Now, let us suppose that 30 girls occupy it, each paying the highest rent, of $1.50 per week, which is $45 a month. In 13 months, they would pay $585;—a sum less than the rent alone; the house and water taxes, light, lodging, fire, repairs, and service, being thrown in gratis. I am sure my estimate of the rent and taxes is beneath the real value of both; and it is evident, that no efforts to benefit this class, on a large scale, will succeed, unless made to pay better: companies will undertake only profitable work. I want to see girls unite to furnish themselves, in a still more modest way, with what they need; and I wish to see a system of cooking-houses established, which shall simplify the whole matter.
In New York, a Working-women's Home is about to be established, the plan of which was long since submitted to the public. A building has been purchased on Elizabeth Street, which will afford accommodations for four hundred persons. For this, $100,000 has been paid, and $25,000 more will be expended in fitting it up. Half the amount has already been raised; and the managers are making strong efforts to collect the remainder. Of its objects, the "Evening Post" says,—
"In this Home will be found clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome food, and facilities for education and self-improvement. Girls exposed to the temptations of a city life will be surrounded by both moral and Christian influences.
"The institution is intended to benefit a class of women who now find it impossible, with their slender means, to procure comfortable homes, and are forced to live where moral purity, as well as health, is endangered.
"It is well known that families and boarding-house keepers almost always object to female boarders, and that many thousands of sewing-women find it difficult to obtain quarters. Artificial flower-makers, book-folders, hoop-skirt manufacturers, packers of confectionery, &c., are compelled, if deprived
of parental shelter, to accept such homes and accommodations as their very limited resources will command.
"It is not intended to make this a charitable institution; but the prices will be made so moderate as to be within the means of those who are to be benefited by it, while, at the same time, the establishment will be self-sustaining."
Mr. Halliday says of it,—
"The whole expense of first purchase, alterations, and furniture, will be about $140,000. Messrs. Peter Cooper, James Lenox, James Brown, Stewart Brown, William H. Aspinwall, E.J. Woolsey, and Mrs. C.L. Spencer, have, unsolicited, each contributed one thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars has been appropriated on condition that we obtained a like amount in donations. We expect to have accommodations for nearly five hundred, and the charge for board and washing will be from three dollars and a quarter to three and a half per week.
"There will be parlors, reading room and free library, and ample bathing rooms. None of good reputation will be refused admission; no others can become members of the family."
It is hoped to open the institution by the first of June.
A Young Women's Christian Association was organized in Boston in May, 1866, under the auspices of Mrs. Henry F. Durant. Furnished rooms have been provided at 27, Chauncy Street, where young women can obtain information in regard to employment, boarding-houses, and so on. The applications average one hundred a month; and the association seeks to establish a home, where there will be a restaurant for furnishing meals, at cost, to young women only, a free reading and library room, evening schools, rooms for social purposes, and temporary lodging-rooms. This is a most desirable thing to do; but it will not be of permanent benefit, if it puts into a false position any girls capable of self-support. The funds of wise and kind people must start all such movements; but, to be useful, they must be, not only in appearance, but in reality, self-supporting.
During the summer of 1866, Octavia Hill, of London, a grand-daughter of the celebrated Dr. Southwood Smith, reports that, after conferring with John Ruskin, she had hired houses for poor tenants. She put them into good order, and kept them in it. She would allow, in her tenants, neither overcrowding nor arrears of rent. She had no middle-men. The experiment was wholly successful, and paid at once five per cent.