Part 64

Small as are her wages, the working woman is not always sure of receiving them. Some rascally employers--and one of the institutions to be mentioned further on, could give a long list of them--will, upon receiving the work, find fault with the sewing, and either deduct a part of the poor creature's wages for the alleged fault, or refuse point blank to pay her a cent. Others again will demand a deposit equal to the value of the materials taken home by the sewing women. Upon the return of the completed work, they will not only refuse the promised payment, alleging that the work is badly done, but will also refuse to return the money advanced by the woman. The wretch well knows that the woman is weak and helpless, and that she is ignorant of the mode of protecting herself. More than this, she has not the money to go to law.

These are simple facts, and not "sensational items." The records of the "Working Women's Protective Union" will corroborate them, and will furnish many others.

"Among the employes of a certain Israelitish manufacturer of straw goods in New York was a poor French woman, who, with her three small children, occupied apartments in a rear tenement house in Mulberry street. What renders this case of more than ordinary interest, is the fact that the lady had once been in affluent circumstances, and at one period of her life moved in the wealthiest circles of Paris. Misfortune befel her in the death of her husband, who was accidentally killed upon a railroad train. The bulk of the property of her deceased husband was seized upon by her creditors. The widow, however, succeeded in saving from the general wreck a few hundred dollars, and with this she emigrated to America, arriving here in the spring, and bringing with her three little children. Here she anticipated she would be enabled, with the aid of her superior education, to provide for herself and family. For several weeks her efforts at securing employment proved unavailing; but just before her last dollar was expended, she succeeded in forming a class in French, which she instructed for two months, at the expiration of which time she was deprived of this her only support--her pupils leaving her for the purpose of a summer's holiday at the fashionable watering-places. Other efforts were made to secure the position of teacher of languages (with several of which she is conversant), but all to no effect. Finally, reduced to absolute want, the lady was obliged to resort to manual labor in order to provide herself and little ones with bread. Unused as she was to toil, her efforts to obtain employment were attended with little or no success. Day by day her case grew more desperate, until, at last, unable to pay the rent of her miserable attic apartment, she and her little ones were thrust into the street. Homeless and friendless, with not sufficient money wherewith to purchase a supper for herself and famishing little ones, the lady was forced to beg; which course, up to this time in her unfortunate career, she had looked upon as barely preferable to death itself. She had a few acquaintances among the parents of her former pupils, and to these she resolved to apply for aid. Her efforts in this direction were but a repetition of the old, old story. Her friends, who, during her prosperity, were lavishing their attentions on her, now that misfortune had overtaken her, refused to recognize her, and thrust her from their doors without a penny. Fortune relented one day, and rewarded her efforts with a situation in a manufactory of straw goods. To be sure, the compensation was small; still, as bread enough might be secured in this manner to keep the wolf from the door until something better might present itself, she resolved to accept the terms of the straw manufacturer, and entered upon her duties. For a week or two the sum earned by the unfortunate lady was faithfully paid her, but on the third week the pusillanimous nature of the Jew cropped out. She had bargained to manufacture straw hats at eighty cents a dozen, or six and two-third cents each. At this rate, she managed to earn two dollars and fifty cents per week. Upon applying for her wages at the close of the third week, the employer informed her that he had discovered that six and two-thirds cents apiece was too large a compensation, and that from eighty cents he had resolved to reduce her pay to seventy cents per dozen, and accordingly presented her with her weekly payment, first deducting one dollar and forty cents from her wages. Pressed as she was for money, the lady refused to accept these terms, and at once set about seeking legal redress. Learning that at the 'Working Women's Union' of Bleecker street legal advice was furnished free of charge to such as herself, she laid her grievances before the officers of the institution, who at once placed the affair in the hands of their legal adviser, who soon brought the rapacious Israelite to terms. At the time of her application to the institution the lady stated that she had been without fire, and, with the exception of a small loaf or two of bread and what few potatoes her children were enabled to gather from about the stalls in several of the markets, without food for several days."

