White Slaves - The Oppression of The Worthy Poor

.
WHITE SLAVES
OR
THE OPPEESSION OF THE

WOETHY POOE
BY
EEV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.

AUTHOR OF
"
THE PEOPLE'S CHRIST," ETC.
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET
1893
GENERAL
COPYRIGHT,
1891,
BY LEE AND SHEPARD
All Rights Reserved
WHITE SLAVES
PBK88 OP
Uckfoeil
anti
Cl
JtOBTON-
TO
and
WHO
INSTILLED INTO MY MIND AND HEART, IN THE DAYS OF

A HAPPY BOYHOOD, THEIR OWN LOVE FOR LIBERTY
AND HATRED OF OPPRESSION,
THIS
VOLUME
IS
GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.
164629
To THE MERCY AND HELP DEPARTMENT

OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE
MR. EDISON
tells
us that ninety per cent
of the energy that there is in coal

the present method of converting
is lost
it
in
into a
May I, without being considered a croaker, say that almost the same
usable force.
amount
power goes to waste in

our average church life ? One is startled
at times as he notes the manifestations of
of spiritual
fervor and
ings of
results
warmth
in the devotional meet-
the present day, and the meagre

that follow in the transformation
of society into the likeness of the

kingdom
of heaven.
Exactly what we have to do,
is to
help hasten the answer to
the prayer our Lord taught us, "
Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven," and
however,
not to be forever seeking to build tabernacles on some
Mount
of Transfiguration.
INTRODUCTION
ii
This book of Dr. Banks' s

ulus to this
work
is a positive stimof social transformation.
The young men and women
of our
Epworth
League could not do better than to carefully and thoughtfully study its vivid pictures of every-day scenes in our great,
even in our lesser, cities.
and
Such study will open their eyes to sad

deformities in their
own communities,
to
which too many have become strangely indifferent through custom and wont.
True,
not pleasant to consider these distressing matters but is it the business of the
Christian to avoid that which is unpleas-
it is
?
Consideration leads to sympathy,
and sympathy wonderfully quickens the
inventive faculties and the aroused intelaffection are leavening
lect and active
ant
forces that alter social conditions always

for the better.
com-
I take great pleasure, therefore, in
mending
read
it.
this
It
work, because
who
What
it stirs all
may make you indignant.
Would
that more were alive enough

to be indignant with the indignation of our
of
it ?
Lord at the forces
of
unbrotherliness
at
INTRODUCTION
work
in our midst
It will
111
do more than
it will help you

rouse your indignation
to utter the prayer that gave the accent to
"
the life of Paul
Lord, what wilt thou
;
have me to do?" When in works of Mercy

and Help our tens of thousands of Epworth
Leaguers are loyally living this prayer, the
problem of Edison, as applied to spiritual dynamics, will be solved, and the latent forces
of spiritual energy used to their utmost.
Then, as slavery has passed away, war and
tyranny and idleness and poverty will be

no more, and the end to which Christ leads
us, and for which He died, will be attained.
WILLIAM INGRAHAM HAVEN,

Vice-President for Mercy and Help Department.
INWOOD LODGE, PINE ISLAND N.H.

August 1893
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
THIS volume had

which came
to
me
its
in
origin
experiences
in the daily duties of a city
The inadequate wages received by

the members of my own congregation,
pastorate.
some
of
and the impoverished and unhealthy surroundings of many of the poor people who came for
me
to christen their children, pray with
their
bury their dead, so aroused
sym-
sick, or
for
pathy
the
victims,
arid
my
my
indignation
against the cruel or indifferent causes of their

misery, that I determined
systematic investigation
life
among
word
"
upon a thorough and

of
the
the worthy Boston

"
worthy
conditions
poor.
By
of
the
do not mean to indicate a
but the poor people of the city

who are willing and anxious to exchange honest
hard work for their support. I have not, in the
class of saints,
series of studies here presented, entered into a

7
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
and criminal
discussion of the vicious

I
have tried to perform, as
it
seemed
classes.
to me, a
to make a plea for

more important task
justice on behalf of the crushed, and often forgotten, victims of greed, who work and starve
far
in their cellars
and garrets rather than beg or
steal.
The
larger part of the matter
these pages
was
contained in
originally delivered in a series
from the pulpit of St. John's

Methodist Episcopal Church, South Boston, and
of
discourses
retains
here
the
direct
form of
the
spoken
address.
make a personal acknowledgment

some who have given me great assistance in
making the investigations, the results of which
I desire to
to
are here recorded.
am
greatly indebted to
Mr. B. O. Flower, Editor of The Arena, for
many
kindnesses, and especially for the use of
several interesting illustrations originally
pre-
magazine over which he so ably

and gracefully presides. The Rev. Walter J.
pared for the
Boston Baptist Bethel, the

Rev. C. L. D. Younkin, of the North End MisSwaffield, of
sion, the
the
Rev. Geo. L. Small, of the Mariners'
AUTHOR
PREFACE
House, the Rev. John G. May, of the Italian

Mission, and that indefatigable reformer, Mrs.
Alice N. Lincoln, have each put
great
unwearying kindness and
obligations by their
willing assistance.
me under
am
also greatly indebted
Mr. Sears Gallagher, the brilliant young

South Boston artist, and to the veteran pho-
to
tographer
of
Partridge, for
with the
Boston Highlands, Mr.
many
courtesies
illustrations
which
in
W. H.
connection
illumine
these
chapters.
Lours ALBERT BANKS.

BOSTON, September
15, 1891.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Y.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON

" SWEATEKS "
LETTER OF CRITICISM
REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON " THE WHITE
SLAVES OF THE BOSTON SWEATERS"
THE PLAGUE OF THE SWEAT-SHOP
THE RELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS
THE WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS OF WORK-
THE
17
47
55
,gl
109
ING-PEOPLE
137
BOSTON'S UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
145
SOCIAL MICROBES IN BOSTON TENEMENT
179
HOUSES, AND How TO DESTROY THEM
OLD WORLD TIDES IN BOSTON
213
.
IX.
X.
XL
XII.
OUR BROTHERS AND
SISTERS, THE BOSTON

PAUPERS
COMMENT ON " OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS"
THE GOLD GOD OF MODERN SOCIETY
....
.
11
257
283
305
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR
Frontispiece
PORTUGUESE WIDOW IN ATTIC

PORTUGUESE WIDOW AND CHILDREN
LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS
INVALID IN CHAIR
POSTAL UNIFORMS
A TENEMENT-I-IOUSK COURT
SUNDAY ON NORTH STREET
CLARK'S MISSION
NORTH END JUNK SHOP
PIOME OF THE MATHERS
THE PEANUTTER
INSIDE A SWEAT-SHOP
PAUL REVERE HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE
REAR OF NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE
21
29
31
33
37
58
64
70
74
77
85
....
COMMONWEALTH AVENUE
DRYING "THE FIND"
THE NORTH END MISSION
92
98
102
104
Ill
116
BOSTON " BRIDGE OF SIGHS "

COURT OFF NORTH STREET
128
148
CELLARWAY LEADING TO UNDERGROUND APARTMENTS
MAN
151
UNDERGROUND APARTMENT
AN ANCIENT TENEMENT
SICK
IN
155
160
ITALIAN FRUIT-VENDERS AT HOME

COCKROACHES BY FLASH-LIGHT
163
165
BANANA SELLER
166
UNDERGROUND TENEMENT WITH Two BEDS

TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
13
.169
175
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
14
PAGE
EXTERIOR OF A NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE

WIDOW AND Two CHILDREN IN UNDERGROUND
183
TENEMENT
187
THE BANK OF THE UNFORTUNATE
193
195
OUT OF WORK
.199
A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE
THE "GOOD LUCK" TENEMENT HOUSE .... 206
THE SAND GARDEN
209
CHRIST CHURCH TOWER
215
ON THE CUNARDER
219
ON THE WAY TO THE RABBI
........ 221
.
PASSING THE QUARANTINE DOCTOR

SURGICAL THEOLOGY
BUILDING USED BY THE BRITISH AS A HOSPITAL
VICTORIA SQUARE
OAK DOOR AT ENTRANCE
READING-ROOM AT FACTORY
FERRIS BROTHERS' CORSET FACTORY
QUARTER SECTION OF ONE OF THE WORK ROOMS
THE QUEEN OF THE DUMP
TRAMPS
WOMEN'S HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND
GETTING A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
224
229
.
238
241
247
.
244
252
261
284
289
ATTIC AT RAINSFORD ISLAND

MARINERS' HOME
CHILDREN PLAYING IN COPP'S HILL BURYING-
GROUND
DIGGING IN THE ASH-BARRELS IN WINTER
FOUR SHINERS
SOUTH BOSTON RAG-PICKERS
232
235
295
298
309
312
314
317
THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE

BOSTON "SWEATERS"
Hard work
But
is
good an' wholesome, past
'tain't so, ef the
mind
all
doubt;
gits tuckered out."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Biylow Papers.
o
Uf-
WHITE SLAVES
THE WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON

"SWEATERS"
WISE man
of the old time, after a tour

of observation, came home to say, " So I
returned,
and considered
that are done under the sun

tears of
ors there
this
oppressions
and behold the
such as were oppressed, and they had

and on the side of their oppress-
no comforter
If
the
all
was power but they had no comforter."

report had been written by one who
;
had been climbing with me through the tenement houses of not less than a score of Boston
conversing with the sewing-women,
looking on their poverty-lined faces and their
streets,
ragged children, breathing the poisonous
air of
the quarters where they work, and listening to

their heart-rending stories of
cruelty
pression,
it
and op-
would be an appropriate summary

17
WHITE SLAVES
18
of our observation.
time, to take
As
tion.
It
is
my
purpose, at this
you with me on a tour
well-lighted
streets are
of observa-
better than
and good
policemen to insure safety
order, so
I believe that the best possible service I can
render the public

tell,
is
to turn
on the
light,
and
and simply as I can, the story of

have seen and heard and smelled in the
as plainly
what
white slave-quarters, which are a disgrace to our

fair city.
I shall confine
to the
work
of
own homes.
myself at this time entirely
women and
Most
of
who
out to them by middlemen

