Law under Governor Black was put back, stiffened. He insisted on enforcing the Factory Law, for the protection of operatives; and the law regulating sweat-shops, which he inspected himself, with Riis for his companion. Perhaps his hottest battle was over the law to tax corporations which held public franchises.
Word Of The Day