The wrongs inflicted upon the working women are many. "There are hoop-skirt manufactories where, in the incessant din of machinery, girls stand upon weary feet all day long for fifty cents. There are photograph galleries--you pass them in Broadway admiringly--where girls 'mount' photographs in dark rooms, which are hot in summer and cold in winter, for the same money. There are girls who make fans, who work in feathers, who pick over and assort rags for paper warehouses, who act as 'strippers' in tobacco shops, who make caps, and paper boxes, and toys, and almost all imaginable things. There are milliners' girls, and bindery girls, and printers' girls--press-feeders, book-folders, hat-trimmers. It is not to be supposed that all these places are objectionable; it is not to be supposed that all the places where sewing-girls work are objectionable; but among each class there are very many--far too many--where evils of the gravest character exist, where the poor girls are wronged, the innocents suffer. There are places where there are not sufficient fires kept, in cold weather, and where the poor girl, coming in wet and shivering from the storm, must go immediately to work, wet as she is, and so continue all day. There are places where the 'silent system' of prisons is rigidly enforced, where there are severe penalties for whispering to one's neighbor, and where the windows are closely curtained, so that no girl can look out upon the street; thus, in advance, inuring the girls to the hardships of prison discipline, in view of the possibility that they may, some day become criminals! There are places where the employer treats his girls like slaves, in every sense of the word. Pause a moment, and reflect on all that signifies. As in the South 'as it was,' some of these girls are given curses, and even blows, and even _kicks_; while others are special favorites either of 'the boss,' or of some of his male subordinates, and dress well, pay four dollars a week for board, and fare well generally--on a salary of three dollars a week."

Is it a wonder that so many of the working women and girls of New York glide into sin, with the hope of bettering their hard lot? And, when thrown out of work, with no food or shelter, save what can be obtained by begging or at the Station House, is it a wonder that they seek the concert saloons, in sheer desperation, or join the street walkers on Broadway?

But if the working woman has her persecutors, she has also her friends in the great city. One of the best institutions which have been organized for the protection and assistance of this class is the "Working Women's Protective Union," the head-quarters of which are in Bleecker street, a short distance east of Broadway. It is organized for the common benefit of all those women who obtain a livelihood by other employments than household services. It aids them:

"_First_. By securing legal protection from frauds and impositions free of expense. _Second_. By appeals, respectfully but urgently made, to employers for wages proportioned to the cost of living, and for such shortening of the hours of labor as is due to health and the requirements of household affairs. _Third_. By seeking new and appropriate spheres of labor in departments not now occupied by them. _Fourth_. By sustaining a registry system, through which those out of work may be assisted in finding employment. _Fifth_. By appeals to the community at large for that sympathy and support which is due to working women."

The members each contribute the sum of ten dollars annually to the support of the institution. Outside aid is also liberally given. The Union has done much good since its organization. It has compelled dishonest employers to fulfil their contracts with their operatives, and in one single week compelled the payment of the sum of three hundred and twenty-five dollars, which had been withheld by these scoundrels. Out of two hundred complaints against employers in a single year, it secured a fair settlement of nearly two-thirds. In 1869 it procured work for 3379 women and girls. It also looks after friendless and homeless women who seek its assistance, and helps them to secure employment.

[Picture: STEWART'S HOME FOR WORKING WOMEN.]

The "Home for Working Women," No. 45 Elizabeth street, is a massive brick building, six stories high, and will accommodate about five hundred boarders. It is supplied with a reading-room, a reception-room, a parlor, a restaurant, and a laundry. The upper floors are used as dormitories. The beds are neat and tidy, and are arranged in rows and separated from each other by white screens. The rooms are large and well ventilated, and the whole establishment is kept scrupulously clean and in perfect order. One dollar and twenty-five cents is the charge for a week's lodging and washing. The restaurant supplies meals of an excellent quality at an average cost of twenty-five cents. Lodgers are admitted until eleven o'clock at night at the price named. If they enter after that hour, they are charged twenty-five cents extra.

The Children's Aid Society conducts several lodging-houses for girls, one of which is located in Bleecker street, and the other at 27 St. Mark's Place. They furnish beds and meals to girls of all ages, at five cents each, while they have money, and give them for nothing where the applicant is found to be destitute. They have been tolerably successful thus far, and give promise of future usefulness.

There are several other associations, with similar objects, in operation in the city.