" sweaters."
children in their
work
this
are
That word sweater
old dictionaries.
It is a foul
is
is
parcelled
known
as
not in the
word, born of the
greed and infernal lust for gold which pervade

the most reckless and wicked financial circles
The sweater takes
of our time.
and divides
it
out
among
large contracts
the very poor, redu-
cing 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
"
WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON
SWEATERS
"
In these cases the firm
employ them.
19
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
It is a
the dispensary doctor for the district.
widow with one
child
three years old.
The
little
child
is
boy scarcely
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, reit is

perhaps, of material
quiring
a yard,
hemmed
across the bottom
the band or "apron string"

sides,
and then sewed on
ing six long seams.

fifteen cents a dozen
great, rich firm,
and on both
is
hemmed on
to the apron,
For these she

!
And
sides,
is
both
makpaid
besides that, this
whose members
are rolling in
WHITE SLAVES
20
wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow

expressage on her package of ten
fifteen cents
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
morning
make
she
works from seven o'clock in the
until eleven o'clock at night, she can
four, dozen; but,
is
with the care of her child,
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
Her
and
child.
rent for the one
per week.
pelled to
little
It is idle to
do
room
is
one dollar
say that this firm
is
com-
competition, for the material
this
by
and making of these aprons cost less than ten
cents, and the firm retails them ordinarily at
twenty-five
cents
better,
On
apiece.
receiving from
fifty to
apiece, she furnishing her
cotton.
from
On
cloaks
till
did
seventy-five cents
own
sewing-silk and
these she could make, by
seven A. M.
she
eleven
P. M.,
dollar a day, but she could never get
working
nearly
more than
six cloaks a week, so that the income for the
week was about
the same.
"
WHITE SLAVES OP BOSTON
Now come
attic suite of
with
to
with
me
my
two rooms,
so
Here
room
live a
five children, the
flights, to a little
low at the side
length of anatomy,
the middle of the
upright.
23
a little farther around the
Let us climb up three
harbor.
SWEATERS "
that,
have to keep well
in order to stand
Portuguese mother and
oldest thirteen, the youngest
not yet three, a poor, deformed, little thing that

has consumption of the bowels, brought on by
Its tiny legs are
scanty and irregular food.
scarcely thicker than my thumb, and you can-
not look at
its
patient, wasted, little face, that
have endured twenty-five

years of misery, instead of three, without the
I ask the mother how she earns her
heartache.
looks old
enough
to
and she points
package that has just

come in. Picking it up, and untying the strings,
I find there six pairs of pants, cut out and
living,
to a
basted up, ready for making.
Looking
at the
card,
we
name
of one of the largest firms in the city of
are astonished to find that
it
bears the
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
WHITE SLAVES
24
are
The other
made tacked on them.
three
stamped with "New York" as customer, from which we infer that they are made
for a New York house, the Boston firm acting
pairs are
as sweater.
must
This
woman and
her
little
children
pants by the same hour to-
finish these
morrow, when the messenger from the store will

She
bring a new lot and take these away.
receives
ten
cents
custom-made pants
a pair
three pairs being
In order to finish the six
pairs in the twenty-four hours, she
work
moment
to
and improve every
at six in the morning,
available
must get
until eleven or twelve in the
evening, and sometimes,
if
the sick child
is fret-
one o'clock in the morning. Her wages

tremendous strain that is wearing her
ful, until
for this
very life away, until she looks almost as frail

as her dying child, is sixty cents !
Her rent for
two small
these
attic
fifty
cents per week.
self
and
of the
pockets
struggle.
Only through the
And
yet,
this is in sight of the old
the tower where they
one dollar and
She has one bed for her-
five children.
Boston Baptist Bethel
up the
is
is
aid
she able to keep
O my
brothers
North Church, and
hung
the lanterns for a
WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON "SWEATEES" 25

signal to Paul Revere,
the darkness
to
arouse
against oppression.
when he rode through

Fathers to
the
God help
fight
us to hang anoth-
er 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
She can finish from eight to ten
cents apiece.
She has two
in a day.
handsome
satin
finer coats, lined
with
of these she can complete only
day, and receives eight cents apiece.

There are three in the family, and they pay a
five
dollar
and a half per week
for their one room.
asked about the husband, and a neighbor

woman from the next room remarked contemptuI
"
ously,
No.
2.
He
no good."
These are Poles.
is
The woman makes
knee pants of
grammar-schoolboy size
receives sixteen cents a dozen pairs.
dozen are as
day.
many
as she ever gets
she
Two
done in a
26
WHITE SLAVES
No. 3. They
work on knee
are
Italians
pants.
sixteen cents a dozen pairs
and are
here,
This
woman
,for
at
receives
most of them,
but for some extra nice ones she gets eighteen

She has two dozen brought to
cents a dozen.
her from the sweater's shop every day about two
She works from two
o'clock.
until ten at night,
and from
in the afternoon
six in the
morning
noon the next day, to complete her allowance, for which she receives from thirty-two to
until
thirty-six
cents.
seventy -five
cents
The
rent
is
week;
per
she
dollar
and
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
after,
room
day
but now, with a
little
babe to look
she can get only four pairs done.

is
intolerably dirty
but
The
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 twentyseven to forty-four cents a day.
No. 6. Italians. This woman
is
an expert

She
seamstress.
six cents
apiece
"
SWEATERS
finishing men's
is
The
fifty-four cents.
back room
is
27
coats
and with nothing
at
to bother
working sixteen hours a day, she
her,
"
rent for the narrow
makes
little
one dollar and thirty-five cents
per week.
you want
If
we
variety,
climb
will
four
with half the plastering knocked

the walls, and talk with an English woman.
flights of stairs,
off
She
working on
is
fine
thirteen cents a pair
day, and thinks
she could
but
by working
till
she gets
very late
evening, she can complete four pairs a
in the
if
cloth pants
it is
it
would be almost a paradise
make her fifty-two
cents every day
one of the characteristics of a sweater
keep all his people hungry for

work, and she seldom is able to get more than
to systematically
twelve pairs a week.
She
lives alone in a little
sweat-box under the roof, for which she pays a

dollar
Not
and a quarter per week.

far away, up two flights, we
guese widow, with four

fifteen,
three
find a Portu-
little girls,
the eldest
the next thirteen, and the younger ones
and
six, respectively
by hardship and
they are
all
dwarfed
insufficient food, so that the
WHITE SLAVES
28
one who
girl
of
is
fifteen is
twelve.
not larger than an average
The mother
is
and the
sick,
keep the wolf from the door

on
the
sewing. They are all hard
by carrying
at work
they carry the pants back arid forth
girls are trying to
themselves, and so for the most of their
work
some they get

They have only two
receive twelve cents, though for
only ten cents a pair.
rooms with the most meagre furniture the

rent is one dollar and a half per week, and the
little
and four
sick mother
girls
huddle together in
the one bed at night.
They
faced, intelligent girls,
and with a
would grow
are pretty, bright-
into strong, noble
fair
chance
women but
;
one
shudders when he takes into consideration the

odds against which they will have to
struggle in this poverty-stricken, crime-cursed
fearful
alley.
Here
is
another case of a similar description
only a few blocks away.
narrow
flights,
steep
and dark,
important in a low-class
as in a sardine box.
from
filth
on the
bench at the
We
go up three
for space
is
as
Boston tenement house
The stairway
last flight,
for
is
slippery
on a small
top, in a dry-goods box, a little
WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON "SWEATEES'

boy
is
raising squabs for the market,
pigeon business, however
much
it
31
and the
may
help
LITTLE CHILDREN FINISHING PANTS.

to
pay the
We
rent,
is
not conducive to cleanliness.
find here a suite of three little
rooms, the
WHITE SLAVES
32
largest of which
others are
much
is
not more than
10x10;
In these three
smaller.
pigeon boxes eight people
the
little
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
The
house.
clothing
younger only three

seams.
The
three
two
already spoken
fro.
The
of,
the
girls,
years, are both overcasting
make on an average
pairs of pants a week, for
teen cents a pair;
little
the
sixteen
which they get
young pigeon
thir-
fancier,
carrying the goods to and
rent of these crowded quarters
is
two
and a quarter per week. In the same

building, clown-stairs, we went into a room which
dollars
could not have been more than 10
12,
where
an American woman, with seven young women

We
helping her, was at work dressmaking.
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.
Sickness, to be
dreaded anywhere,
^
is
espe-
WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON "SWEATERS"

among
cially pitiful
35
these sweaters' slaves in the
In the country the fresh air, fragrant

with the breath of new-mown hay, or sweetened
city.
from ten thousand clover blossoms,
is
free to
the poorest, but to be sick in a tenement house

is
poisonous
a
terrible.
something
common
air,
and
Yet crowded quarters,
filthy clothing
guest in such places.
day up two
make
I
sickness
climbed one
flights into a dirty little room, the
me in three
found a man on a
smell of which was sickening to
minutes, and yet there

little
missionary
there for
had been given by the charitable
cot (that
who guided me) who
more than three
For two years
years.
and more he had not even a
and pain.
floor in his dirt
has been lying
cot,
but lay on the
There are two
young to be of much assistance the

and mother sews, finishing pants for a
Washington Street firm. She gets twelve,
dren, too
wife
rich
and sometimes, on
teen
chil-
cents
fine,
pair.
custom-made pants,
thir-
She has worked so hard
and continuously on poor food and with insufficient clothing, that rheumatism has settled
in the joints of her fingers
till
she
is
and stiffened them,
only able to turn
off
nine or ten
WHITE SLAVES
36
pairs a week.
dollar
dollar
and
Last week she could only make

cents
fifteen
and a quarter.
the
rent \vas
They have absolutely
none of the ordinary comforts of life the sick

has no sheets for his cot, <and the rheu;
man
matic 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 thir-
teen cents a pair, ordinarily, and for the very
custom-made pants they receive as high

twenty cents, but complain, as it takes so
finest
as
much
to
longer with the fine pants, that from two
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.
There has been quite a controversy recently
as to where the new United States postal uni-
forms for the Boston carriers were made.

