CHAPTER III

SHOP ASSISTANTS, CLERKS, WAITRESSES

The daily life of the shop assistant—Her bedroom—“No pictures, photos, etc.”—“Anything so left”—The dining-room—Meals—Impossibility of ever being alone—Long hours—Fines and rules—Examples—Some notes on health—Baths—Payment—“Premiums” and “intro” goods—“Taking the book”—Diminished salary with commission on sales—Case of a milliner’s assistant—The dictum of a draper—Why not domestic service?—The social grade—Assistants who do not “live in”—Some Scotch cases—Trade expenses of waitresses—Breakages—Clerks and bookkeepers—Salaries offered to a competent young woman—Some shops in fiction—The question of morals.

How many of us, as we sit at ease on the customer’s side of the counter, reflect upon the life led by the spruce, black-coated young man or the trim, deft young woman who stands upon the other? For myself, the elaborate hairdressing of the shop-girl—all those curls and waves and puffs that represent so much care and time—always sets me thinking of the same girl before her looking-glass (taking her turn, probably, with others). The dormitory in which she occupies a place is bare and unhomelike, all the beds, chairs, and chests of drawers of the same pattern; the walls unadorned, for the decoration of them is forbidden. As the rule of one large establishment says, with equal harshness and bad grammar: “No pictures, photos, etc., allowed to disfigure the walls. Any one so doing will be charged with the repairs.” The room is chill in winter and stuffy at all seasons, and her companions are chosen by chance. Amid such surroundings she combs and rolls and twists with the skill of a practised lady’s maid, in preparation, not for an evening’s gaiety, but for a day’s toil. Hastily she crams into the small chest of drawers which is her sole receptacle all her little apparatus of brush and comb and curlers and wavers. For what says the rule? “Brushes, bottles, etc., must not be left about in the room, but put away in the drawers. Anything so left will be considered done for.” Carefully dressed as to the head, but very inadequately washed—for baths are too often lacking and hot water seldom provided in the mornings—the young lady hurries down to breakfast in a dining-room which has the same impersonal, depressing character as the dormitory. Too often it is a basement room, and sometimes infested by black beetles. Here, among a crowd of companions, she takes her meal, consisting in the great majority of cases, of bread and butter and weak tea.

Twenty or twenty-five minutes later the assistant must be in the shop, where, again among a crowd of fellow workers, she remains till the midday dinner time. In many, indeed in most, shops the space behind the counter is too narrow, and the assistant is jostled every time another passes her. To a tired woman with aching back and feet the repetition of this discomfort grows, towards the end of the day, almost intolerable. The work itself is sometimes by no means light; in some departments the boxes that have to be lifted down from high “fixtures” are of considerable weight; the exhibiting of such things as mantles or coats and skirts involves much carrying to and fro of heavy garments; so that a young woman may well be physically exhausted by closing time. Nervously exhausted she will surely be if the day has been busy, for the whole of her occupation is a strain upon the nerves. She has to confront strangers all day long; to touch without damaging numbers of articles, often of a delicate kind; to fill up a number of forms, the omission of any one of which will bring upon her reproof and probably a fine. She is never alone. She eats her dinner to an accompaniment of clatter and chatter in the same dull dining-room where she breakfasted. In many shops that meal is neither good nor sufficient; and even if good the food is monotonous. Each day of the week has generally its appointed bill of fare. “In many houses the assistants know what the dinner will be to-morrow, to-morrow week, to-morrow month, to-morrow year. I have an Islington shop in my mind where the menu for years past has been this:—

Sunday: Pork. Monday: Beef, hot. Tuesday: Beef, cold. Wednesday: Mutton, hot. Thursday: Mutton, cold. Friday: Beef, hot. Saturday: Beef, cold, and resurrection pie.

On Thursday there is a roly-poly pudding, or stewed fruit densely thickened with sago.

At a large Clapham house the week is mapped out thus:—

Monday: Mutton, hot. Tuesday: Beef, hot. Wednesday: Mutton, hot. Thursday: Beef, cold. Friday: Fish. Saturday: Beef.[18]

These meals are often supplemented by private purchases; in some houses the cook is allowed to supply extras at a price; in others the assistants may bring in food; in yet others there is a refreshment bar at which they may and do purchase food. In some establishments they are actually fined for leaving any food on the plate.