Mr. A. T. Stewart is now erecting, on Fourth avenue, a magnificent iron building, which is to be used as a "Home for Working Women." The building extends along the avenue, from Thirty-second to Thirty-third street, a distance of 192 feet, and has a depth of 205 feet. Including the central Mansard roofs, the building is eight stories in height. It is one of the finest edifices in the city, and will be provided with every convenience for the work to which it is destined. It will be capable of accommodating fifteen hundred boarders, and will be conducted on a plan similar to that of the "Home for Working Women" in Elizabeth street. It is not to be conducted as a charity. Each occupant is to pay a fixed sum per week; and it is believed that here this sum will not exceed two dollars a week for board, lodging, and washing.

LXXXII. STREET VENDERS.

It is not known how many stores, or places in which trade is conducted beneath the shelter of a roof, the city contains. They are numerous, but they are not sufficient for the wants of trade. The sellers overflow them and spread out into the streets and by-ways, with no roof above them but the blue sky. Some of these sellers are men, some women, and some mere children. Some have large stationary stands, others roam about with their wares in boxes, bags, or baskets in their hands. They sell all manner of wares. Watches, jewelry, newspapers, fruits, tobacco, cigars, candies, cakes, ice cream, lemonade, flowers, dogs, birds,--in short everything that can be carried in the hand--are sold by the Street Venders. The rich and the poor buy of them. The strolling vagrant picks up his scanty breakfast at one of these stands, and the millionaire buys an apple at another.

The eating and apple stands are mainly kept by women. The most of them are Irishwomen, and the big cap and dirty frill under the quilted bonnet are among the most common signs of such a stand. Some of these stands sell soups, some oysters, some coffee and hot cakes, some ice cream, and some merely fruits and apples. In Wall street they are kept by men, and pies and cakes form the staple articles of trade. Candies and nuts are sold exclusively by many. Such candies as are not to be had of any confectioner in town. Women never sell cigars or tobacco, though many of them never take their pipes from their mouths during business hours. Some of them offer ladies' hose and gentlemen's socks, and suspenders, yarns, worsted hoods, and gloves. A few women sell newspapers, but these are rapidly giving way to men.

[Picture: STREET VENDERS.]

The newspaper stands are located principally on Broadway, in Wall street, and around the Post Office and the ferries. At some of them only the morning or evening journals are kept, but others offer all the weeklies and the illustrated papers as well.

The venders of cheap neckties and pocket book straps are mostly boys or very young men. They frequent the lower part of Broadway, which is also the favorite haunt of the venders of cheap jewelry. Pocket books of every description are sold at marvellously cheap prices, and photographs are displayed in such lavish quantities that you feel sure that every dealer in them has bankrupted himself in order to afford a free art exhibition to the crowd of little ragamuffins gathered around him. Toys of every contrivance adorn the stands above Canal street. The dealers in these articles are strong, able-bodied men, who prefer to stand on the side walks pulling the strings of a jumping jack, or making contortions with a toy contrived for that purpose, to a more manly way of earning their bread.

The balloon men, the penny whistle and pop gun dealers frequent the upper streets, where they are apt to be seen by children. The lame soldier sets up his stand anywhere, and deals principally in shoe strings, neckties, or in books and papers that no one ever reads. Towards Christmas large booths for the sale of toys are erected on some of the east and west side streets, at which a thriving business in toys and fire-works is carried on.

The Chinese candy and cigar sellers are to be found between the Astor House and the South Ferry. No one ever seems to buy from them, but they continue in the business, and thus afford proof positive that they have their customers.

The dog and bird men haunt the neighborhood of the Astor House and St. Nicholas hotels. They get high prices for their pets. Dogs sell readily. It is the fashion in New York to discourage the increase of families, and to attempt to satisfy the half-smothered maternal instinct by petting these dumb creatures.

Little girls are numerous among the street venders. They sell matches, tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself at the sight of so much discomfort, the flower-girls do a good business. The flower-stands then constitute the most attractive objects on the street, and men are irresistibly drawn to them by the sight of their exquisite adornments. It is very pleasant at such times to have a bright, fragrant nosegay in one's buttonhole, or to carry a bouquet to one's home. On such days you may see hundreds of splashed and muddy men on the great thoroughfare, utterly hopeless of preserving any outward semblance of neatness, but each with his nosegay in his buttonhole; and as he glances down at it, from time to time, you may see his weary face soften and brighten, and an expression of cheerfulness steal over it, which renders him proof against even the depressing influences of the mud and the rain.

