White Slaves

ness and infirmity under the pressure of disproportiona

UGO: Les

ground cabin. In case of death in the family, the relatives go into this dug-out, which is called a "sweat-lodge," and heated rocks are brought in and heaped in the centre of the lodge, and water sprinkled

nto a cairn beside the sweat-lodge the stones t

t-lodge of our modern civilization is a much more serious matter. The tortured victims who are suffering there, are not mour

rom them surplus labor without compensation, is a sweater. A middleman-sweater is a person who acts as a contractor of such labor for another man. The position becomes aggravated when the middleman-sweate

al, skill, nor speculation, and yet gets a profit; third, a middleman." Still another describes it as a systematized payment of unfair wages. Away back in the days of Queen Anne the term "sweater" was given to a certain class of street ruffian. The sweaters went about in small bands, and, forming a circle around an ino

p in England. It is reasonable for us to suppose that, if left to itself, it will produce the same general result

ton Public Library f

e taken before a commi

, to examine into the

it

eatshop" is not something of interest to the tailors and sewing-women only, but is of equal importance to workers of every class. Take the matchbox trade; before the sweating days, the people who worked at it received t

ness a "chamber master," and in these foul chambers, in the midst of "bad smells, great heat, no ventilation, and fe

ion: THE P

, but has rapidly increased under pauper immigration from Italy and Russia since 1880. Much of the work is crowded into garrets and cellars, where there are no sanitary arrangements. So uni

nd under surveillance, so as to be taken advantage of. They are not instructed in the more skilled work, and, to use the words of one of the witnesses, "are

and a woman whose business was awl-blade grinding, a strong woman of forty-five y

complain that they cannot live on it. The nail trade is in the same condition. A man and wife working together m

llings a week at this business. Boys and girls are pai

till the next day. Some of the men at the end of the week are actually in debt instead of having anything coming to them. When in debt, they do not, as a rule, come back, but go to ano

ssive hours. If the employers find a good workman, who is earning good wages by piece-work, they try to reduce

d to go through a joiner's shop in order to enter the workroom. There was no sanitary accommodation for these women anywhere. It is a common practice for sweaters to take on learners, that is to say, to employ young girls for a certain time to learn the machine part of the

ple are afraid to give evidence against them. The sweater is a law unto himself. One woman I came across says she has not been paid for her work done some three years ago, on some trivial pretext which the sweater made. Another

here they are herded together with all classes of men in a way which renders morality and decency next to impossible. One witness bears this terrible testimony: "The sweating system, in which you have young girls working with men of all nationalities, and of all degre

of the sweat-shop, that a barrister-at-law, Mr. Wm. Thompson, has written a novel entitled, "The S

hich thousands of half-starved, sunken-eyed men and women are crowded into small, foul, over-heated rooms, working day and night for just enough to keep body and soul together. Scattered among the workers are dirty children, and sometimes cats and dogs. Everything in these places has to stand aside for work. It is work, work, work, day and night, year in and year out. In these over-crowded rooms the air is poisoned with the heat from the stoves, the steam from the cooking, and the fumes of oil and gas. Very few of the toilers can speak English. They are the most wre

n: INSIDE A

s quantities of clothing for Boston firms: "On the first floor, which was occupied by two families, was a contractor, or 'sweater,' who made overcoats. In the front room, 8x16 ft., eight full-grown men were at work, some on sewing-machines, a man pressi

d scraps of linings. The ceilings and woodwork looked as though they had not seen a brush since the house was built years ago. Water from the floor above had leaked through the ceiling, but it seemed to make no difference. One stove was used by the pressers and the cook. It did not appear that there was any regular meal hour. There was a tab

ng and disease-breeding condition." The doctor, speaking of one particular case, says: "On the fourth floor I found four very small rooms, occupied by five sewing-machines, twenty-four working hands, and the family of the boss consisting of himself, wife, and five living children. The mother reported to affiant that, within the last few years, six of her children had died of various diseases here in the same place." Relying upon these and other facts, which he relates,

who is a wealthy and respectable medical practitioner, are pl

perative tailors of Boston, in August, 1889, states that the section of New York City in which the tenement-house system of clothing manufacture is carried on, is filthy and

twelve have been found sleeping together in one of these workrooms. The tenement-house factories are so crowded that no such thing as privacy or modesty, on t

arden, are pure gold for the contractors. Full-grown men among these will receive, probably, two dollars a week, but one case was discovered where a man was only paid eighty cents for his wee

e committee on public health, of the Massachusetts Legislature, on the 30th of last March, that he had found two places in B

of their goods were made in New York, and that in shops; that all of their nice work was done in Boston; admitted the fact of tenement-house clothing, but thought the greater part of it was worn in New York, and wished that its

AUL, REVERE HOUS

ing-machines, a large stove (kept in full blast to heat the flat-irons, necessary at every stage of clothing manufacture), two pressing-machines, and piles of unfinished clothing. Two windows illumine the room, furnishing light for the nineteen workers. Working hours are from seven A. M. to six P. M., with no clipping of time at either end of the day. The proprietor is a Hebrew. One of the operatives

ork over, to suit the notions of the big firms, who want the garments to send out on the road. It takes twice as long to make such a coat, but we get no more for

Boston at one hundred and fifty, but this does not include the smaller

rls. I am satisfied that some of the girls could not have been more than twelve or thirteen. One of the women had a little baby which, though almost entirely naked, was crying from the heat and poisonous air. The place did not look as if it had been swept f

The men were nearly all smoking, and that, together with the heat from the fire necessary for the pressing, made an atmosphere that was almost intole

EAR OF NORTH END

oor; ashes, both in barrels and heaps, were scattered about; clothing was flung over the floors everywhere; dirt and scraps of cloth literally made a carpet for these rooms. These seventy-nine people were about evenly divided between the sexes, and yet for all this herd of humanity there was only one water-closet, the door of which stood open, on the landing, and the poisonous stench filled all the rooms; the floor about it was damp and filthy. How any woman or girl could work in this sho

from; that they are probably as well off here as they were at home, and that they are too ignorant and brutal to suffer, as more refined and cultivated people would. Putting all other questions aside for a

n: COMMONWEA

luxury, who are indifferently pooh-poohing this whole questio

ce. A wrong, uncared for in a North End tenement house will aven

en, at conditions which cramp or fetter the free utterance of their manhood or woma

uth grows stron

ul of man aro

a its frozen fe

p to heaven it

continents in

em with din of

emptinesses s

of a glory

ery heart, as

by-gone freed

r new signs o

soul shall once

et more high t

ife for truth