White Slaves

"Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt;

But 'tain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out."

-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Biglow Papers.

A wise man of the old time, after a tour of observation, came home to say, "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such, as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter." If this report had been written by one who had been climbing with me through the tenement houses of not less than a score of Boston streets, conversing with the sewing-women, looking on their poverty-lined faces and their ragged children, breathing the poisonous air of the quarters where they work, and listening to their heart-rending stories of cruelty and oppression, it would be an appropriate summary of our observation. It is my purpose, at this time, to take you with me on a tour of observation. As well-lighted streets are better than policemen to insure safety and good order, so I believe that the best possible service I can render the public is to turn on the light, and tell, as plainly and simply as I can, the story of what I have seen and heard and smelled in the white slave-quarters, which are a disgrace to our fair city. I shall confine myself at this time entirely to the work of women and children in their own homes. Most of this work is parcelled out to them by middlemen who are known as "sweaters." That word sweater is not in the old dictionaries. It is a foul word, born of the greed and infernal lust for gold which pervade the most reckless and wicked financial circles of our time. The sweater takes large contracts and divides it out among the very poor, reducing the price to starvation limits, and reserving the profits for himself.

Some of the women whose story I shall tell do not work for sweaters, but are treated almost as badly by the powerful and wealthy firms who employ them. In these cases the firm itself has learned the sweater's secret, and through an agent of its own is sweating the life-blood out of these half-starved victims.

Let us begin near at home with a South Boston case, which came to my notice through the dispensary doctor for the district. It is a widow with one child-a little boy scarcely three years old. The child is just recovering from a troublesome sickness, through which the doctor became acquainted with her. She has been sewing for a good while for one of the largest and most respectable dry-goods houses on Washington Street-a firm whose name is a household word throughout New England. Her sewing has been confined to two lines-cloaks and aprons. For some time she has been making white aprons-a good long apron, requiring a yard, perhaps, of material; it is hemmed across the bottom and on both sides, the band or "apron string" is hemmed on both sides, and then sewed on to the apron, making six long seams. For these she is paid fifteen cents a dozen! And besides that, this great, rich firm, whose members are rolling in wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow fifteen cents expressage on her package of ten dozen aprons, so that for making one hundred and twenty aprons, such as I have described, she receives, net, one hundred and thirty-five cents! If she works from seven o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, she can make four dozen; but, with the care of her child, she is unable to average more than three dozen, for which, after the expressage is taken out, she receives forty cents a day for the support of herself and child.

Her rent for the one little room is one dollar per week. It is idle to say that this firm is compelled to do this by competition, for the material and making of these aprons cost less than ten cents, and the firm retails them ordinarily at twenty-five cents apiece. On cloaks she did better, receiving from fifty to seventy-five cents apiece, she furnishing her own sewing-silk and cotton. On these she could make, by working from seven A.M. till eleven P.M., nearly a dollar a day, but she could never get more than six cloaks a week, so that the income for the week was about the same.

[ILLUSTRATION: PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC.]

Now come with me a little farther around the harbor. Let us climb up three flights, to a little attic suite of two rooms, so low at the side that, with my length of anatomy, I have to keep well to the middle of the room in order to stand upright. Here live a Portuguese mother and five children, the oldest thirteen, the youngest not yet three, a poor, deformed, little thing that has consumption of the bowels, brought on by scanty and irregular food. Its tiny legs are scarcely thicker than my thumb, and you cannot look at its patient, wasted, little face, that looks old enough to have endured twenty-five years of misery, instead of three, without the heartache. I ask the mother how she earns her living, and she points to a package that has just come in. Picking it up, and untying the strings, I find there six pairs of pants, cut out and basted up, ready for making. Looking at the card, we are astonished to find that it bears the name of one of the largest firms in the city of Boston, a firm known, perhaps, as widely as any. Three pairs of these pants are custom-made; they are fashionable summer trousers, with the names and addresses of the men for whom they are made tacked on them. The other three pairs are stamped with "New York" as customer, from which we infer that they are made for a New York house, the Boston firm acting as sweater. This woman and her little children must finish these pants by the same hour to-morrow, when the messenger from the store will bring a new lot and take these away. She receives ten cents a pair-three pairs being custom-made pants! In order to finish the six pairs in the twenty-four hours, she must get to work at six in the morning, and improve every available moment until eleven or twelve in the evening, and sometimes, if the sick child is fretful, until one o'clock in the morning. Her wages for this tremendous strain that is wearing her very life away, until she looks almost as frail as her dying child, is sixty cents! Her rent for these two small attic pockets is one dollar and fifty cents per week. She has one bed for herself and five children. Only through the aid of the Boston Baptist Bethel is she able to keep up the struggle. And yet, O my brothers! this is in sight of the old North Church, and the tower where they hung the lanterns for a signal to Paul Revere, when he rode through the darkness to arouse the Fathers to fight against oppression. God help us to hang another light for liberty in the midst of this cruel slavery!