settled this
question
to
my own
during the past week, when, in
satisfaction
company with
Dr. Luther T. Townsend, of Boston Univer-
WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON "SWEATERS"
37
and two other gentlemen, one of them

being an Italian interpreter, I climbed the
sity,
rickety stairs of an
old North
End tenement
house, and found the pants for these same uni-
POSTAL UNIFORMS.
forms being made by Italian

a half cents a pair!
a
Jewish sweater.
women
at nine
and
They received them from

One of these women says
by beginning at four o'clock in the mornand

ing
frequently working until twelve o'clock
that,
at night, she can
make
six pairs of these pants
WHITE SLAVES
38
She has
in a day.
dollars per week.
of
work
for eight
children
who
is
who
is
five children
the rent
The husband
months
is
two
has been ont
the only one of the
able to earn anything
is
a boy
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.
have
my
note-books full of
many
other cases,
including Portuguese, Italian, English, Polish,

Irish and American women, of the
same general character as those already related
but a similar wicked scale of prices runs through
and a few
the
making
woman
in
of other clothing.
South Boston
last
called on a
week who was
SWEATERS " 39
overalls for a city firm at sixty cents a
making
dozen
"
They
pairs.
are the large variety of over-
alls, 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
There are
they are simply cut out.
thirty separate
and
distinct
seams to be sewed,
in the aggregate thirty-two
making
and a half
which she receives the gross

cents, out of which she has to
feet of sewing, for
amount
of five
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
ing and coming.
package
able to
When
of five or six
make
in a
sent by express in a
dozen
week
car-fare, go-
she
the
is
number she
charged
is
fifteen
cents expressage each way, so that the express-
age eats up the making of six pairs. In addition to this, the stiff cloth is very hard on machine
needles,
and she
per week.
will break about ten cents
This woman's story
Her husband, who was

man,
fell
ill
is
worth
a sad one.
a strong, hard-working
an
over-strain, and died
through
WHITE SLAVES
40
after fifteen months' sickness,
She has three
little
two months
ago.
children, the oldest four years
over a year. Work

as hard as she can, driving her machine until
and the youngest a
little
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
The
rent
is
two
dollars
and
sixty-five cents.
a dollar and a half, which leaves
one dollar and fifteen cents for the food and

clothing of a mother and three children.
course
starve
to
charity.
ness
she
in
cannot
death
And
if
Of
on that, and would
live
she were
yet there
is
not assisted by
a firm doing busi-
South Boston mean enough to take
advantage of the
fact
that
people living in
this part of the city are
compelled to pay carfare 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,
made
overalls for both these firms,

to give
it
who Jias
and has been
through sickness brought
up
compelled
on from the confinement and strained position

of sitting so
many hours
these firms were
work
House
of the
prisoners,
prison
is
now
SWEATERS
"
41
a day over a sewing-
me
This poor girl told
machine.
class of
"
that both of
giving a great part of this
to the public authorities in charge
of Correction, to be
and that a daily
only eight pairs.
done by the
stint for a
This
sick,
woman
in
discouraged
most heart-breaking way, said she

girl,
thought she would better commit some crime in
in
order to procure a place in the

rection, for there she
House
of Cor-
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
there not something
wrong
in a
of this
Is
system of things
that permits the authorities of the State or city

to enter into competition with the
of
sewing-women
Boston at such a cruel and heartless rate

*
that no
woman
can work at
prison, unless she
is
it
and keep out
assisted
by charity?
same South Boston firm gives out men's
to be
made
rial for
at sixty cents a dozen.
of
This
shirts
The mate-
one of these shirts costs twenty-three
WHITE SLAVES
42
cents, the
making
a total of twenty-
five cents
these shirts at fifty
eight cents.
They
cents apiece,
making a net
retail
profit of
twenty-two
cents on an investment of twenty-eight cents

for a few weeks' time.
During the
few weeks,
last
have gone
ears have been
as I
about among these women, my

haunted with that old song of Thomas Hood,
now, in the
as appropriate
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
With
With
greed.
fingers
eyelids
A woman
weary and worn,

heavy and red,
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
It's,
through the roof
oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never

If this is Christian
work
a soul to save,
!

"
Work
work
work
"
43
swim
work
work
heavy and dim
Till the eyes are
stitch
Stitch
SWEATEES
Till the brain begins to
Work
"
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
It
seems so
like
Because of the
O God
And
"
My
and blood so cheap
work
work
are
its
crust of bread
wages ? A bed of straw,

and rags,
and
That shattered roof
labor never flags;
And what
fast I keep:
that bread should be so dear,
flesh
Work
my own
my own
table
And
a wall so blank
For sometimes
" Work
this
naked
floor
a broken chair
work
my shadow
thank
falling there!
work
From weary chime to chime

Work work work
As prisoners work for crime! "
!
If
Thomas Hood had
lived in our day,
could have gone around with
me
and
in Boston,
he
WHITE SLAVES
44
would have had
among us
work
oners
make
to
stronger yet. for
it
sewing-woman must
the good, honest
at least one-third harder than the " pris-
work
the prayer with which
forever unanswered
"Oh
And
for crime."
on such wages
he continues must be
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,
knew
the woes of want,

the walk that costs a meal
Before
And
" 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
With
fingers
eyelids
A woman
weary and worn,

heavy and red,
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!
"
this
She
of the
sang
Song
Shirt."
II
LETTER OF CRITICISM
Slavery ain't
o'
nary
color,
'Tain't the hide that
All
it
makes
it
wus,
keers fer in a feller
'S jest to
make him
fill
its
pus."
Biylow Papers.
II
LETTER OF CRITICISM
BOSTON, June
REV. Louis ALBERT BANKS,
St.
29, 1891.
John's M. E. Church,
South Boston, Mass.
Dear
Sir
In
preached yesterday, the

is
newspapers,
sermon which
the
as
title,
"The White
you
given in the
Slaves
of Boston
Under the fourteenth amendment
Sweaters."
United States there

"
"
such thing as slave in this country.
to the Constitution of the
can be
iio
Under the
decision of
Judge Parsons there has
not been a slave in Massachusetts since the
adoption of the Constitution.
I therefore vent-
ure to ask you some questions.

1.
slave
How
"
dition
2.
do
when
you
the
term
" white
applied to the persons whose con-
you describe
"Climb
justify
three flights to an attic suite of
two rooms, and there one would find a mother

and five children " doubtless in very bad condi47
WHITE SLAVES
48
tion
the mother trying to support
tenement doubtless very bad.
demn
the
tenement,
pull
them
the
Suppose we
con-
down,
then
it
these people would have no roof over their

heads.
Is no roof better than some kind of a
Suppose we refuse
roof?
pants
3.
Is no
work
The mother
by making
"
make
to trust her to
better than some
work ?
earns her living, or part of
pants."
Pants made
in this
it,
way
are sold at a very low price at retail, after being
subjected to the
customary way.
this
business.
cost
of
There
is
distribution
in
the
great competition in
That competition leads every
to pay the highest wages that can be

recovered from the sale of the pants, also allow-
employer
ing the sweater's charge.

is
advanced on
be sold at
all
If the cost of
and the woman would get no work.

better than some work ?
4.
The sweater
deals as a
not deal with this kind of work,
than
Is no
work
middleman with
the manufacturer and the worker.
the
making
they cannot
then there would be no sweater,
this class of pants,
it
If
he did
would
cost
manufacturer more to reach the worker

it
does now;
no sweater would be em-
LETTER OF CRITICISM
ployed
49
he did not earn what he makes
if
then
the manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less for
making the
the
trade
pants, because he
will
bear.
If
it
now pays
cost
reach the worker, he must pay
we
him more
less.
to
Suppose
abolish the sweater, or middleman, then he
would not
distribute the work,
be no work.
5.
all that
Is that better
Suppose
this
and there would
than some work
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
without having
entitled to go with her
in this country
been sent back,
she
is
children to the almshouse, where suitable shelter,
clean rooms, and good food would be pro-
vided.
Is it better for her to try to support Tier
children under existing conditions than
to
go
to
the almshouse ?
an ample supply of money available for purposes of true charity.

Does not true
7.
There
is
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,
WHITE SLAVES
50
them under the conditions
or to give alms to
the almshouse
Which
course would be most
sure to pauperize them utterly?

" slave "
8. The use of the term
slave-owner and a slave-driver.

of
the
(1)
which
the
is
the
is
implies a
In this series
sweater or
manufacturer, (2) the
middleman, and (3)

Tier children, which
working-woman with
the slave-owner and
slave-driver
Under what au-
thority does the slave-master force this

to render her labor for all that
If her
9.
work
can she not get
little
woman
worth?
it is
worth more than she
gets,
it ?
inquiry into
clothing trade,
fact,
is
of
the
condition of the
and some examination of the
to you that the poor sewingshe sews poorly, and that

because
poor
might disclose
woman
there
is
is
always a scarcity of skilful and
gent sewing-women, at
My
final
question
full
is,
intelli-
wages.
how do you
propose to
who are incapable of helping themwithout

selves,
pauperizing them yet more than
they are pauperized under their present conhelp those
What
ditions?
will
you do when you have
destroyed the house and done
sweater
away with the
LETTER OF CRITICISM
Are you
justified, as
creating a prejudice
a Christian minister, in
and arousing malignant
" slave ? "

passion by the use of the term
you defend or
51
justify this term,
Can
under the con-
ditions that are reported, as they are stated in
the printed report of your sermon

I
venture to put these questions to you be-
cause I think that the dangerous class in this
found among persons who,

without intelligence, create animosity, and by
community
their
is
method
to be
of preaching tend to retard rather
than to promote the progress of the poor and

ignorant in this country.
Very
sincerely yours,
Ill
REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON "THE

SWEATERS "
61
Freedom's secret wilt tbou know

Counsel not with
flesh
and blood
Loiter not for cloak or food
Right thou
feelest,
?
;
rush to do."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Freedom.
Ill
REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON " THE WHITE

SLAVES OF THE BOSTON SWEATEES "
the scores of thankful letters
which
AMONG
have received, commenting on the discourse on " The White Slaves of the Boston
I
Sweaters," there
one of an entirely different
is
character, written by a distinguished writer on

social questions, a
gentleman for
whom
have
should
always entertained the highest respect.
be very glad to give the name of the author of
I
this letter
but as
cannot, in honor,
it
do
is
marked " personal,"
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
critic
it
in
this
public
begins by assailing the
course.
He
says:
title
way.
My
of the dis-
"In the sermon which you