From dinner the shop assistant returns, generally after a bare half hour, to the counter. An extra interval of even ten minutes to be passed in rest and solitude would be precious, and even the institution-like dormitory would be a welcome refuge. But, no; rare indeed is the “house of business” in which the assistant is allowed to enter his or her own bedroom during the day, except by special permission from the shopwalker.

For tea, which affords a welcome break at about five o’clock, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes will, as a rule, be allotted, and the meal will in most cases consist of tea and ready-cut bread and butter. After tea work will go on again till closing time. That happy hour varies enormously according to the locality and nature of the shop. In the West End of London most shops are closed by seven, and on Saturdays by two; but in poorer districts shops will habitually be kept open until 9.30, and on Saturdays until much later.

When the shop has been cleared of customers the business of tidying up and covering in for the night begins. After that comes supper, rather a Spartan meal as a rule; and then—then, the assistant is free till 11 P.M., or on Saturdays till 12. Fifteen minutes after that hour the gas of the firm is turned out, and no private light must be kept burning. “Any one having a light after that time will be discharged.” The “young lady” may now sleep, if she can, in her narrow bed, with her companions around her, until the morning’s bell calls her to rise, wash and dress—still not alone—and begin another day like the last.

In lower-class shops the assistant does not always have even her bed to herself, and has, of course, no choice as to the companion who shares it. In such shops, where the hours are long, many young women never, except on Sundays or holidays, go out of doors in the daylight. What wonder that they grow anæmic, that they suffer continually from headaches and indigestion and from all the long train of woes that lie in wait for the overworked, underfed, and shut-in women.

In the matter of hours, of food, and of restrictions, young men are no better off than young women. They also are subject to fines for every petty error, and to a code of rules covering every detail of life and work. I have inspected several such codes, and very curious reading I have found them. I do not remember any instance in which the number of rules was less than 50. Mr Whiteley’s, at the time when I saw them, were 159; those of another shop in the same district ran up to 198. Here are a few sample rules, taken almost at random: “Young men coming to business with dirty boots, soiled shirts or collars, etc., and young ladies with soiled collars or cuffs, or otherwise appearing in business in an untidy manner, fine 3d.” Of course the washing of these immaculate collars, cuffs, and shirts is paid for by the wearer. “Gossiping, standing in groups, or lounging about in an unbusinesslike manner, fine 3d.” “Assistants must introduce at least two articles to each customer, fine 2d.” “Unnecessary talking and noise in bedrooms is strictly prohibited, fine 6d.” “For losing copy of rules, 2d.” “For unbusinesslike conduct, 6d.”[19]

It is needless to dwell upon the nagging, ungenerous tone that marks such rules as these. That their harassing character helps towards that collapse of health and nerves which is so frequent among women shop assistants, I feel persuaded; and it is more than probable the abolition of “living-in” with all its accompanying petty annoyances would lead to a marked improvement in the health of the whole class.[20]

Here are a few notes upon the question of health made by a trustworthy observer at close quarters.[21]

_A._ “During the fifteen weeks I spent at ——’s, three girls in my department had to leave on account of illness. The department was entered through others, and had no street door. In summer it was so oppressively hot that even customers often complained. Out of the sixteen assistants I worked with, one was anæmic, one had varicose veins, one had a chronic cough, one chronic indigestion; all suffered from lassitude and headache, and four frequently lost their voices through weakness. One of those who left broke down from extreme weakness, and had to give up altogether. Another was the case of varicose veins. A vein burst, and the girl was taken to the hospital, where she was told she must not stand much. She could not give up business, however, and now wears elastic stockings above and below the knee on both legs. Anæmia was common. At my table at dinner there were six persons with the same colourless lips, leaden skins, and hollow eyes. This house compares favourably with most business houses in London.”

_B._ “I very clearly remember some very hot days ... behind the fancy counter of a West-End house. The atmosphere was filled with fluff and dust, the very board floors seemed to scorch one’s feet, and the effort to drag a heavy lace box out of the fixtures made one faint and giddy. One day my companion at the counter gave a little gasp and collapsed on a heap of collar-boxes. The shopwalker carried her out of the shop to the housekeeper’s room, and in about half an hour she regained consciousness. In another half hour she was at the counter again. It was only the heat and the standing! That night when we went to bed she showed me her blistered feet and told me they had been very painful during the day. She had been unable to bathe them for three days, for there had only been enough water in the bedroom for washing in the morning, and she hadn’t time to wash her feet then.”