Perhaps you are tired now, and want to rest, but I am insatiable, and will go on. Let me give you the record of six families found in the same tenement.

Family No. 1. They are Italians. The wife and mother is finishing cheap overcoats at four cents apiece. She can finish from eight to ten in a day. She has two finer coats, lined with handsome satin; of these she can complete only five a day, and receives eight cents apiece. There are three in the family, and they pay a dollar and a half per week for their one room. I asked about the husband, and a neighbor woman from the next room remarked contemptuously, "He is no good."

No. 2. These are Poles. The woman makes knee pants of grammar-schoolboy size; she receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs. Two dozen are as many as she ever gets done in a day.

No. 3. They are Italians here, and are at work on knee pants. This woman receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs for most of them, but for some extra nice ones she gets eighteen cents a dozen. She has two dozen brought to her from the sweater's shop every day about two o'clock. She works from two in the afternoon until ten at night, and from six in the morning until noon the next day, to complete her allowance, for which she receives from thirty-two to thirty-six cents. The rent is a dollar and seventy-five cents per week; she has two children.

No. 4. This woman makes men's pants at twelve cents a pair. Formerly, when she was stronger, she could drive herself through six pairs a day; but now, with a little babe to look after, she can get only four pairs done. The room is intolerably dirty; but how can you have the heart to blame her?

No. 5. Polish Jews. The woman makes knee pants, working from seven in the morning till ten o'clock at night, and nets from twenty-seven to forty-four cents a day.

No. 6. Italians. This woman is an expert seamstress. She is finishing men's coats at six cents apiece; and with nothing to bother her, working sixteen hours a day, she makes fifty-four cents. The rent for the narrow little back room is one dollar and thirty-five cents per week.

If you want variety, we will climb four flights of stairs, with half the plastering knocked off the walls, and talk with an English woman. She is working on fine cloth pants; she gets thirteen cents a pair; by working till very late in the evening, she can complete four pairs a day, and thinks it would be almost a paradise if she could make her fifty-two cents every day; but it is one of the characteristics of a sweater to systematically keep all his people hungry for work, and she seldom is able to get more than twelve pairs a week. She lives alone in a little sweat-box under the roof, for which she pays a dollar and a quarter per week.

Not far away, up two flights, we find a Portuguese widow, with four little girls, the eldest fifteen, the next thirteen, and the younger ones three and six, respectively; they are all dwarfed by hardship and insufficient food, so that the one who is fifteen is not larger than an average girl of twelve. The mother is sick, and the girls are trying to keep the wolf from the door by carrying on the sewing. They are all hard at work; they carry the pants back and forth themselves, and so for the most of their work receive twelve cents, though for some they get only ten cents a pair. They have only two little rooms with the most meagre furniture; the rent is one dollar and a half per week, and the sick mother and four girls huddle together in the one bed at night. They are pretty, bright-faced, intelligent girls, and with a fair chance would grow into strong, noble women; but one shudders when he takes into consideration the fearful odds against which they will have to struggle in this poverty-stricken, crime-cursed alley.

[Illustration: PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN.]

[Illustration: LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS.]

Here is another case of a similar description only a few blocks away. We go up three narrow flights, steep and dark, for space is as important in a low-class Boston tenement house as in a sardine box. The stairway is slippery from filth on the last flight, for on a small bench at the top, in a dry-goods box, a little boy is raising squabs for the market, and the pigeon business, however much it may help to pay the rent, is not conducive to cleanliness. We find here a suite of three little rooms, the largest of which is not more than 10x10; the others are much smaller. In these three little pigeon boxes eight people live, at least sleep-five men and boys, and a mother and two girls. The men are off most of the day, and work at such jobs as they find; the mother and little girls make pants for another leading Boston clothing house. The two little girls, the younger only three years, are both overcasting seams. The three make on an average sixteen pairs of pants a week, for which they get thirteen cents a pair; the young pigeon fancier, already spoken of, carrying the goods to and fro. The rent of these crowded quarters is two dollars and a quarter per week. In the same building, down-stairs, we went into a room which could not have been more than 10x12, where an American woman, with seven young women helping her, was at work dressmaking. We could not discover whether they were working for the stores or not, but the air was poisonous, and the workers had that deadly pallor which comes from habitually breathing bad air and from lack of sufficient food.