55
WHITE SLAVES
56
preached yesterday, the
newspapers
Sweaters.'
'
is
title
as given in the
The White Slaves
Under
of the
the fourteenth
to the Constitution of the
Boston
amendment
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."
Judge Parsons
who
is
Wonderful
able, by the magic
wand
of his decision, to unshackle all the slaves
under the cruel whip of necessity,
who,
more un-
than any slave-driver's lash,

have
sweated under the burdens imposed by avarimerciful
cious
task-masters in
every city of the com-
monwealth.
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?
every black
coln's
man
liberated
proclamation,
there
Ay, indeed! for

by President Linis,
to-day, a white
man robbed and degraded and

some gigantic
brutalized by
trust or other equally soulless,
unfeeling, corporate power.
For every mother whose heart was broken by
REPLY TO A CRITICISM
57
having her children wrenched from her arms in

the African slave-market, there is a white
mother, whose very soul
crushed at the sight
is
For every
of her hungry, ragged, little ones.
black babe torn from

iniquitous system
of our great cities
future
My
is
mother's breast by the
first
'
term
the persons
answer
have a white
white slave
whose
is
question
"
is,
'
whose
child,
very simple.
How
when
condition
do you
applied to
you describe?"
widow with
If a
who cannot go out
children to care for,
little
slums
equally dark and hopeless.
critic's
justify the
My
its
of negro slavery, the
and
to do other kinds of work,
work eighteen hours a day
is
compelled to
for fifty cents,
and
dares not give this up for fear of starvation to
her children,
tell
is
not a slave, then will somebody
me what element
slavery
is
make
to
lacking
The second question
is
as follows
"
'
Climb
two rooms, and

a mother and five chil-
three flights to an attic suite of
there one
dren,'
would
doubtless
mother trying
find
in very
to support
doubtless very bad.
bad condition
them
the
the tenement
Suppose we condemn the
WHITE SLAVES
58
then these people

will have no roof over their heads.
Is no roof
tenement,
pull
it
down,
A TENEMENT-HOUSE
COUKT.
better than some kind of a roof?
refuse to trust her to

better than some
work
make pants
?
"
Suppose we
is
no work
KEPLY TO A CRITICISM
To
the
first
59
part of this question, relating to
the roof of this bad tenement house, I answer
frankly
Yes,
no
roof
at
woman, working
is
This
better.
starvation-wages,
poor
fur-
is
nishing 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
regards not man.
If
we condemn
God and
this disease-
will not be a question of

breeding death-trap,
"
"
this woman having
no roof
over her head,
it
but she
may have
a decent roof, with healthful,
sanitary regulations, at a less rent than she
and
now
pay an honest interest on the

investment to the landlord. As to the second
pays,
still
" Is no
part of the question,
some work
"
is
does not dare to put
it
that way.
question of no work, or some work.

furnish this
rightful
woman some
wages
better than
not a fair putting of the

modern Christian civilization
that
Our
question.
work
is
not a
We
must
It
work, at such just and

and her chil-
as shall give her
dren bread to eat and raiment to put on, and a

decent, though it be humble, roof over their
heads.
WHITE SLAVES
60
We
mother earns her

pants.'
a very low
living, or a part of
Pants made in
ing
"
pass to our critic's third question
this
great competition in
is
way
The
by mak-
are sold at
price at retail, after being subjected
to the cost of distribution in the
There
it,
customary way.
4:his
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
advanced on
is
they cannot be sold at all

then there would be no sweater, and the woman
this class of pants,
would get no work. Is no work better than

"
some work?
The trouble with a great deal of
that
this
is,
and
in its
it is
incorrect both in
It
is
its
premise
indeed true that
reasoning.
great competition in the clothing business, but it is not true that the result of this
there
is
competition leads every employer to pay the

highest wages that can be recovered from the
sale of the pants.
It is also a
ment
if
to
make, that
the cost
remarkable stateis
advanced, then
more pants made. Can my

believe that the whole of mankind
there will be no
critic really
would suddenly go "pantless"
if
the price for
REPLY TO A CIUTICISM
making them were
61
raised to a point
where the
sewing-woman could make a decent living

is
also
a curious statement to
there were no sweater, the
The sweater
work."
institution,
It
that " If
woman would
get no
a comparatively recent
devoutly believe an institution

Before the sweater came to be a
and
of the devil.
is
make
woman had work,

now receives. The
factor in the situation, the
and
better pay than she
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 ap-
pointed 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
"
The sweater
is
deals as a
similar to the third
middleman with the
manufacturer and the worker.
If
he did not
WHITE SLAVES
62
deal with this kind of work,
it
would
cost the
manufacturer more to reach the worker than
it
No
sweater would be employed if

he did not earn what he makes.
Then the
does now.
manufacturer, or clothier, could pay less for
the worker, he
cost
If it
must pay
abolish
the
sweater,
would
not
distribute
him more
all
the
to reach
Suppose we
less.
middleman, then he
or
would be no work.
work ?
now pays
pants, because he
making the
trade will bear.
the
work,
and
there
Is that better than some
"
have already answered

It is not correct that
part.
I
question in
this
it
would
cost the
manufacturer more to reach the worker without

the sweater than with him.
lous to suppose that
It is
the sweater were abol-
if
ished there would be no work.

for clothing
would be
just the
sweater as with him.
also ridicu-
The demand
same without the
Besides that, everything
away from the people

work, and removes him from contact
that takes the employer
who do
his
with them,
to
is
a bad thing, and always bodes
any harmonious
labor.
am
relation
satisfied
ill
between capital and
that
there are
proprie-
Boston
in
tors
around with me, and

poverty and
who
are
ple,
they could go
if
as I have seen, the
the sweaters' slaves
would revolt
their goods,
whole
who comes
system.
is,
is
only the
with these peo-
It
in contact
and the sweater
avaricious,
see,
suffering of
making up
against the
sweater
who,
firms,
63
greedy and
as a rule,
and hardened against
all
humane
feeling.
We
this
pass to the
woman had
dren,
likely
question
and had stayed, perhaps,

better
it
is
"
Suppose
not come here with her chil-
Russia, instead of
here
fifth
coming
in Italy or in
here.
Is
some work
than no work in Italy ?

true that the
woman
here as she would be in Italy.
is
But
"
Very
as well off
is
Italy to
be the standard of our American civilization?

I
stood on a bridge over the Tiber, fronting the
famous
castle of St.
Sunday morning
in
Angelo in Rome, on a hot

July, and watched a com-
pany of people on a barge who were driving

There were about eighty
piles in the river.
men and women,
sexes
about
equally
and tugging away, in the hot

and
ropes
pulleys, in order to lift the
divided, pulling
sun, at
the
WHITE SLAVES
64
heavy iron hammer and drop it on the head of

In Boston there would have been a
the piling.
little
look
donkey engine, and one or two men to

it
all the crew that would have
after
SUNDAY ON NOliTU STREET.
been needed.
model?
setting
women.
off
Shall
we go back
to Italy for a
Furthermore, this Italian
up
a standard of life
It is
not enough to say she
here as in Italy.
We
mit the establishing of
woman
is
for all laboring

is
as well
cannot afford to perlittle
Italian
centres
which
Republic, with
throughout the
American laborer
in the land
65
every
must enter
into
No
matter where people came

competition.
from, nor what they have suffered in their
native land,
we
if
we permit them
to
come
to us,
are compelled, in sheer self-defence, to see
that they are treated fairly and justly, and re>
ceive a sufficient compensation for their toil to
support them in cleanliness, intelligence, and

morality.
" If
Question six raises a different problem
the mother cannot support the children,
being
now in this country, without having been sent
:
she
back,
is
entitled to go with her children
to the almshouse,
where suitable
shelter, clean
rooms, and good food will be provided.

better for her to
try
to
Is it
support her children,
under existing conditions, than to go to the alms"

It is, of course, better for the woman
house ?
to try to
is
for
support her children.
the sick
and helplessly
The almshouse
infirm.
Such
honor, without disgrace.

may go there
I doubt not there are men in the almshouse
in all
who have done more service to humanity than

many others who die amid luxury and wealth.
WHITE SLAVES
66
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

for
them
to
impossible
support themselves.
charity these people need or

" The
Christ
True,
it
want
It
not
is
it is justice.
poor ye have always
said,
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
makes charity necessary for a man or

woman who is able and willing to work.
that
The seventh question continues

thought with variations
supply of
charity.
money
"
:
There
this
is
an ample
available for purposes of true
Does not true charity consist
fusing to give alms to those
support themselves
who
them under the conditions
of
in
re-
can, or may,
Is it better to give
to these people, in their attic, or to give
What
same
alms
alms to
the almshouse
course would be most sure to pauperize
them utterly
self are in
"
For once,
my
critic
and my-
I believe it is better for
agreement.
one to partly support himself than not to do
67
anything towards it. Nothing is more demoralizing to any one than to become accustomed to
receive charity.
But, after all, you may pauperalmost

as rapidly in the attic as in
people
the almshouse.
It is against the whole system
ize
that I
that
make
it
is
war.
do not admit, for a moment,
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
showed plainly that the aprons
for
which the
seamstress received, net, one cent for making,

returned a profit of fifteen cents, on an invest-
ment 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

this
woman
toils
fifty
per cent profit while
sixteen hours a day to
make
forty-five cents.
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
I
on an investment of twenty-eight cents. I dc

not admit that competition is so stern that it is
necessary for this shirt manufacturer to
make
WHITE SLAVES
68
seventy-eight per cent profit while the
who works
for
him must beg
woman
assistance of the
Provident Association, or see her children cry

for bread.
Or, take the
mother
of
case
the
poor
finishes pants for the postal
girl,
whose
uniforms at
nine and one-half cents a pair, slaving eighteen
hours for
fifty -seven
cents
and
she, the
daughthe midst of the

day long,
physical and moral stench of a Jewish sweater's
shop, for sixteen and two-thirds cents. But she
ter,
is
toils
in
all
better off than the orphan
beside
whose condition
her,
girl that
some
poet
described :
" Left
there, nobody's daughter,
Child of disgrace and shame,
ever taught her
mother's sweet saving name.
Nobody
Nobody ever caring

Whether she stood
And men
(are they
With the
arts
or
men
fell,
?)
ensnaring
and the gold of
Stitching with ceaseless labor