LXXXIII. THE WHARVES.

No visitor to New York should omit visiting the wharves of the North and East rivers. A day may be profitably spent on the shore of each stream. The docks do not compare favorably with the massive structures of Liverpool, or London, or the other great seaports of the world. They are wretched, half decayed and dirty; but ere long they are to be replaced with a system of magnificent stone and iron piers, which will afford all the desired facilities, and render New York in this respect one of the best provided ports on the globe.

Beginning at the Battery on the North River side, we find first the pier of the famous Camden and Amboy Railway Company, from which passengers and freights are conveyed to the railway by steamer. Above this are the piers of the great European steamship lines, the coast steamers, and the steamboats plying between the city and the neighboring towns. The Boston boats, all of which run to points in Connecticut and Rhode Island, where they make connections with the railways to Boston, are fine steamers. Those of the Narragansett Steamship Company, the Bristol and Providence by name, are the most magnificent steamers in the world. They cost $1,250,000 apiece. They are simply floating palaces, as are also the Albany night boats. The foreign steamers are huge iron vessels, carrying thousands of tons of freight and hundreds of passengers. The sailing of one of these ships always draws a crowd to her pier, and though from five to eight of them leave the port every week, the attraction still continues.

The ferries to Jersey City and Hoboken are all located on this river, and are full of interest to the stranger. The Bethel, or floating chapel for seamen, is also worth visiting. The ice trade of the city is carried on on this front, the principal supply of that article being obtained along the river, about one hundred miles above the city.

[Picture: BOAT STORES.]

The oyster boats, or boat stores, are peculiar to New York. They lie chiefly in the vicinity of Christopher street, and are sources of considerable profit to their owners. The Hay Scales are also curious objects. At the foot of Fifty-fourth street the numerous telegraph lines which connect New York with the States south of it, cross the Hudson. They gain the Jersey shore in the vicinity of the Elysian Fields at Hoboken, and thence continue their way to every part of the States mentioned.

The East River front is the terminus of the ferry lines to Brooklyn, Long Island City, and Hunter's Point. The shipping here consists almost entirely of sailing vessels. The craft plying between New York and the New England towns have their stations here, and here also are the California clippers. The huge Indiamen lie here receiving or discharging cargo. The whole river front is covered with merchandise representing the products of every land under the sun.

The Floating Docks are among the principal sights of the East River, as are also the vast coal and ship yards. This stream will soon he spanned by an immense suspension bridge which is to connect the City Hall in New York with the City Hall in Brooklyn. The total length of the bridge and its approaches is to be 5878 feet. The bridge is to rest on cables, supported by massive stone towers at the water's edge on each side. The span between these towers is to be 1616 feet. From each tower the flooring is to be carried a further distance of 940 feet to the land approaches. The New York approach is to be 1441 feet, and the Brooklyn approach 941 feet in length. The approaches will, in some instances, be on a level with the tops of the houses in the cities through which they pass. The total height of the bridge above the tide is to be 268 feet. The work is now progressing rapidly, and will be completed in about three years.

Accidents are very common in every large port, but the peculiar construction of the New York ferry houses renders the number of cases of drowning doubly great. In order to guard against this, and to afford timely assistance to persons in danger of drowning, "rescue stations" have been established along the water front of the city. There is one at each ferry house, and the others are located at the points where accidents are most likely to occur. These stations are each provided with a ladder of sufficient length to reach from the pier to the water at low tide, with hooks at one end, by means of which it is attached firmly to the pier; a boat hook fastened to a long pole; a life preserver or float, and a coil of rope. These are merely deposited in a conspicuous place. In case of accident, any one may use them for the purpose of rescuing a person in danger of drowning, but at other times it is punishable by law to interfere with them, or to remove them. The station is in charge of the policeman attached to the "beat" in which it is located, and he has the exclusive right in the absence of one of his superior officers to direct all proceedings. At the same time, he is required to comply strictly with the law regulating such service on his part, and to render every assistance in his power. The law for the government of persons using the "rescue apparatus" is posted conspicuously by the side of the implements, as are also concise and simple directions as to the best method of attempting to resuscitate drowned persons. These stations have been of the greatest use since their establishment, and reflect the highest credit upon those who originated and introduced them.

LXXXIV. THE MORGUE.