[Illustration: INVALID IN CHAIR.]

Sickness, to be dreaded anywhere, is especially pitiful among these sweaters' slaves in the city. In the country the fresh air, fragrant with the breath of new-mown hay, or sweetened from ten thousand clover blossoms, is free to the poorest, but to be sick in a tenement house is something terrible. Yet crowded quarters, poisonous air, and filthy clothing make sickness a common guest in such places. I climbed one day up two flights into a dirty little room, the smell of which was sickening to me in three minutes, and yet there I found a man on a little cot (that had been given by the charitable missionary who guided me) who has been lying there for more than three years. For two years and more he had not even a cot, but lay on the floor in his dirt and pain. There are two children, too young to be of much assistance; the wife and mother sews, finishing pants for a rich Washington Street firm. She gets twelve, and sometimes, on fine, custom-made pants, thirteen cents a pair. She has worked so hard and continuously on poor food and with insufficient clothing, that rheumatism has settled in the joints of her fingers and stiffened them, till she is only able to turn off nine or ten pairs a week. Last week she could only make a dollar and fifteen cents; the rent was a dollar and a quarter. They have absolutely none of the ordinary comforts of life; the sick man has no sheets for his cot, and the rheumatic mother sleeps with her children on the floor.

Down-stairs, we look in on a mother and two grown daughters who are finishing pants for another fashionable firm, one which does a large business with clergymen. They are paid thirteen cents a pair, ordinarily, and for the very finest custom-made pants they receive as high as twenty cents, but complain, as it takes so much longer with the fine pants, that from two to three pairs is as much as one woman can complete in a day. There is a helpless air about this mother and her daughters that is very depressing.

[Illustration: POSTAL UNIFORMS.]

There has been quite a controversy recently as to where the new United States postal uniforms for the Boston carriers were made. I settled this question to my own satisfaction during the past week, when, in company with Dr. Luther T. Townsend, of Boston University, and two other gentlemen, one of them being an Italian interpreter, I climbed the rickety stairs of an old North End tenement house, and found the pants for these same uniforms being made by Italian women at nine and a half cents a pair! They received them from a Jewish sweater. One of these women says that, by beginning at four o'clock in the morning and frequently working until twelve o'clock at night, she can make six pairs of these pants in a day. She has five children; the rent is two dollars per week. The husband has been out of work for eight months; the only one of the children who is able to earn anything is a boy who is a bootblack, and can earn, in fine weather, three dollars a week. Another woman at work on these postal uniforms, who was not able to labor quite such long hours, could only make four pairs a day. She also had five children, the only one able to earn anything being a daughter, fourteen years of age, who works in a sweater's shop for two dollars a week.

On the walls of the rooms in this building where the postal uniforms were being made, the cockroaches were crawling, and in some places were swarming as thick as ants about an anthill.

I have my note-books full of many other cases, including Portuguese, Italian, English, Polish, and a few Irish and American women, of the same general character as those already related; but a similar wicked scale of prices runs through the making of other clothing. I called on a woman in South Boston last week who was making overalls for a city firm at sixty cents a dozen pairs. They are the large variety of overalls, such as expressmen and such workers use, with straps going over the shoulders. I took a tape-line and carefully measured the sewing on one pair of these overalls. When they come to the seamstress, there has not been a stitch taken in them-they are simply cut out. There are thirty separate and distinct seams to be sewed, making in the aggregate thirty-two and a half feet of sewing, for which she receives the gross amount of five cents, out of which she has to pay the carrying to and fro. If she goes after them herself, she can bring only two dozen at a time, which will cost her ten cents car-fare, going and coming. When sent by express in a package of five or six dozen-the number she is able to make in a week-she is charged fifteen cents expressage each way, so that the expressage eats up the making of six pairs. In addition to this, the stiff cloth is very hard on machine needles, and she will break about ten cents worth per week. This woman's story is a sad one. Her husband, who was a strong, hard-working man, fell ill through an over-strain, and died after fifteen months' sickness, two months ago. She has three little children, the oldest four years and the youngest a little over a year. Work as hard as she can, driving her machine until late into the night, she is able to make only five dozen pairs of overalls a week, which, when expressage and breakage of needles are taken out, leaves her two dollars and sixty-five cents. The rent is a dollar and a half, which leaves one dollar and fifteen cents for the food and clothing of a mother and three children. Of course she cannot live on that, and would starve to death if she were not assisted by charity. And yet there is a firm doing business in South Boston mean enough to take advantage of the fact that people living in this part of the city are compelled to pay car-fare or expressage on work secured in the city proper, and so has reduced the price for work given out in South Boston to fifty cents a dozen pairs.