To earn her pitiful bread
;
Begging a crust of a neighbor,
And
getting a curse instead
works
hell
has
All through the long, hot
69
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;
all of us all ignoring
But
What
There
whether
is
it
our door so near! "
lies at
nothing wholesome in the question

is
better to pauperize people a little
them altogether in
the almshouse. We ought not to pauperize them
A noble Christian woman, who has a
at all.
young men's Bible class in the North End, and
in the attic, or to pauperize
who by her womanly
and Christian sympathy has gained the confidence of some of the

most hopeless cases in that section, told me that
tact
one of these boys said to her, "
Bay
folks
know
that
we
are
made
blood, they won't pauperize us
The eighth question

aspects
to
the
first
the
Back
and
of flesh
any longer."
returns in some of
"
When
The use
of
the
its
term
WHITE SLAVES
70
'
slave
'
implies
driver.
and a
slave-owner
In this series of
the
slave-
manufacturer,
sweater or middleman, and the workingwoman with her children, which is the slavethe
owner, and which
the slave-driver?
is
CLA11K
Under
MISSION.
what authority does the slave-master
force this
woman
that
to
worth?"
tion
first, I
render her labor for
all
it
is
Answering the last part of the queshave already shown that the woman
does not get
manufacturer,
all that
her work
is
who makes from
worth.
The
seventy-eight
to a
hundred and
larger proportion
fifty
of
per cent
71
profit, gets a far
the profits
than rightly
belongs to him.
Under
the sweating system, the sweater
is,
most emphatically, both the slave-master and

and no Georgia overseer was ever
slave-driver
;
more cruel than some of these sweater
task-
masters in Boston to-day.
Even
wretched wages they pay, they

any of their workers all the work
at the
will not give
they can do
they dole out the work to them,
make them think it is very scarce.

for higher pay, they are met at
ask
they
trying to
If
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
for the children while she
food,
and care
makes her search?
There are thousands of laboring people, both

in all our great cities, who are
men and women,
same condition that a majority of the

Israelites were when Moses came to them, and
in the
told
the marvellous
story of
his
talk
with
Jehovah, and painted before their dim eyes the
WHITE SLAVES
72
picture of the Canaan,
and recounted
to their
dull ears the promise of their deliverance from
"
indeed,
Pathetic,
bondage.
is
the
record,
They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish
of spirit
and
talk, as so
for cruel bondage."
many newspapers
It is idle to
as well as private
service
do, as though domestic
were the cure-all for these half-starving, under-
individuals
paid women.
who
great majority of the
women
are slaves to these sweaters, have families
depending on them, that are as

their hearts as are the children of more
of little children
dear to
fortunate
mothers to them.
Dr. Barnardo, of
London, who has had a most extensive ex-
among the poor, tells of a poor

with
a husband lying disabled in the
woman,
perience
hospital, earning her living

jobs, while she herself
by charing and odd
was receiving out-door

Driven at
hospital relief for physical debility.

last to accept assistance
from the relieving
offi-
cer, she hastened home, placed the bread and
meat on a
table,
and
fell
Dr. Barnardo was sent
body
of the
for,
dead of exhaustion.
and beside the dead
mother he was surprised,
he might be, to find
five well-fed,
as well
chubby
chil-
The
dren.
73
slum mother had
poor,
literally
starved herself to death that her children might

"
mother is
live
Truly, as Coleridge says,
"
and God never inthe holiest thing alive
tended that the almshouse or the orphan asylum

should be the only refuge held open for a
mother who
is
and willing
able
support her children.

In the ninth question our
work
is
get it?
little
work
gets,
to
" If her
critic says:
worth more than she
to
can she not
inquiry into the condition of
the clothing trade and some examination of the

facts
you that the poor sewpoor because she sews poorly,
might disclose
ing-woman is
and that there
is
to
always a scarcity of skilful
and intelligent sewing-women, at full wages."

The more thorough my examination into the
facts of the case, the
the sweating system
clothing trade, as
it
more
is
am
convinced that
demoralizing the entire
will every trade
Whether the woman sews poorly

does not, in any class she
ceive the wages to
The conclusion
think,
as
may
which she
of
my
is
it
touches.
or not, she
be placed,
re-
entitled.
critic's
letter
remarkable as anything in
it.
is,
He
WHITE SLAVES
74
u
says
My
final
question
pose to help those
who
is,
how do you
pro-
are incapable of helping
themselves, without pauperizing them yet more

than they are pauperized under their present
What will you do when you have
conditions ?
NOliTH
destroyed the
sweater?"
question
To
END JUNK SHOP.
house and done away with the

this
part
simply say,
and pay honest wages

the critic continues
"
:
of
the
will be
concluding
a
Christian),
for honest work.
Are you
But
justified, as
75
creating prejudice
and
arousing malignant passion by the use of
the
minister, in
Christian
term
'
slave
Can you defend
or justify this
term under the conditions as they are stated in

I venture
the printed report of your sermon ?
to
put these questions to you because
that the dangerous class in this

to be
I think
community
found among persons who, without
is
intelli-
gence, create animosity and, by their method of

preaching, tend to retard rather than to pro-
mote the progress of the poor and ignorant in

this country."
My
answer to
minister, I
ing
in
am
the
that
all
that, as a Christian
is,
a follower of
midst
of
the
of
His times, exclaimed,
wealthy oppressors
" Woe unto
you, Pharisees
and rue and
all
Him, who, standself-satisfied and
manner
for ye tithe
of herbs,
judgment and the love
and pass over
God."
of
mint
And
who,
standing in the audience of all the people, said

unto His disciples, " Beware of the Scribes
which devour widows' houses, and
make long prayers

greater
presence
damnation
of
the
"
;
the
same
who,
for a
shall
standing
lawyers, cried
aloud,
show
receive
in
the
"
Woe
WHITE SLAVES
76
unto you, also, ye lawyers for ye lade men

with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye
!
touch not
yourselves
burdens with one
the
your fingers." I am a follower of

who came " not to send peace on the
Him
of
an
All
but a sword."
infernal
earth,
of
system
oppression, like the sweating system, asks,

to be
To uncover
let alone.
like turning over a

in
atrocities
been
has
hiding-place
for bugs and worms that nest away
dark.
As soon
as the
is
meadow
huge stone in the
that
springtime,
its
is
the
in
hot, searching sunlight
them, they will wriggle and squirm in

agony until they can crawl under cover again.
finds
So
do not wonder
to
light,
friends wriggle
and shame.
critic, as
when
the tenement-house
cruelty of
brought
that,
the
am
hideous
sweat-shop
and
sweater
and squirm
Neither
the
in
an agony of fright
alarmed that
a type of conservatism, regards
member
of the
community.
It
most dangerous
was ever
is
his
all
thus.
this
me
as
class in the
The
old anti-
slavery agitators were considered the most dan-
gerous
men
in the republic,
and
remember
that a very distinguished minister once bitterly
77
regretted the agitation on the evils of slavery,
because he feared
it
would destroy the prospect
HOME OF THE MATHERS.

for a revival of religion in the city
where he
lived.
If to
be a Christian minister
is
to stand as a
WHITE SLAVES
78
policeman to hold back the righteous indignation of the robbed and degraded laborer, or
preach
and
then
of
fat
to
empty
that the sweater
on the
toil of
stomachs,
rich
and contentment
patience
Christian minister
may grow
orphans and widows,

as beneath the dignity
spurn the title

but if, as
my manhood
empty
is
take
to be like
my
it,
be a
to
Master, the
brother of all men, rich or poor, standing
ever as the unflinching
and
injustice
enemy
of
for-
oppression
wherever found, as the friend and
advocate of the defenceless and the weak, then

I
am proud
of the title,
unspeakable privilege.
and thank God
for
its
IV
"Can
the heart be deformed, and contract
incurable
and infirmity under the pressure of disproportionate

misfortune, like the spine beneath too low a vault?"
ugliness
VICTOR HUGO: Les Miserables.
IV

Klamath Lake Indians
a strange
THE
their dead.
roof
it
in
and weird fashion
They
Oregon have
of
mourning
dig a hole in the ground, and
over with willows, which they cover with
forming a sort of underground cabin. In

case of death in the family, the relatives go
into this dug-out, which is called a " sweatdirt,
and heated rocks are brought in and

heaped in the centre of the lodge, and water
sprinkled over them, so as to fill the room with
lodge,"
stearn.
In
the
midst
of
this
steam-heated,
poisonous air the family hover around their
heap of rocks, and sweat for days at a time,
memory
When
up
in
of their departed friends.
the mourning days are over, they heap
into a cairn beside the sweat-lodge the stones
that have been used, as a
dead.
81
monument
to their
WHITE SLAVES
82
But
which
that, after
is
all,
only a brief torture
is
constantly lightened
soon over, and
by the hope
modern civilization
The sweat-lodge
a much more
of relief.
matter.
is
is
The tortured
there, are not
victims
mourning
who
of our
serious
are suffering
for their dead friends,
but for the living, and in the dark night of

their sorrow there is no promise of a brighter
dawn.
The word " sweater"

Anglo-Saxon word
derives
swat,
its
origin from the
and means the separafrom others, for
tion or extraction of labor or toil
own
one's
benefit.
Any
person
who employs
them surplus labor without compensation, is a sweater. A middlemansweater is a person who acts as a contractor of
others to extract from
such labor for another man.
The
position be-
comes aggravated when the middleman-sweater,

as
is
usually the case in the
modern sweat-shop,
employs the labor himself, at his
own
house,
for the purpose of extracting a double quantity
of labor, either
by lowering wages or working
longer hours.
An
the
English writer gives this definition of
sweating
system
"One whereby
the

middleman
tries to
get the largest profit, with
the least labor and outlay, out of the

labor
the poor
"
gives three
who grinds the

man who contributes
First, one
second, a
face of
neither
nor speculation, and yet gets a

Still another
a middleman."
third,
describes
fair
maximum
skill,
capital,
profit
Another
workers."
of his
definitions
83
it
wages.
payment
of un-
in the days of
Queen
as a systematized
Away
back
Anne
the term " sweater" was given to a certain
class
of
street
about in
small
The sweaters went
ruffian.
bands,
and,
forming a
circle
around an inoffensive wayfarer, pricked him

with their swords, and compelled him to dance
till
he perspired from the exertion.
is still
a ruffian, though the street
The sweater
is
no longer
the scene of action, but, in some attic or tene-
ment-house
bedroom, he
gathers
his
victims
from the poorest and most helpless of our population.