_C._ “Only strong girls can manage to keep a berth in this house for any length of time. Ailments: weakness, anæmia, and fainting attacks, with frequent headaches and other symptoms of a low state of health. Underground dining-room lit with gas; a damp unpleasant room. In summer it is very close and infested with black beetles. The shops are warmed with gas in winter.”

_D._ “The shops of this firm are bitterly cold in winter, as there is no artificial heat. The assistants get thoroughly chilled and are not allowed a fire in the sitting-room unless the weather is exceptionally cold. Sanitary accommodation objectionable.”

The hours of work are in some localities very long. I have known of shops in poor districts that remained open on Saturdays till 11, 11.30 or 12; and cases are cited by credible witnesses of 12.30 as the Saturday closing time. Tobacconists’ and sweet shops are often open on Sundays, and assistants employed in them are liable to a seven days’ week. On the other hand, in shops that are never open on a Sunday there is often a tendency to discourage the presence of the assistants on the premises during Sundays. It used to be not an uncommon practice actually to turn the assistants out, from closing time on Saturday till Sunday night or Monday morning; but it is a good many years now since I have met with any instance of this. The cruelty and meanness of this form of economy are sufficiently obvious; yet I have known it practised by a draper who was a churchwarden and who was greatly surprised at receiving from his vicar earnest remonstrances upon the subject.

Sad to say, a bath or bathroom is by no means regarded by employers as a necessity. There are still houses of good repute in which the assistants, male and female, have nothing but a basin in which to wash. On the very day that I write these words a letter is published in the _Daily News_ from a shop assistant who cites the case of “a large house in the West-End where hundreds of young men and women ‘live in,’ and not a single bath is provided for them.... When the poor assistant feels inclined to take a bath he has to take it before the public baths close at eight o’clock; and as there is no fire in the sitting-room he is obliged to go straight to bed to avoid catching cold on a cold winter’s night after taking his bath.”[22]

The salaries both of men and women are poor. The shopwalker and the buyer may, in some instances, receive handsome salaries; but for the ordinary saleswoman, £35 a year is high pay; indeed, there are many young men receiving no more than £20 or £25. Out of this income the assistant has to keep up the required standard of appearance, providing black coats or gowns, as the case may be, and spotless starched linen. Often the collar and cuffs of the young lady are of a regulation pattern that may perhaps not suit her again if she goes into another house. Towels are not generally included in the furnishing of the bedrooms; the purchase and washing of these come out of the assistant’s pocket.

These wages are supposed to be supplemented by “premiums,” and the subject of premiums is not without interest for the customer. Certain goods, which for some reason it is particularly desired to sell, are “premiumed,” _i.e._ a small commission is given to the assistant who effects a sale of them. The premium, which is in proportion to the selling price, is generally but a small sum. Half a crown is about the highest figure, and would represent a purchase running to some pounds. On small things the premium may be as low as a halfpenny. The existence of premiums explains in great measure the annoyance to which all of us have been subjected by the endeavours of an assistant to force upon us goods for which we have not asked—goods known behind the counter as “intro” (or introduced) goods. A rule quoted above shows that there are shops in which an assistant is bound to press two “intro” articles, at least, upon every customer. To dispose largely of “intro” goods is obviously to the assistant’s interest, not only because the premiums make a welcome addition to his small income, but also because the disposal of these articles is viewed with favour by his superior officers. To the customer who knows what she wants and is anxious to spend no more than the needful time and money in getting it, “intro” goods are an irritation and a burden—especially if she is sufficiently behind the scenes to know their significance to the girl or youth who compulsorily obtrudes them upon her. Such customers are apt to forget the great commercial truth that shops exist not to supply the needs of the public but to fill the pockets of the shopkeeper.