I talked with another young woman, who has made overalls for both these firms, and has been compelled to give it up through sickness brought on from the confinement and strained position of sitting so many hours a day over a sewing-machine. This poor girl told me that both of these firms were now giving a great part of this class of work to the public authorities in charge of the House of Correction, to be done by the prisoners, and that a daily stint for a woman in prison is only eight pairs. This sick, discouraged girl, in a most heart-breaking way, said she thought she would better commit some crime in order to procure a place in the House of Correction, for there she would have much better quarters, a great deal nicer food, and would only have to make eight pairs a day, while at home she must force herself to make at least a dozen pairs a day, or starve.

Fellow-citizens, what do you think of this? Is there not something wrong in a system of things that permits the authorities of the State or city to enter into competition with the sewing-women of Boston at such a cruel and heartless rate that no woman can work at it and keep out of prison, unless she is assisted by charity? This same South Boston firm gives out men's shirts to be made at sixty cents a dozen. The material for one of these shirts costs twenty-three cents, the making five cents-a total of twenty-eight cents. They retail these shirts at fifty cents apiece, making a net profit of twenty-two cents on an investment of twenty-eight cents for a few weeks' time.

During the last few weeks, as I have gone about among these women, my ears have been haunted with that old song of Thomas Hood, as appropriate now, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, in the city of Boston, as it ever has been anywhere, at any time, in the history of human greed.

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread-

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch

She sang the "Song of the Shirt!"

"Work! work! work!

While the cock is crowing aloof!

And work-work-work,

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It's, oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!

"Work-work-work

Till the brain begins to swim!

Work-work-work

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

* * * * *

Stitch-stitch-stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,-

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A shroud as well as a shirt!

"But why do I talk of death,

That phantom of grisly bone?

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own-

It seems so like my own

Because of the fast I keep:

O God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work-work-work!

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread-and rags,

That shattered roof-and this naked floor-

A table-a broken chair-

And a wall so blank my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

"Work-work-work

From weary chime to chime!

Work-work-work

As prisoners work for crime!"

If Thomas Hood had lived in our day, and could have gone around with me in Boston, he would have had to make it stronger yet, for among us the good, honest sewing-woman must work at least one-third harder than the "prisoners work for crime." And on such wages the prayer with which he continues must be forever unanswered:-

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet-

With, the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet!

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,

And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh! but for one short hour,-

A respite, however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,

But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart;

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread-

Stitch! stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,-

Would that its voice could reach the rich!-

She sang this "Song of the Shirt."

"Slavery ain't o' nary color,

'Tain't the hide that makes it wus,

All it keers fer in a feller

'S jest to make him fill its pus."

-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: Biglow Papers.

BOSTON, June 29, 1891.

REV. Louis ALBERT BANKS, St. John's M. E. Church, South Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:-In the sermon which you preached yesterday, the title, as given in the newspapers, is "The White Slaves of Boston Sweaters." Under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States there can be no such thing as "slave" in this country. Under the decision of Judge Parsons there has not been a slave in Massachusetts since the adoption of the Constitution. I therefore venture to ask you some questions.

1. How do you justify the term "white slave" when applied to the persons whose condition you describe?

2. "Climb three flights to an attic suite of two rooms, and there one would find a mother and five children" doubtless in very bad condition; the mother trying to support them; the tenement doubtless very bad. Suppose we condemn the tenement,-pull it down,-then these people would have no roof over their heads. Is no roof better than some kind of a roof? Suppose we refuse to trust her to make pants? Is no work better than some work?

3. The mother earns her living, or part of it, by making "pants." Pants made in this way are sold at a very low price at retail, after being subjected to the cost of distribution in the customary way. There is great competition in this business. That competition leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants, also allowing the sweater's charge. If the cost of making is advanced on this class of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is no work better than some work?

4. The sweater deals as a middleman with the manufacturer and the worker. If he did not deal with this kind of work, it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker than it does now; no sweater would be employed if he did not earn what he makes; then the manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less for making the pants, because he now pays all that the trade will bear. If it cost him more to reach the worker, he must pay less. Suppose we abolish the sweater, or middleman, then he would not distribute the work, and there would be no work. Is that better than some work?