It is
my
purpose,
first
of all this morning, to
show you something of the growth and development of the sweat-shop in England. It is
reasonable for us to suppose that,
it
will
if left
to itself,
produce the same general results in this
WHITE SLAVES
84
country that
has there.
it
Fortunately
we have
an abundance of data upon which to form our

conclusions.
There are in the Boston Public Library five

ponderous volumes containing the evidence
taken before a commission, appointed by the
English House of Lords, to examine into the

sweating system of Great Britain.
I
to
think
know
it is
well for American laboring-men
that this evidence puts beyond ques-
tion the fact that the sweating business, while

it
may begin with
means ends
"
there.
the
clothing trade, by no
"The plague
of the sweat-
not something of interest to the tailors

and sewing-women only, but is of equal impor-
shop
is
tance to
workers
of
every
Take the
class.
matchbox trade; before the sweating days, the

people who worked at it received two and threefourths
tractors let
Now
a gross.
pence
and
sub-let until
a half pence a gross, and a

of children
have to work
the
it is
large con-
only one and
woman and
all
the
week
a family
to
make
four or five shillings.
The
driven
fur trade in Europe

into
Whitechapel
has been
largely
sweaters'
shops.

They
call the
85
sweater in this business a " cham-
ber master," and in these foul chambers, in the
midst of " bad smells, great heat, no ventilation,
and
fetid refuse,"
men and women
swelter and
THE PEA NUTTER.

die,
the
men
women about
The
exempt.
is
the
getting
five
cabinet
ten
shillings,
shillings a
and
and the
week.
upholstery
trade
is
not
Sub-contracting here, as in clothing,

first
step
in
sweating.
shows that sweating began in
The evidence
this business as
WHITE SLAVES
86
early as 1855, but has rapidly increased under
pauper
from
immigration
Much
since 1880.
garrets and
cellars,
of the
and Russia
Italy
work
is
crowded into
where there are no sanitary
arrangements. So universally is this so, that

the sweater in this business is called a " garret
master."
Wages have been brought down,
from forty
eighteen to
to
fifty
twenty
shillings a week, to
shillings.
The boot and shoe
trade has had the same
Large numbers
history.
from
ployed in this work.
of foreigners are
The workers
em-
are kept in
ignorance of the language and under surveillance, so as to be taken advantage of. They are
not instructed in the more skilled work, and,
to use the
words of one of the witnesses, " are
too crushed to resist."
work from eighteen
Wages
in these
fifteen shillings a
They
are compelled to
twenty hours a day.

sweat-shops are from ten to
to
week.
In Sheffield, the great cutlery manufacturing

city,
woman
same
system is prevailing, and a

whose business was awl-blade grinding,
the
a strong
woman
of forty-five years of age, testicould only make six and a half

shillings per week.
fied that she
87
Military harness and accoutrements are also
made by the
Many workmen
sweaters.
only three pence an hour,
they cannot live on
same condition.
gether make
The
it.
earn
and complain that

nail trade
man and
is
in the
wife working to-
Women's
thirteen shillings a week.
earnings average from three shillings and a half

to six shillings per week.
Large numbers of
earn
three
Boys and
women
shillings a
week
are only able

at this
to
business.
girls are paid, in a sweater's chain-
shop, one-half
penny per hour.

witness from Glasgow testified
to the clothing shops of that city
among
the
money, a
alive
end
till
sweaters
shilling,
week
give
in regard
" It
the
is
a rule
men some
every night, to keep them
the next day.
of the
to
Some
of the
men
at the
are actually in debt instead of
having anything coming to them. When in

debt, they do not, as a rule, come back, but go
to another sweater.
The men never actually
get any wages, but are in debt from one year's
end till another. All independence is taken
out of the
power."
men
they are always in the sweater's
WHITE SLAVES
88
"
from Leeds says
Wages are
a starvation level, and workmen at
witness
driven to
piece-work compelled to excessive

the employers
hours.
If
good workman, who
find a
is
earning good wages by piece-work, they try to

reduce prices. Time work is healthier, but no
one would believe
how
men
the
are driven in
shops where time-work exists."
Another
gentleman, testifying
about
his
Glasgow, tells of a place he

where a sweater had between forty and
investigations in
visited,
women employed
fifty
an old boiler shed, a
in
disused part of an engineer's shop
had
to get to
had
to
it
by
three
enter the workroom.
common
the
women
ladders,
and
go through a joiner's shop in order to
accommodation
is
wooden
There was no sanitary
for these
women anywhere.
It
practice for sweaters to take on
learners, that
is
to say, to
employ young girls

machine part of
for a certain time to learn the
the
work
six
weeks or
time,
if
but they get no wages for say
five or
two months, and after that

competent, they receive two or three
shillings per
so, or
week.
But the
soon as the busy season

all these girls
is
sweater's trick, as
over,
is
to discharge
and take on a new batch.

The
practical slavery to
89
which the laboring-
people, by the sweating system, have been de-
graded, is illustrated on almost every page of

One witness testifies " They do
the evidence.
:
The
almost as they like with their victims.
people are afraid to give evidence against them.
One
The sweater
is
woman I came
across says she has not been paid
for
law unto
himself.
her work done some three years ago, on
some
trivial pretext
which the sweater made.
Another deducted a whole week's work from a
woman's wages because she was ten minutes

late, and so aggravated the people in the neighborhood that they smashed his windows, showing the state of things between the sweater and
his people."
As one would
naturally expect, moral degra-
dation keeps pace with the outrage upon the

rights of the laborer.
It is
claimed that the
Jewesses, who have always had the most unblemished character of any
women
in the
world, are
being ruined in the sweat-shops of London, where

they are herded together with all classes of men
way which renders morality and decency

next to impossible. One witness bears this ter-
in a
WHITE SLAVES
90
" The
sweating system, in which
testimony
you have young girls working with men of all
rible
and
nationalities,
of all degrees of intelligence,
conduces to their being later on, and they are
my
mostly, to
Most
of the
certain knowledge, prostitutes.
young English
girls
whom we
can
see in the Strand
and Oxford Street
been, tailoresses,
and the conditions conduce
are, or
have
to
that effect."
So great and wide-spread
is
this
question of
the increase of immorality in England, under

the reign of the sweat-shop, that a barrister-at>
law, Mr.
entitled,
its
Wm.
Thompson, has written a novel\

The Sweater's Victim," which has for
"
burden the ruin of
girls
"
through the plague
of the sweat-shop."
It is easy to say,
things you
Old World
to the
is,
"
Oh, well, these horrible
are telling us about 'belong to the

"
I would to God
they did belong
Old World
alone, but the horrible truth
that this vicious system
that has
run
its
roots
is
like a banyan-tree
under the
sea,
and
is
coining up, and blossoming, and flourishing in

all our great American cities.
Listen to this
description of the slaves of the sweat-shop in
New
91
New York Herald
York, given by the
" In the lower

portion of the great east side of
this city, are
hundreds of
tall,
ill-appearing ten-
ement houses, in which thousands of half-starved,

sunken-eyed men and women are crowded into
gether.
working day and

keep body and soul toenough
Scattered among the workers are dirty
children,
and sometimes
small, foul, over-heated rooms,

to
night for just
cats
and dogs.
Every-
thing in these places has to stand aside for work.
work, work, work, day and night, year in

In these over-crowded rooms the
out.
It is
and year
air is
the
poisoned with the heat from the stoves,
steam from the cooking, and the fumes

and gas. Very few of the toilers can
of oil
speak English.
looking,
America.
They
are the
miserably paid
They
class
are foreigners,
from Russia and Poland.

into their lives.
No
most wretchedof
workers in
and come
chiefly
sunshine enters
Their existence
is
one hard,
deep, grinding
They have no hope of
As they have worked
brighter days to come.
toil.
for years, so they expect to
work
But the sweater does not
care.
contracts with the manufacturers.
in the future.
He
has his
Every day
WHITE SLAVES
92
great bundles of clothing are

dens,
dumped
and then the slaves are driven
into these
at full-speed
A SWEAT-SHOP.
to
make them
the sweater
up.
is
keen, but
makes money."
The Journeymen
its fifth
Competition
Tailors' National Union, in
annual report, describes in detail one

of these
New York
93
sweat-shops, similar to those
which the recent commission, appointed by the

Governor of Massachusetts, found to be the
manufactories of enormous quantities of clothing for Boston firms
"
:
was occupied by two

6
or
sweater,'
front room,
at work,
ing,
On the
families,
who made
8x16
ft.,
first floor,
was a contractor,
In the
overcoats.
men were
man press-
eight full-grown
some on sewing-machines, a
and others
which
They were hollow-
finishing.
cheeked and cadaverous.
Trousers and under-
were their only apparel. In the rear room,

9x14, were six other men, almost identical in
shirts
appearance with those in the front.

working as if for dear life.
" This
place
filthiness.
was simply indescribable
The only household
cernible (for the contractor

in the rooms),
All were
and
furniture dis-
his family lived
were a bedstead and a
crib in one of the
two dark,
in its
child's
so-called bedrooms.
Bedding and overcoats were piled up together.