Nor is the premium the only instrument of pressure applied to the shop assistant. There is, in most establishments, an unwritten law that each assistant must, each week, sell goods to a certain amount. That total goes by the name of the “book”; and each young man and young woman is aware that repeated failure to “take” his or her “book” will be followed by dismissal. One very capable employer has a different method. He engages the assistant at a fixed salary; and when she has been at work for a couple of months, she is informed that for the future her salary will be diminished by a substantial deduction, and that she will receive a commission of 1¼ per cent. upon her sales. The assistants are said not to keep a reckoning of their commission, but to be of opinion that they rather gain than lose. In the “wools” department, where sales would not generally run to high figures, £10 was deducted from the £30 a year of one assistant, and £8 from the £28 of another. From a salary of £35 in the underclothing showroom, no less than £23 was taken off.

There are houses in which a list of weekly “takings” is posted up; and some in which the names that stand low in the list are marked by the employer with signs of disapprobation. To be a good salesman or saleswoman is to be an adept in the art of inducing fellow creatures to make purchases that they did not intend to make. Indeed, there are shops where failure to effect a sale, if it occurs three times running, means dismissal. I knew an instance (a good many years ago) in which a girl was dismissed at a moment’s notice from a London millinery shop, because she had failed to cajole a customer into buying any bonnet. She was “living-in”; her home was not in London; the dismissal took place between 5 and 6 o’clock, and she did not know of any lodging to which she could go. Fortunately a policeman whom she consulted was able to direct her to one of London’s many safe havens for young women. But what of the employer, who, suddenly, and late in the day, turned a young girl out of his house into the unknown world of London, her only fault being that another woman had found in his shop no bonnet to suit her—and had been resolute enough to resist buying one that did not?

It is related of a certain provincial draper that seeing a customer depart having made no purchase, he called up the assistant who had waited upon her. “Why did not that lady buy anything?” “We hadn’t what she wanted, sir.” “Anybody can sell people what they want. Remember that I keep you to sell people what they don’t want.” That in a nutshell is the present condition of retail shopkeeping—especially, perhaps, in the department of drapery; and that condition is one reason why some customers find it preferable to deal at co-operative stores. The business of the assistant in a private shop is to sell, reluctantly perhaps, but under stern compulsion, articles that the shopkeeper desires sold to a customer who does not really desire to buy them. Can any employment be imagined more straining to the nerves, or more trying to the temper of a refined and delicate minded person? And there are many shop assistants of refinement and of delicate feeling; some of them daughters of clergymen and of other professional men who have died leaving their girls unprovided for.

At this point some reader will certainly be found to demand why these young ladies do not, in a body, abandon the shop and enter domestic service. The answer is a simple one enough. These girls, like the vast majority of their compatriots, will endure much hardship rather than lose caste; and, whatever may be the opinion of the wage-payers, there can be no doubt that among wage-earners domestic service ranks as a low-caste occupation. The middle class mother who will not send her little girl to a public elementary school, the middle class father who would rather see his son making a small income as a professional man than a large income as a tradesman, ought rather to applaud than to condemn the “young lady in business” who refuses to exchange her black uniform and her title of “Miss” for the cap and apron and the name without a handle of the domestic servant.

The question of class distinction has, as Mr Charles Booth has pointed out, a marked influence upon the choice of employment; and this influence, the authors of _Women’s Work and Wages_ truly observe has led to curious economic anomalies, which are generally beneficial to the employers.[23]

An observation somewhat to the same effect may be found on pp. 67, 68 of _Women in the Printing Trades_.[24]

In Scotland “living-in” is not customary, but the advantages of freedom have been, in the past, sometimes counterbalanced by serious drawbacks. Here are some instances from one of Miss Irwin’s reports:—

“In some of these shops the girls are kept on duty continuously; this is more especially the case where only one girl is employed.... In scarcely any of the shops in this district is lavatory accommodation provided. Witness said she knew of drapery shops where the hours are from 8 A.M. to 9 P.M., and in some cases to 10 P.M.; while they are kept open till 11 P.M. and 12 midnight on Saturdays. In these shops the girls are allowed half an hour off for breakfast and one hour for dinner. Total hours worked per week 82 and 89 (not including meal hours). No seats are provided and there is no sanitary accommodation. Witness stated that there are frequent cases of girls completely breaking down in health in these shops.”