5. Suppose this woman had not come here with her children and had stayed, perhaps, in Italy or in Russia, instead of coming here. Is some work here better than no work in Italy?

6. If the mother cannot support the children,-being now in this country without having been sent back,-she is entitled to go with her children to the almshouse, where suitable shelter, clean rooms, and good food would be provided. Is it better for her to try to support her children under existing conditions than to go to the almshouse?

7. There is an ample supply of money available for purposes of true charity. Does not true charity consist in refusing to give alms to those who can or may support themselves? Is it better to give alms to those people in their attic, or to give alms to them under the conditions of the almshouse? Which course would be most sure to pauperize them utterly?

8. The use of the term "slave" implies a slave-owner and a slave-driver. In this series of (1) the manufacturer, (2) the sweater or middleman, and (3) the working-woman with her children, which is the slave-owner and which is the slave-driver? Under what authority does the slave-master force this woman to render her labor for all that it is worth?

9. If her work is worth more than she gets, can she not get it?

A little inquiry into the condition of the clothing trade, and some examination of the fact, might disclose to you that the poor sewing-woman is poor because she sews poorly, and that there is always a scarcity of skilful and intelligent sewing-women, at full wages.

My final question is, how do you propose to help those who are incapable of helping themselves, without pauperizing them yet more than they are pauperized under their present conditions? What will you do when you have destroyed the house and done away with the sweater?

Are you justified, as a Christian minister, in creating a prejudice and arousing malignant passion by the use of the term "slave?" Can you defend or justify this term, under the conditions that are reported, as they are stated in the printed report of your sermon?

I venture to put these questions to you because I think that the dangerous class in this community is to be found among persons who, without intelligence, create animosity, and by their method of preaching tend to retard rather than to promote the progress of the poor and ignorant in this country.

Very sincerely yours, *****

"Freedom's secret wilt thou know?-

Counsel not with flesh and blood;

Loiter not for cloak or food;

Eight thou feelest, rush to do."

-RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Freedom.

Among the scores of thankful letters which I have received, commenting on the discourse on "The White Slaves of the Boston Sweaters," there is one of an entirety different character, written by a distinguished writer on social questions, a gentleman for whom I have always entertained the highest respect. I should be very glad to give the name of the author of this letter; but as it is marked "personal," I cannot, in honor, do so.

This letter so clearly and unswervingly outlines and defends the extreme conservative side of this question, that I feel I cannot do a better service to the cause of the "sweater's victim" than to answer it in this public way. My critic begins by assailing the title of the discourse. He says: "In the sermon which you preached yesterday, the title as given in the newspapers is 'The White Slaves of the Boston Sweaters.' Under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, there can be no such thing as 'slave' in this country. Under the decision of Judge Parsons there has not been a slave in Massachusetts since the adoption of the Constitution." Wonderful Judge Parsons! who is able, by the magic wand of his decision, to unshackle all the slaves who, under the cruel whip of necessity,-more unmerciful than any slave-driver's lash,-have sweated under the burdens imposed by avaricious task-masters in every city of the commonwealth.

Can you make men free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and sold at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally soulless, unfeeling, corporate power.

For every mother whose heart was broken by having her children wrenched from her arms in the African slave-market, there is a white mother, whose very soul is crushed at the sight of her hungry, ragged, little ones. For every black babe torn from its mother's breast by the iniquitous system of negro slavery, the slums of our great cities have a white child, whose future is equally dark and hopeless.

My critic's first question is, "How do you justify the term 'white slave' when applied to the persons whose condition you describe?" My answer is very simple. If a widow with little children to care for, who cannot go out to do other kinds of work, and is compelled to work eighteen hours a day for fifty cents, and dares not give this up for fear of starvation to her children, is not a slave, then will somebody tell me what element is lacking to make slavery?

[Illustration: A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT.]

The second question is as follows: "'Climb three flights to an attic suite of two rooms, and there one would find a mother and five children,' doubtless in very bad condition; the mother trying to support them; the tenement doubtless very bad. Suppose we condemn the tenement,-pull it down,-then these people will have no roof over their heads. Is no roof better than some kind of a roof? Suppose we refuse to trust her to make pants-is no work better than some work?"

