“She’ll need no more,” said the old neighbor from the floor above as she laid it on the counter. “You’ve cut her down and cut her down, till there wasn’t life left to stand it longer. There’s not one of you to blame, you say, but I that know, know you’ve fastened her coffin-lid with nails o’ your own makin’, an’ that sooner or later you’ll come face to face, an’ find that red-hot is cowld to the hate that’s makin’ ready for you. An’ as for him that stands there smilin’, if it weren’t for the laws that spare the guilty and send the innocent to their deaths, God knows it would be the best thing these hands ever did to tear him to bits. But there’s no one to blame. Ye’re sure o’ that. Wait a while. The day’s comin’ when you’ll maybe think different; an’ may God speed it!”
CHAPTER NINTH.
THE EVOLUTION OF A JACKET.
“If underwear, whether for men or women, has proven itself a most excellent medium for starvation; if suits and dresses in general rank but a grade above; if shirts, whether of cotton or woollen, are a despair; and in each and all competition has cheapened material and manufacture and brought labor to the ‘life limit’ and below, at least it cannot be so bad with cloaks and jackets. Here are single garments, often of the most expensive material and put together in the most finished and perfect manner. Skilled labor is demanded, careful handling, spotless neatness. Here is one industry which must give not only a living wage, but a surplus. These women must be on the way to at least semi-prosperity.”
This was the thought in the days in which one phase after another of the underwear problem presented itself, each one more bewildering, more heart-sickening, than the last. Here and there had been the encounter with one who had always been sure of work and who had never failed to receive a fair return. But the summary had been inevitably as it stands recorded,—overwork, under-pay; a fruitless struggle against overwhelming odds.
With this thought the quest began anew. The manufacturers of cloaks and jackets reported “piece-work” as the rule. The great dry-goods establishments had the same word. Here and there was one where work was done on the premises, and where skilled hands held the same places year after year, the wages ranging from six to ten dollars, hardly varying. But for most of them the same causes stated in the third chapter, “The Methods of a Prosperous Firm,” have operated, and it has been found expedient to settle upon “piece-work” and let rent be paid and space be furnished by the workers themselves.
“They like it better,” said the business manager of the great firm against whom there have never been charges of dishonesty or unkindness in their treatment of employees. “It would be impossible to do all our work on the premises. We should want the entire block if we even half did it. But we know some of the women, and we pay as high as anybody; perhaps higher. It saves them car fares and going out in all weathers, and a great many other inconveniences, when they work at home, and I don’t see why there should be any objections made. The amount of it is, there are too many women. The best thing to be done is to ship them West. They say they’re wanted there, and there is certainly not room enough for them here. Machinery will soon take their place, anyway. I have one in mind now that ought to do the work of ten women perfectly, and require simply a tender and finisher. We shall get the thing down to a fine point very soon. Hard on the women? Why, no. We always hold on to first-class workers, and there’s nothing much to be done with second and third class except to use them through the busy season, and let them go in the dull.”
“Go where?”