“Witness 504 is about 24 years of age. She is saleswoman and manager in a confectioner’s shop and is paid 7s. per week. The shop she keeps is an East end branch belonging to a leading firm in this trade. The shops of this firm in better localities are closed at 8 P.M. In the other the following are the hours: open 9.30 A.M., close at 10 P.M. Saturdays, open at 8.30 A.M., close at 11 P.M. As witness has sole charge of the shop she cannot leave it to take her meals, or for any other purpose. Her dinner is brought to her and she takes it as she can; tea is taken in the same way. Witness has in all nine holidays in the year.”

“Witness 418 had been engaged as an assistant in a tea shop and gave the following evidence: Her hours were from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M., five days in the week; and from 9 A.M. to 11.30 P.M. on Saturdays. Witness had sole charge of the shop and was not allowed to go out for meals, except on such days as her employer, a commercial traveller, and seldom at home, came to relieve her; frequently she was obliged to fast all day, and finally she was obliged to leave on account of her health breaking down. Total hours worked per day, 12; Saturdays, 14½; per week 74½ hours.”[25]

In restaurants, both in London and elsewhere, the hours are sometimes excessive. I have known instances of girls who were employed at the refreshment rooms of stations who were not allowed to leave until after the last train had gone at night—which meant that they had to walk home every night after midnight.

Miss Irwin, in her evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords upon the early closing of shops, quotes a very similar instance: “In another baker’s shop where six girls were employed, the hours were from 6.45 A.M. to 8 P.M., and to 11.30 on Saturdays. The girls had to provide their own food, and all meals, including breakfast, were made and partaken of on the premises, the girls having the use of the kitchen for this. No regular time was allowed for meals, and they were kept running backwards and forwards to the shop all the time. Very often they were kept beyond the nominal closing hour of 11.15 P.M. and lost the last car home. This was a great hardship to the girls who lived at a distance. My informant said: ‘When I get home, I just sit down and cry with fatigue.’ The firm have a number of branch shops. There are in all twenty-eight girls employed in them.”[26]

The nominal maximum hours in restaurants visited by her are given by Miss Irwin as follows:—

“In 3 cases 16 hours on one or more days in the week 96 hours. „ 1 „ 15½ „ „ „ 93 „ „ 1 „ 12 to 17 „ „ „ 93 „ „ 1 „ 15 „ „ „ 90 „ „ 2 „ 16 „ „ „ 87 „ „ 1 „ 14½ „ „ „ 87 „ „ 2 „ 13 to 14 „ „ „ 79 „ „ 4 „ 12½ to 15½ „ „ „ 78 „ „ 1 „ 17 „ „ „ 77 „ „ 3 „ 12 to 12½ „ „ „ 72 to 75 „ „ 1 „ 13 „ „ „ 70 „

“These,” adds Miss Irwin, “are the _nominal_ hours, but ... in several cases the information was taken from the women assistants at a later hour than the nominal closing time.”[27]

The expenses of a waitress are often considerable; she almost always has to pay for the washing of the aprons, collars and cuffs that are a part of her uniform, and in most cases to provide them. As nearly every company has its different pattern the articles are apt to become useless when employment is changed. Moreover in some restaurants and refreshment-rooms, all breakages, whether made by them or by customers, are paid for by the assistants. I have known girls subject to this deduction who complained that they received no statement as to how the amount deducted was made up. That the sum is in some cases not trifling is shown by a newspaper correspondence that occurred in the year 1890. A representative of Messrs Spiers & Pond, Ltd., wrote to a newspaper complaining that the amounts habitually deducted at Waterloo Station had been overstated, and assigned 1s. 9½d. as the weekly average for each assistant. This being the firm’s own estimate, there can be no injustice in quoting it. When we remember that the wages of waitresses average, roughly, from 7s. to 14s. a week, less 8d. or 9d. for washing, we shall probably regard an average deduction of 1s. 9½d. a week as by no means inconsiderable. A certain proportion of breakages is manifestly incidental to the refreshment trade and the renewal of crockery is as much one of its natural expenses as the renewal of fuel. Either of these items might just as fairly be laid upon the waitresses. It is often made a reproach to schemes of industrial partnership that the employees share the profits without sharing the losses. This particular form of partnership, in which employees bear losses but take no share in gains seems to have escaped the economists.