To the first part of this question, relating to the roof of this bad tenement house, I answer frankly: Yes, no roof is better. This poor woman, working at starvation-wages, is furnishing from twelve to twenty per cent interest on the money invested in this miserable old rookery, whose heartless landlord, like the unjust judge of the Gospels, fears not God and regards not man. If we condemn this disease-breeding death-trap, it will not be a question of this woman having "no roof" over her head, but she may have a decent roof, with healthful, sanitary regulations, at a less rent than she now pays, and still pay an honest interest on the investment to the landlord. As to the second part of the question, "Is no work better than some work?" that is not a fair putting of the question. Our modern Christian civilization does not dare to put it that way. It is not a question of no work, or some work. We must furnish this woman some work, at such, just and rightful wages as shall give her and her children bread to eat and raiment to put on, and a decent, though it be humble, roof over their heads.

We pass to our critic's third question: "The mother earns her living, or a part of it, by making 'pants.' Pants made in this way are sold at a very low price at retail, after being subjected to the cost of distribution in the customary way. There is great competition in this business. That competition leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants, also allowing the sweater's charge. If the cost of making is advanced on this class of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is no work better than some work?" The trouble with a great deal of this is, that it is incorrect both in its premise and in its reasoning. It is indeed true that there is great competition in the clothing business, but it is not true that the result of this competition leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants. It is also a remarkable statement to make, that if the cost is advanced, then there will be no more pants made. Can my critic really believe that the whole of mankind would suddenly go "pantless" if the price for making them were raised to a point where the sewing-woman could make a decent living? It is also a curious statement to make that "If there were no sweater, the woman would get no work." The sweater is a comparatively recent institution, and I devoutly believe an institution of the devil. Before the sweater came to be a factor in the situation, the woman had work, and better pay than she now receives. The incoming of the sweater has not resulted in more work, but in less wages.

If my critic will take the trouble to examine the testimony given before the committee appointed by the English House of Lords, which may be found in the Public Library, he will see that it is the universal testimony of hundreds of witnesses that the sweater is an unnecessary factor in the manufacturing trades, and that in every department of the labor world where the sweating system has been introduced, the wages of the laborer have been reduced from forty to seventy per cent.

The fourth question is similar to the third: "The sweater deals as a middleman with the manufacturer and the worker. If he did not deal with this kind of work, it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker than it does now. No sweater would be employed if he did not earn what he makes. Then the manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less for making the pants, because he now pays all the trade will bear. If it cost him more to reach the worker, he must pay less. Suppose we abolish the sweater, or middleman, then he would not distribute the work, and there would be no work. Is that better than some work?"

I have already answered this question in part. It is not correct that it would cost the manufacturer more to reach the worker without the sweater than with him. It is also ridiculous to suppose that if the sweater were abolished there would be no work. The demand for clothing would be just the same without the sweater as with him. Besides that, everything that takes the employer away from the people who do his work, and removes him from contact with them, is a bad thing, and always bodes ill to any harmonious relation between capital and labor. I am satisfied that there are proprietors in Boston firms, who, if they could go around with me, and see, as I have seen, the poverty and suffering of the sweaters' slaves who are making up their goods, would revolt against the whole system. It is only the sweater who comes in contact with these people, and the sweater is, as a rule, greedy and avaricious, and hardened against all humane feeling.

[Illustration: SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET.]

We pass to the fifth question: "Suppose this woman had not come here with her children, and had stayed, perhaps, in Italy or in Russia, instead of coming here. Is some work here better than no work in Italy?" Very likely it is true that the woman is as well off here as she would be in Italy. But is Italy to be the standard of our American civilization? I stood on a bridge over the Tiber, fronting the famous castle of St. Angelo in Rome, on a hot Sunday morning in July, and watched a company of people on a barge who were driving piles in the river. There were about eighty men and women, the sexes about equally divided, pulling and tugging away, in the hot sun, at ropes and pulleys, in order to lift the heavy iron hammer and drop it on the head of the piling. In Boston there would have been a little donkey engine, and one or two men to look after it all the crew that would have been needed. Shall we go back to Italy for a model? Furthermore, this Italian woman is setting up a standard of life for all laboring women. It is not enough to say she is as well off here as in Italy. We cannot afford to permit the establishing of little Italian centres throughout the Republic, with which every American laborer in the land must enter into competition. No matter where people came from, nor what they have suffered in their native land, if we permit them to come to us, we are compelled, in sheer self-defence, to see that they are treated fairly and justly, and receive a sufficient compensation for their toil to support them in cleanliness, intelligence, and morality.

