tenement-house workshop in the autumn-the busy season, which lasts from September to December. During the remainder of the year the sweaters do as they please. When one remembers that nineteen people inspect upward of twenty thousand establishments, employing about half a million people during the year, the herculean task of the inspectors becomes evident. There are in Chicago alone nearly six thousand1 garment-makers' shops, employing twenty-five thousand women and two thousand or more girls under sixteen years of age, besides twenty-one thousand men and five hundred little boys.

For graphic statement the following tabulation is adopted as a recapitulation of the foregoing facts:

And this is the great army whose life and conditions of work interested me, and should interest everyone who buys clothing. One cannot quiet his conscience by announcing that he goes to high-priced clothiers for his garments, and so cannot come in contact with sweated goods; hence he is free from responsibility in the matter. Such soothing syrup may prove fatal in the end. In the first place, the mere fact of buying expensive clothing does not exempt one from the danger of tenement-house goods. The tailor who charges fancy prices is quite liable to let his work out by contract, and the original contractor, though not a sweater himself, may sublet the work to one who is; and so one's hundreddollar coat may repose on the bed of a scarlet-fever patient before it is delivered ready for use. Costliness alone is no guarantee that a garment is made under decent conditions.

'Round numbers only are used here.

On the other hand, even though we are certain that our clothes are made in a wholesome place by workers who receive fair wages, our responsibility to society does not end. The fact that any garments at all are manufactured and sold with the germs of disease and the life-blood of the workers upon them

should be sufficient incentive to all people to demand that the horror

cease.

"What can we do?" some may ask. The answer is clear: Insist upon a guarantee on every article of clothing you buy. Dealers are only too eager to satisfy their patrons. If we accept without question what they offer, why should they change? Their only desire is to suit their customers the consumers.

The tenement-house workshop should be ex

terminated, and there is but one sure way of driving it out of existence; that is, by united action on the part of those who buy clothes. There is an organization whose primary aim is the rousing to action of lethargic persons who disregard social and moral responsibility, and in addition to this the Consumers' League aims to endorse only clothes made under wholesome conditions. The Consumers' League label has become quite a potent factor in the mercantile world, and it bids fair to become even more powerful as the organization enlists more and more of the intelligent sympathy of the community. It may be noted here that the Women's Union Label League stands for the same principle, but its indorsement is a trades-union label. This is creating a public conscience in a class but little affected by Consumers' League logic, and so is doing an excellent work for society.

Another employer of mine was a red-bearded Jew who made shirt waists. He had three women and one young boy working for him, and agreed to take me at sixty cents a day. I went to work immediately finishing cuffs. The waists I worked on came from an ultra-fashionable shirtmaker a woman—who charges eight dollars for the mere making of a garment. I learned her identity from the boy who carried the parcels back and forth. A few days later I called on that woman and inquired her prices. She quoted them as I have stated. I then asked her if the waists were made in her own shop. With a bewitching little smile she answered: "Oh yes, we make everything right in the back rooms. That is why I charge good prices and take only a limited amount of work from select people!" I told her I thought I would not leave an order then, and passed out, not caring to belong to the "select." She added the insult of a lie to the injury of sweated waists. Her waists were carefully cut and fitted, but were just as poorly made as much cheaper ready

to-wear ones.

A sojourn among the garment workers certainly reveals some strange facts about the making of fashionable clothing. Now I never see certain more or less fashionable establishments without thinking at the same time of certain tenement attics bound to them by an invisible tie. My lady who scatters smiles through slumdom little dreams that the stylish clothes she wears may have been partly made beyond the ill-smelling alley she will not enter. It may be her first visit there but her clothes should

feel at home!

Work in the shop of the red-bearded Jew was hard for me, because the days were insufferably warm, and the light was poor, as the workroom was on a court. I got along rather slowly, and I had a feeling that possibly I was not worth more than sixty cents a day. But my pride suffered a frightful shock when my employer told me that I was not worth anything, and he did not propose to pay me at all. This decision was precipitated upon me at the end of the second day, when I asked for my wages, as I did not intend to return.

I learned but little from my companions there. The women

were up in years and uncommunicative.

One of them had an

ugly sore on her hand which she tried to keep covered. I would not "finish" for her, and so incurred her dislike. I said nothing, but always took work from someone else in preference.

Another place, where

A YOUNG TOILER.

I worked but half a day, was more
interesting to me because a number
of young girls were there and they
kept the place lively all the time.
I asked one of them if she supposed
we could get work in a factory, and
she said: "Law, yes, if yer wants to
join the union!" As for herself, she
claimed that anything was better
than "livin' by rule." The others
declared that she was not skilled
enough to belong to a union, and
they grew quite merry in the dis-
pute, so I could not determine just
what her real objection to the factory
was. These were the first happy
sweaters I found. The six girls
chewed gum, and laughed while they
sewed. They ran the machines in
a care-free way that almost made
my hair stand on end. I got fifteen
cents for my half-day's work.
was not needed longer, so I had to

I

I did not want long engagements in the sweat-shops. They were not necessary for my purpose. I simply wished to verify my knowledge regarding actual conditions of work. I had visited over a hundred of these places, and I already knew the aspect they present to the observer; but a few minutes' visit can never teach one the hardships of the workers. We may gasp when we are told of women who toil twelve or fourteen hours for a mere pittance, but, after all, it is without meaning until one has experienced the weary eyes and dizzy head and aching back

caused by a long day's sewing in a badly ventilated and poorly lighted room. My poor cramped shoulders made me understand the feelings of the woman who sang the "Song of the Shirt;" and only too many of our present-day toilers know what it means to "stitch, stitch, stitch, in poverty, hunger, and dirt." And who makes them do it? We do. Our mad craze for cheapness has cheapened life.

But the tenement-house workshop must go; and the Christianized consumer must make it go.

set covers.

Still another employer was a woman engaged in making corI toiled part of a day and received thirty-five cents for my time. It was hand-work entirely-the kind that appears on expensive lingerie. The sewing itself was rather pleasant, as the materials and lace were soft and fine; but before the day was over my inexperienced fingers were pricked past recognition. The others, accustomed to needlework, did themselves no such bodily violence.

The workroom was clean and bright and cheery, and looked out on the street from the fifth floor of a rather poor tenement. Our employer was a sharp-featured American spinster, whose contact with the industrial world had not softened her as she advanced in years. She appeared to have two missions on earth—one, the making of underwear; the other, inveighing against matrimony; and she threw herself with equal zeal into each. I believe she made a good living from her sewing. She took work from a fashionable trousseau-maker and employed as many helpers as she needed from time to time. Her method was to engage girls for a week and then discharge them at night if she wished. Her reason, of course, for agreeing to give a week's work was that few would consider a proposition for one day only. I did, it is true, but a self-supporting sewing-woman would hesitate to stop for such an engagement. Our employer told me that she usually paid fifty cents a day to a smart seamstress, but, as I stated before, she gave me only thirty-five cents, claiming that I did not work a full day. I actually sewed nine and one-half hours, while the five regulars sewed twelve hours. The granite spinster believed in grinding the soul of her