The floors were four inches deep with dirt
and cotton battings and scraps of linings. The

ceilings and woodwork looked as though they
had not seen a brush since the house was built
WHITE SLAVES
94
Water from the
years ago.
leaked through the
make no
difference.
floor
ceiling, but
One
above had
seemed
it
to
stove was used by
the pressers and the cook.
It did not appear
any regular meal hour. There

was a table littered with dirty dishes, morsels
that there was
of
food,
and scraps
of coats.
One man was
seated, eating out of a dish with his fingers,
without the aid of spoon, knife, or fork. As

as he had finished, he merely wiped
soon
his
hands on some
ceeded with
his
batting,
and pro-
The poor
creatures
cotton
work.
were haggard and apparently
stupid.''
What
wonder ?
Dr. George C. Stiebling, of New York, who
accompanied the recent Boston investigating
committee, says, in an affidavit made after a

careful investigation, that the New York sweat"
shops in which clothing is manufactured, and
which serve at the same time as dwelling-rooms

and boarders, are
for the bosses, their families,
overcrowded, ill-ventilated, over-heated, full of

dirt,
filth,
vermin and stench, and
that, conse-
quently, they are in a most unwholesome, health-
destroying and disease-breeding condition."
The
95
doctor, speaking of one particular case, says:

" On the fourth floor I found four
very
small rooms, occupied by five sewing-machines,
twenty-four working hands, and the family of

the boss consisting of himself, wife, and five
The mother reported
living children.
that, within the last
few
to affiant
years, six of her chil-
dren had died of various diseases here in the
same place." Relying upon these and other

facts, which he relates, the Doctor declares it to
be his deliberate conclusion, as a medical man,
that u the dust,
filth,
and
dirt,
accumulated in
the 'sweating dens' he has visited and examined, contain the
tious
diseases,
germs of the prevailing infecsuch as diphtheria, scarlatina,
measles, erysipelas, and smallpox, and that the
clothing manufactured in these shops is impregnated with such germs, and consequently may
transmit and spread the aforesaid diseases to
persons
who handle and wear
These places referred to in

Dr. Stiebling,
who
is
it."
this
affidavit
by
a wealthy and respectable
medical practitioner, are places where goods are

made almost exclusively for Boston houses.
Another physician of standing and repute,
96
WHITE SLAVES
Dr. Markierez,
who made an
investigation of
the sweating district, in connection with a com-
mission from the advisory board of the operative tailors of Boston, in
New
that the section of
August, 1889, states

York city in which
clothing manu-
the tenement-house system of

facture
vermin
is
;
carried on,
is
and he further
filthy
and infested with
affirms that the sanitary
condition of these tenement houses

that the
death rate
is
frightful
is
so
low
and almost
beyond comprehension.
That the sweating system in New York degrades the men and women employed in the
may be inferred from the fact that

men and women to the number of twelve have
sweatshops,
been found sleeping together in one of these

The tenement-house factories are
workrooms.
crowded that no such thing as privacy or

modesty, on the part of men or women, is possi-
so
ble
the usual water-closet
is
wooden bucket
upon every landing, which fills the

vile and death-breeding stench.
The New York
sweaters, like
take
air
some
with
its
of their
advantage of the
newly arrived foreigners who do not under-
English
prototypes,

stand the language.
97
Green hands, who have
just arrived at Castle Garden, are pure gold for
the contractors.
Full-grown
will receive, probably,
two
men among
dollars a week, but
one case was discovered where a
man was
only
four-
paid eighty cents for his week's labor.
was found
teen-year-old boy
these
in a
Jewish sweat-
shop, who, although he had been in the shop
eight months, was

If
still
receiving only his board.
that is not slavery, what is it ?

But now let us come to Boston.
To
begin
Mullen, State Inspector of factories
and workshops, testified, before the committee
with,
I.
S.
on public health, of the Massachusetts Legislature, on the 30th of last March, that he had
found two places in Boston as bad as anything

he had seen in New York. How much that
means, you can imagine, after the descriptions
I have given.
The
State inspectors of factories
buildings, in their report to Chief
and public
Wade
of the
Massachusetts district police, say that " the confidential clerk of
perhaps the largest concern in
town assured us that but a small part of their

goods were made in New York, and that in
WHITE SLAVES
98
shops
Boston
that all of their nice

;
work was done
clothing, but thought the greater part of
worn
in
New
PAUL,
York, and wished that
as
well as
believed that
some
relatively
tenement-house work
New
others
was
This gen-
done
questioned,
was
there
York, and under nearly
conditions."
its
it
manu-
REVERE HOUSE, NORTH SQUARE.
facture could be prohibited by law.
tleman,
in
admitted the fact of tenement-house
in
as
as
much
Boston as in
unwholesome

The Boston Evening Record,
29, 1890,
"
September
speaks as follows of Boston sweating
The shops
proper, and a
are
over the
scattered all
visit to
one
is
cheapest shop in the city
The work
Street.
of
99
is
a visit to
is
all.
city
The
on lower Hanover
done in a square, low-
studded room about twenty-four feet square.
Within
men
this space are sixteen
women and
three
There are also half a dozen sew-
at work.
ing-machines, a large stove (kept in full blast to
heat the flat-irons, necessary at every stage of

clothing manufacture), two pressing-machines,
and
Two windows
piles of unfinished clothing.
illumine the room, furnishing light for the nine-
Working hours
teen workers.
A. M. to six P. M., with
are
from seven
no clipping of time at
The proprietor is a
end of the day.
Hebrew. One of the operatives thus describes
either
the
life
4
:
We
make from two
dollars
and a
depending on how
but none of us can make the last
half to four dollars a week,
strong
we
are,
figure very long.

is
kept too hot.
The
air is bad,
In the warm,
is
a cut-down,
summer days
the
Every little while

and about once in so often
heat was something awful.

there
and the room
WHITE SLAVES
100
the boss
fails,
and leaves the
girls in the lurch
about their pay.

"
"
" Another bad
sample game.
thing is the
small lot of garments are brought in, which,
;
we
are told,
We
are
must be made up very carefully.

made to rip, and do work over, to suit
the notions of the big firms,
who want
ments to send out on the road.

as long to
more
for
make such
it.
It takes twice
a coat, but
Of course the game
us
when
we
accidentally scorch the cloth a
ing,
and
to
pay
officer of the
number
for that.'
get no
played on
but
this does
tenement-house
shops
little,
If
in press-
'
Operatives'
of sweat-shops in
fifty,
is
we
the coats are not really samples.
we have
An
the gar-
Union puts the
Boston at one hundred
not include the smaller

that
are
beginning to
develop here very rapidly.

I have, myself, visited a
number
during the past few weeks.
of these shops
I will describe a
few of them very briefly. Here is one in two

rooms. There is no light except from the end of
the room, which contains twenty-three people,
men, women, and
some
of
little girls.
the girls
am
satisfied that
could not have been more
THE PLAGUE OF THE SWEAT-SHOP 101
One
than twelve or thirteen.
had a
of
the
women
baby which, though almost entirely

naked, was crying from the heat and poisonous
little
The
air.
place did not look as
if
it
had been
swept for weeks. The clothing, both finished

and unfinished, was piled up in every direction,
and workers walked over
with their sweaty

feet, for they wore only such clothing as was
The stench of the
absolutely indispensable.
it
was sickening in the extreme.

went into another place, where there were
place
I
eighteen
men and twelve
As near
girls.
as
could judge, the ages of the girls were from ten

to fifteen.
The men were nearly
all smoking,
with
the
heat
from
the fire
that, together
necessary for the pressing, made an atmosphere
that was almost intolerable, even for a few
and
moments.
was not astonished that the
girls
looked pallid and sickly.

filthy water-closet for
was
There was only one

men and women.
tenement-house Jew shop

and four boys were making knee
in a little
where a man
pants in a bedroom.
The
clothing was piled
upon the bed, which was one
of
the
filthiest
assortments of tenement-house bedding that
WHITE SLAVES
102
and that
have ever seen
The
saying a great deal.

visited was one in which
largest shop I
were
there
is
seventy-nine
occupied four rooms.
They
people
employed.
The rooms were
quite large, but were filthy almost beyond description.
The
coal
was piled up
in
huge heaps
REAR OF NORTH END TENEMENT HOUSE.
on the
floor; ashes,
were scattered about
made
clothing was flung over
and scraps
of cloth
a carpet for these rooms.
These
the floors everywhere

literally
both in barrels and heaps,
dirt
seventy-nine people were about evenly divided
103
between the sexes, and yet for all this herd of

humanity there was only one water-closet, the
door of which stood open, on the landing, and
the
the poisonous stench filled all the rooms
;
was damp and

woman or girl could work in
floor
about
it
tain her self-respect, I
How
filthy.
this shop,
any
and re-
do not understand.
estimated that at least twenty boys and girls of

one little boy
this company were under fifteen
;
sitting on the floor hard at work was almost

The men were smokcrying with a headache.
ing cigarettes here, as in other places, and this

added to the poisonous condition of the air.
The majority of these people could not speak

Taken altogether, they were a hopeEnglish.
less-looking lot.
hunted look in their
Remember,
or
New
month
of
Many
them had a
brutal,
faces.
this is not
Glasgow, or London,
York, but in the heart of Boston, in the

of June, 1891.
It is easy
to say that
and that they had

poor wages where they came from that they
are probably as well off here as they were at
these people are foreigners,
home, and that they are too ignorant and brutal

to suffer, as
more refined and cultivated people
WHITE SLAVES
104
would.
Putting
moment,
let
setting
up
all
other questions aside for a
us remember that these people are
a standard of living in our midst,
permitted to become established, will

dictate its cruel laws to all the laboring people
which,
in the
if
community.
COMMONWEALTH AVENUE.
If this
system
people living in
is
allowed to go on, there are
luxury,
who
are indifferently
pooh-poohing this whole question, whose grandchildren will be starved to death in a sweat-shop.
No
investment exacts such cruel usury as

indifference to injustice.
wrong, uncared
avenge
or
in
for
North
itself,
End tenement house
sooner or
later,
105
will
on Beacon Hill
Commonwealth Avenue.
thank God for every indication of discontent, on the part of laboring men and women, at
I
conditions which cramp or fetter the free utter-
ance of their
manhood
that divine discontent
Our own Lowell
sings
or
is
womanly
glory.
the hope of the race.
" The
hope of truth grows stronger day by day.
I hear the soul of man around me waking,
Like a great sea
its
And
to
flinging
up
frozen fetters breaking,
heaven
its
sunlit spray,
Tossing huge continents in scornful play,

And crushing them with din of grinding thunder
That makes old emptinesses
The memory
In
stare in wonder.
of a glory passed
away
Lingers in every heart, as in the shell

Kesounds the by-gone freedom of the sea.
And
every hour new signs of promise tell

That the great soul shall once again be free
For high and yet more high the murmurs swell
Of inward strife for truth and liberty."
;
THE RELATION OF WAGES TO

MORALS
" When the
toiler's
Conscience
He
is
heart you clutch,
not valued
much
recks not a bloody smutch
On
his gold ;
Everything to you he defers,
You
are potent reasoners ;
At your whisper Treason
stirs,
"
Hunger and Cold!
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
THE EELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS

Henry W.
WHEN
Southern
last visit,
orator,
the
Grady,
was
Boston on his
in
only a few weeks before his sad and
untimely death, he charmed us

word-picture
trancing
home.
brilliant
The
appointed
of
all
by his en-
happy
country
the lowing kine, the well-
fields,
farmhouse,
noble
the
farmer,
the
contented matron, the dutiful children, the hospitable
welcome
of
their
cheerful
guest, the
and reverent evening worship

all these and
more stand out on the glowing canvas under
his words, as I
life
have myself seen them in real

About such a home, and
a thousand times.
the toilers
glory.
that support
There
is,
it,
there
a halo of
however, a great deal said
about the dignity of labor which

more than oratorical commonplace
ingless froth of
is
the rhetorician.
109
is
nothing
the mean-
There
is
no
WHITE SLAVES
110
dignity about labor in
What
itself.
is
there
about piling bricks on top of each other, or
mixing
or sewing .blue
mortar,
denim
into
overalls, or trading earthen jars for nickel coin,
that has about
only as there
it
is
any inherent dignity ? It is

mixed with the mortar, or
builded with the bricks, the holy cement of a
moral purpose
only as there is stitched into

the cloth the diviner thread of hopeful love
;
only as the
deed gathers the aroma of an aspir-
human life, is it a dignified

But when you make of the laborer
ing
grade his
work
to a
mere
transaction.
a slave, de-
fight for bread, harass
him by continual debt, put him in a vile tenement house that smothers all holy ambition,
labor has no longer dignity,
it
smells rather of
dungeon and the pit.