In the matters of poor pay, uncertainty of employment and compulsorily “respectable” clothing, clerks and bookkeepers occupy much the same position as shop assistants; and when their employment happens to be in shops, their hours are equally long. A young woman known to me, a highly competent clerk and book-keeper, showed me letters from employers with whom she was in treaty. In one case she was to be cashier and book-keeper in a very well known and flourishing shop; she was to be at her post until 11 P.M. on Saturdays and until 8 (or it may have been 8.30) on other evenings. Her pay was to be 8s. a week, living out. I may add that shortly afterwards I myself saw this shop open one evening, not Saturday, at nearly 9 o’clock. The other post, again that of cashier and book-keeper, was in the office of an extremely wealthy wholesale City firm, where thousands of pounds would have passed through her hands weekly and where the book-keeping would have been very complex. The salary offered was 14s. a week.

Reviewing this chapter, I see that I have dealt almost exclusively with large establishments. In smaller ones and especially in poor districts the food and housing may be worse, and the payment will almost certainly be lower. On the other hand the regulations will in all likelihood be less rigid and sometimes the relations between employer and employed will be quite human and even homelike.

Of the general conditions in a thoroughly low class shop, Mr Maxwell’s _Vivien_ presents a picture faithful probably in most particulars. A more typical case, illuminated by a spark of real genius, is portrayed in Mr Wells’s _Kipps_; and there is an admirable vignette in Gissing’s _The Odd Women_.

It is only just to add that neither the somewhat exhaustive investigations made under the auspices of the Women’s Industrial Council nor such information as, during a considerable course of years, I have been able to collect personally, confirm those accusations of prevalent immorality which might be suggested by such novels as Zola’s _Au Bonheur des Dames_, and which are freely made in some quarters. No doubt instances must from time to time occur in which a shopwalker or an employer makes use of his position as a weapon of seduction; but such instances are certainly the exception. There may also possibly have existed, somewhere, at some time, a basis of fact for that persistent legend of the employer who offers to young women the free use of a latch key by way of compensation for low payment.

For the large majority of shop girls, however, the temptations of shop life take the form not of illicit lovemaking within the shop but rather of continued dulness, driving and discomfort, constantly pressing them towards any offered means of escape. The passion that really prevails in the modern shop is the passion for money, which, no less than more lurid passions preferred by the romance writer, devours the youth and lives of girls. It does not, however, consciously fall under the classification of the decalogue, and the destroyers of these victims often honestly believe themselves to be men of singular righteousness and virtue, the pillars and bulwarks of an industrious, commercial nation. The feudal baron, not improbably regarded himself in no very different light.

_Note._ The daily papers of the week in which this chapter was written contained two cases that corroborate the statements made in it; and that show the evils described to be by no means matters of the past. I give them verbatim, except that in the second case I have concealed the name of the accused lad.

George A. Evans, coffee-shop keeper, of Goldsmith’s Row, Hackney Road, was summoned at Old Street for breaches of the Shop Hours Act by employing two young persons as waitresses for more than 74 hours in any one week.

Mr D. Carter, for the London County Council, explained that girls under the age of 18 were denominated “young persons,” and while they might be worked 12 hours for the first five days of the week, and 14 hours on a Saturday, all meal times were to be counted in as part of the employment.

The defendant was found employing a girl aged 17 years and 7 months, and another 16 years and 2 months, and both had in the week ending May 26th worked 85 hours each. Further, the defendant had no notice of the hours of labour, as allowed by the Act, exhibited in his shop. He was also summoned for that offence.

Defendant pleaded guilty, and Mr Dickinson imposed fines and costs amounting to £4, 18s.—_Daily News_, 23rd August 1906.

A well dressed clerk, named Y. Z., aged 16, was charged at Marylebone with having embezzled £2, 2s. belonging to his employers Ryland & Co., auctioneers of Edgeware Road. His duty was to collect rents, and it was alleged that his defalcations amounted in all to £7, 10s. In extenuation of the offence he pointed out that his wages only came to 12s. a week, out of which he had to pay 4s. rent and 2s. travelling expenses, leaving him but 6s. a week with which to clothe and feed himself. He took the £2, 2s. intending to pay it back, but he was found out before he could do so. His hours were from 9 to 6. Mr Paul Taylor said he was at a loss to know how Z. could have sustained life on the small salary he was receiving. He remanded him to give the missionary an opportunity of seeing what could be done for him.—_Tribune_, 24th August 1906.