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Updated: May 18, 2025
Christmas in the East-Side tenements begins with the sunset on the "holy eve," except where the name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make itself heard above the noise of the great treadmill.
The worst of it was that, though he had made the choice willingly and with a kind of enthusiasm, he was already dissatisfied with it. The new life was no happier than the old. He was weary of vigils and fasts, weary of studies and penances, weary of prayers and sermons. He felt like a slave in a treadmill. He knew that he must go on. His honour, his conscience, his sense of duty, bound him.
Men, who for years had felt their strength sapped by the monotony of Government service, were revived by the winds of patriotism which swept from the four corners of the earth. Women who had lost youth and looks in the treadmill of Departmental life held up their heads as if their eyes beheld a new vision.
I see women all round me actuated by this frenzied sense of duty; I see them toiling submissively at their eternal treadmill; occupying their best years in the business of filling their nurseries; losing their youth, narrowing their intelligence, ruining their husbands, and clouding their very moral sense at last. Well, I know that such conduct is supposed to be right and virtuous.
Even the clowns moved less like treadmill horses, as they took their stations at the smaller cages, waiting to lift the gates that would admit the restless lions into the central cage. The form that had appeared one knew not whence was that of a slight woman, dressed in a short silk skirt of blue, and bodice of white satin.
In those days there were no machines to simplify and verify the bookkeeper's treadmill task, and business hours were never over. Joel left word at Luke's home for Luke to call for him the minute he was free. He did not come that evening, nor the next. Joel was hurt more than he dared admit. It was Sunday afternoon before Luke came round, a different Luke, a lean, wan, worn-out shred of a youth.
There are thousands of women in just this condition, sustained there by the daily pressure and excitement of hurry, and by a stern, unyielding "must." In the treadmill of their household labor, breakfast, dinner, and supper revolve in ceaseless course, and they must step forward to meet them.
Among other things, she urged the want of more instruction, but that such instruction should not be given privately and alone to women; that the treadmill was an undesirable punishment for women; that matrons were required to be suitable in character, age, and capability for the post; that equality in labor and diet was needed; and she insisted on the imperative necessity of Government inspectors in both Scotch and English prisons and convict-ships.
Perhaps he'll be buying embroidered fronts next, if he goes into that idle, do-nothing House of Commons. I'd rather enter myself for six months at the treadmill." "Oh, Miss Corny! I don't think you have well considered it. It's a great honor, and worthy of him. He will be elevated above us all, as it were, and he deserves to be." "Elevate him on a weathercock!" raged Miss Corny.
You have no idea how utterly out of fashion you seem, stumbling about the roads like a clodhopper, and going up and downstairs as though you were on the treadmill.... For the Lord's sake, at least have the decency to stay at home and not to disgrace the family with your miserable appearance!"
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