Question six raises a different problem: "If the mother cannot support the children,-being now in this country, without having been sent back,-she is entitled to go with her children to the almshouse, where suitable shelter, clean rooms, and good food will be provided. Is it better for her to try to support her children, under existing conditions, than to go to the almshouse?" It is, of course, better for the woman to try to support her children. The almshouse is for the sick and helplessly infirm; Such may go there in all honor, without disgrace. I doubt not there are men in the almshouse who have done more service to humanity than many others who die amid luxury and wealth. But nothing can be more vicious than to speak of people who are able and willing to work as candidates for the almshouse, because the cruel oppression in their wages makes it impossible for them to support themselves. It is not charity these people need or want; it is justice. True, Christ said, "The poor ye have always with you," and it is probable that we shall always need to support by charity the crippled, the insane, and the unfortunate, but it is a certain indication of rottenness in any civilization that makes charity necessary for a man or woman who is able and willing to work.

The seventh question continues this same thought with variations: "There is an ample supply of money available for purposes of true charity. Does not true charity consist in refusing to give alms to those who can, or may, support themselves? Is it better to give alms to these people, in their attic, or to give alms to them under the conditions of the almshouse? What course would be most sure to pauperize them utterly?" For once, my critic and myself are in agreement. I believe it is better for one to partly support himself than not to do anything towards it. Nothing is more demoralizing to any one than to become accustomed to receive charity. But, after all, you may pauperize people almost as rapidly in the attic as in the almshouse. It is against the whole system that I make war. I do not admit, for a moment, that it is necessary for the sewing-woman to receive such wages as to compel her starvation, unless alms be given to her in her attic.

In the discourse which is thus criticised. I showed plainly that the aprons for which the seamstress received, net, one cent for making, returned a profit of fifteen cents, on an investment of ten cents by her employer. Now, I do not admit that the rigors of competition are so great that it compels this manufacturer to make one hundred and fifty per cent profit while this woman toils sixteen hours a day to make forty-five cents.

I showed that the women who make shirts made only fifty cents a day, and yet the proprietor made on every shirt twenty-two cents profit on an investment of twenty-eight cents. I do not admit that competition is so stern that it is necessary for this shirt manufacturer to make seventy-eight per cent profit while the woman who works for him must beg assistance of the Provident Association, or see her children cry for bread.

Or, take the case of the poor girl, whose mother finishes pants for the postal uniforms at nine and one-half cents a pair, slaving eighteen hours for fifty-seven cents; and she, the daughter, toils all day long, in the midst of the physical and moral stench of a Jewish sweater's shop, for sixteen and two-thirds cents. But she is better off than the orphan girl that works beside her, whose condition some poet has described:-

"Left there, nobody's daughter,

Child of disgrace and shame,

Nobody ever taught her

A mother's sweet saving name.

Nobody ever caring

Whether she stood or fell,

And men (are they men?) ensnaring

With the arts and the gold of hell!

Stitching with ceaseless labor

To earn her pitiful bread;

Begging a crust of a neighbor,

And getting a curse instead!

All through the long, hot summer,

All through the cold, dark time,

With fingers that numb and number

Grow, white as the frost's white rime.

Nobody ever conceiving

The throb of that warm, young life,

Nobody ever believing

The strain of that terrible strife!

Nobody kind words pouring

In that orphan heart's sad ear;

But all of us all ignoring,

What lies at our door so near!"

There is nothing wholesome in the question whether it is better to pauperize people a little in the attic, or to pauperize them altogether in the almshouse. We ought not to pauperize them at all. A noble Christian woman, who has a young men's Bible class in the North End, and who by her womanly tact and Christian sympathy has gained the confidence of some of the most hopeless cases in that section, told me that one of these boys said to her, "When the Back Bay folks know that we are made of flesh and blood, they won't pauperize us any longer."

[Illustration: CLARK'S MISSION.]

The eighth question returns in some of its aspects to the first: "The use of the term 'slave' implies a slave-owner and a slave-driver. In this series of the manufacturer, the sweater or middleman, and the working-woman with her children, which is the slave-owner, and which is the slave-driver? Under what authority does the slave-master force this woman to render her labor for all that it is worth?" Answering the last part of the question first, I have already shown that the woman does not get all that her work is worth. The manufacturer, who makes from seventy-eight to a hundred and fifty per cent profit, gets a far larger proportion of the profits than rightly belongs to him.

Under the sweating system, the sweater is, most emphatically, both the slave-master and slave-driver; and no Georgia overseer was ever more cruel than some of these sweater taskmasters in Boston to-day.

Even at the wretched wages they pay, they will not give any of their workers all the work they can do; they dole out the work to them, trying to make them think it is very scarce. If they ask for higher pay, they are met at once with a threat of discharge. Do you ask why they do not hunt for something better? What can a poor, half-broken-down mother, with three little babies, do hunting work? Who will pay the rent, furnish them food, and care for the children while she makes her search? There are thousands of laboring people, both men and women, in all our great cities, who are in the same condition that a majority of the Israelites were when Moses came to them, and told the marvellous story of his talk with Jehovah, and painted before their dim eyes the picture of the Canaan, and recounted to their dull ears the promise of their deliverance from bondage. Pathetic, indeed, is the record, "They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage." It is idle to talk, as so many newspapers as well as private individuals do, as though domestic service were the cure-all for these half-starving, under-paid women. A great majority of the women who are slaves to these sweaters, have families of little children depending on them, that are as dear to their hearts as are the children of more fortunate mothers to them. Dr. Barnardo, of London, who has had a most extensive experience among the poor, tells of a poor woman, with a husband lying disabled in the hospital, earning her living by charing and odd jobs, while she herself was receiving out-door hospital relief for physical debility. Driven at last to accept assistance from the relieving officer, she hastened home, placed the bread and meat on a table, and fell dead of exhaustion. Dr. Barnardo was sent for, and beside the dead body of the mother he was surprised, as well he might be, to find five well-fed, chubby children. The poor, slum mother had literally starved herself to death that her children might live! Truly, as Coleridge says, "A mother is the holiest thing alive;" and God never intended that the almshouse or the orphan asylum should be the only refuge held open for a mother who is able and willing to work to support her children.

In the ninth question our critic says: "If her work is worth more than she gets, can she not get it? A little inquiry into the condition of the clothing trade and some examination of the facts might disclose to you that the poor sewing-woman is poor because she sews poorly, and that there is always a scarcity of skilful and intelligent sewing-women, at full wages." The more thorough my examination into the facts of the case, the more I am convinced that the sweating system is demoralizing the entire clothing trade, as it will every trade it touches. Whether the woman sews poorly or not, she does not, in any class she may be placed, receive the wages to which she is entitled.

[Illustration: NORTH END JUNK SHOP.]

The conclusion of my critic's letter is, I think, as remarkable as anything in it. He says: "My final question is, how do you propose to help those who are incapable of helping themselves, without pauperizing them yet more than they are pauperized under their present conditions? What will you do when you have destroyed the house and done away with the sweater?" To this part of the concluding question I simply say, I will be a Christian, and pay honest wages for honest work. But the critic continues: "Are you justified, as a Christian minister, in creating prejudice and arousing malignant passion by the use of the term 'slave?' Can you defend or justify this term under the conditions as they are stated in the printed report of your sermon? I venture to put these questions to you because I think that the dangerous class in this community is to be found among persons who, without intelligence, create animosity and, by their method of preaching, tend to retard rather than to promote the progress of the poor and ignorant in this country." My answer to all that is, that, as a Christian minister, I am a follower of Him, who, standing in the midst of the self-satisfied and wealthy oppressors of His times, exclaimed, "Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God." And who, standing in the audience of all the people, said unto His disciples, "Beware of the Scribes which devour widows' houses, and for a show make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation;" who, standing in the presence of the lawyers, cried aloud, "Woe unto you, also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." I am a follower of Him who came "not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." All an infernal system of oppression, like the sweating system, asks, is to be let alone. To uncover its atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony of fright and shame. Neither am I alarmed that this critic, as a type of conservatism, regards me as a member of the most dangerous class in the community. It was ever thus. The old antislavery agitators were considered the most dangerous men in the republic, and I remember that a very distinguished minister once bitterly regretted the agitation on the evils of slavery, because he feared it would destroy the prospect for a revival of religion in the city where he lived.

[Illustration: HOME OF THE MATHERS.]

If to be a Christian minister is to stand as a policeman to hold back the righteous indignation of the robbed and degraded laborer, or preach patience and contentment to empty stomachs,-empty that the sweater may grow rich and fat on the toil of orphans and widows,-then I spurn the title as beneath the dignity of my manhood; but if, as I take it, to be a Christian minister is to be like my Master, the brother of all men, rich or poor, standing forever as the unflinching enemy of oppression and injustice wherever found, as the friend and advocate of the defenceless and the weak, then I am proud of the title, and thank God for its unspeakable privilege.