Honest labor, continued through reasonable
hours, paid at a rate which assures a wholesome
the
support,
is
ennobling
but overwork, that
is
hopeless of comfortable reward, is degrading in

the
extreme.
On
the
continent of Europe,
where men and women work in the

for fourteen
and sixteen hours
factories
in a day,
laborers are reduced simply to machines.
the
They
RELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS
111
have a wooden look, when you meet them on

the streets, that is startling to an American
Every observant European
observer.
travelling
in this country notices the difference in the in-
THE FIND.
telligence of the average countenance of
ican
both among men and

But how long can we expect that to
working-people,
women.
last if the
in
Amer-
dominion of the sweater
our midst?
Reduce wages
where the laborer has
to either
is
to
to spread
the
point
remain at the
WHITE SLAVES
112
shop or take his work home and work into the

night, and drive it on through Sunday as well,
and you simply brutalize the workman.

It is idle, and pharisaical as well, for us
shrug our shoulders and say this
So intimate
tion for the pulpit.
to
not a ques-
is
is
the relation
between the body and the soul, that every question which has to do with the feeding or clothing of a
human body
moral question.
at the last analysis, a
is,
The great generals
of history
have understood that the moral force of their

armies depended largely
wagon.
"
Frederick
Where one
the
regard to the stomach."
The
Great
wrote
once
desires a solid basis for the
organization of an army,
"
upon the provision
it is
campaign no food
is
Napoleon once
his
good
necessary to have
soldier has his heart in
and Von Moltke adds
his
said:
"
abdomen
testimony
" In a
costly except that which
is
bad."
One
of the greatest of physiologists, Moles-
chott, says
"
Courage, readiness, and activity
depend in a great measure upon a healthy and

abundant nourishment.
Hunger makes heart
and head empty.
No
force of will can
make
DELATIONS OF WAGES TO MORALS
up
113
for an impoverished blood, a badly nour-
or an
ished muscle,
exhausted
All
nerve."
these tend to the one conclusion, that the moral
and intellectual
physiological
may
life is
very largely subject to
conditions.
of
course,
but,
on the
man,
be a scoundrel and well-fed
other hand, poor food and undue exposure to

cold and heat have
breaking
down
tremendous influence
the
resistance-power
in
against
temptation to evil. Courage is the safeguard

both of truth and honesty.
Break down a man's courage by overwork,
bad food, and poisonous
opened the
brood of
this
way
vicious
strongly
air,
and you have

and a whole
for lying, theft,
tendencies.
in
illustrated
You may
find
Hugo's story of
Jean Valjean, who in his despair begins his

criminal career by stealing a loaf of bread to
keep
his sister's children
from starving.
We
get so in the habit of thinking of drunkenness as the chief cause of poverty, as it un.
doubtedly
is,
for
when
man
drinks
to
excess his whole character falls to pieces like a

child's
house of cards,
to perceive, the
that
companion
we
forget, or fail
fact, that
poverty
is,
114
WHITE SLAVES
in turn, a great
and serious factor
in the spread
woman
physically ex-
of drunkenness.
When
man
hausted, there
or
is
a natural craving for stimu-
and the power
lant,
the lowest point,
is
if
of resistance is
not to zero.
It will not
for us to forget that the drink habit
symptom of
woman who
driven
are
ought
to
reduced to
is
do
often a
man and
exhaustion.
Here
receive such
low wages that they
are a
into
unhealthy quarters.
They
have four or five rooms in order to
the least approach
to
wholesome living
but
poverty herds them in two, or it may be only

one, for within the past month I have myself
many families of father and mother and as

many as five children packed into one little
room, in one case only seven by nine feet. The
seen
air is
poisonous
and, after the rent
is
paid, the
food-money is insufficient, and sickness is the

I do not mean that large numbers of
result.
people in Boston are literally starved to death
for lack of bread but I do mean that thousands
;
of
men and women and
children in this city are
compelled to eat such a quality of food that

the
result
is
condition
of
mind and body

which
subject to
is
an unsatiable thirst for
strong drink, and makes
who would
115
drunkards of those
otherwise be sober people.
company with two gentlemen I was examining a filthy court a few weeks ago, when, in
In
the rear of a bake-shop under a shed,
we
noticed
some curious machinery, and were looking at it

rather inquisitively when a young lad came up
out of the bakery in the
cellar,
and, in answer
to our inquiries, said in a matter-of-course
that
it
was a mill
for grinding old bread
stale crackers into flour,
way
and
which was again baked
This grade of
make a very nourishing food, but the
into a cheaper class of bread.

flour
may
incident left a most unpleasant
taste
in
my
mouth.
It
commonplace thing, I know, to say

that the American home is the strongest foris
tress of
our civilization.
It
is
one of those
things, however, that needs to be said over
over again.
there
Before
the
and
church or the state
must be the home.
Destroy
that,
the whole fabric of our civilization will
crashing to the ground in a
common
ruin.
and
come
But
the reduction of wages below the comfort point
WHITE SLATES
116
means,
inevitably,
home.
The
the
deterioration
father and mother
must know each
other,
if
the
of
the
and the children
home
is
to be
welded together with mutual love. Acquaintance of that character, however, requires that
THE NOilTH END

they shall be
that
they
MISSION.
together under such conditions
may come
to
enjoy the
gifts
and
talents that each possess.

But wages are being
reduced to the point where the home is only a
sleeping-barrack and a lunch-counter for supper
and breakfast.
Remember
that
poor wages
BELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS
mean long hours
117
and long hours that exhaust
mean ignorance
finished, means immo-
the energy of the laborer
all
and ignorance, when
it is
rality.
There
is
the average
only about so
human
put into one's daily
toil,
munion
at
worship.
vital force in
If all this
being.
conversation,
helpful
much
there
for
is
force
none
is
left for
com-
sympathetic
home, for uplifting reading, or for

Persevere in that course, and you
reach barbarism
Insufficient
the road faces that way.
wages have their relation
to the
demoralization of laboring-people in
that are not perceived by people
deeper than the surface.

organized firms
of
The
sharpers
many ways
who look no
city
abounds
in
who prey upon
the necessities of the hard-pinched laborer.
If
you will examine a copy of "The Banker

and Tradesman," published in this city, and
look down the column of chattel-mortgages,
for
any week, you will see a very innocentappearing column, to the unadvised, but one
that
is
who
has been behind the scenes.
full of
anything
in
devilish wickedness to a
Boston that can
man
If there be
rival the cruelty of
WHITE SLAVES
118
the tenement-house sweat-shop, you will find
dens of
in the
some chattel-mortgage sharks,
whose business methods
Here
is
woman who made
ing overalls
it
at five
have investigated.
her living by mak-
cents a
pair.
Times, of
Her huscourse, were always hard with her.

band was out of work a good part of the time.
At a period when they were in a specially hard
place, they
human
borrowed ten dollars
sharks.
month
They were
on
to
of one of these
pay two dollars
any time it ran

over two or three days and the interest was not
paid, so that the collector had to call for it, he
a
interest
it.
If at
charged and collected two dollars extra for callI should have stated that this money was
ing.
secured by a chattel-mortgage upon every article
of household furniture they possessed.
These
mortgages are ironclad, and put the people at

In the
the mercy of the man who holds them.
course of
fifteen
months, under cover of this
loan of ten dollars, this firm

forty dollars out of the
managed to squeeze
hard earnings of these
and then they came to foreclose the

mortgage and take away the furniture, and
people
would have removed every household
article
119
they possessed, had not the police-officer on the

beat, a man of noble heart and generous in-
stepped in and agreed to be responsible

Here is another
personally for the amount.
stincts,
case, all of the papers of
my
hands
A man
twenty dollars
which are now
and
his
in
my
wife borrowed
the firm charged two dollars for
making out the papers, so that the note read

twenty-two dollars. The agent called on them
once,
and charged two
In the
dollars for that.
course of ten months they paid twenty dollars

interest.
The matter then came
to the attention
of the secretary of a charitable association,
forced the brokers to settle

I
dollars.
family
know
who "got
up
who
the case for six
of another case of
Swede
behind," and could not pay the
Sickness came upon them, and they borrowed fifty dollars. In a little over a year they
rent.
paid sixty dollars interest, but the principal had
not been reduced a dollar.
Some
of the instalment firms are just as bad,
and many times

ers.
case has
man with
are in league with these sharp-
come
a wife
to
my
knowledge where
and family
of five children
bought furniture amounting to a hundred and
WHITE SLAVES
120
thirty-five dollars.
dollars,
After he had paid seventy
he was taken sick and had
hospital.
The
wife was
unable
to
to
go to the
meet the
instalments promptly, and the firm threatened

to take
away her
furniture.
She asked the agent
of a charitable organization to intercede for her.
This gentleman wrote to the firm and begged

to postpone their foreclosure,
and merci-
fully give the poor family a little
more time.
them
But
this
came
in the
and took
they absolutely refused to do, and
midst of the raw winds of March,
all
the household furniture away, in-
cluding the stove and the loaf of bread in the
These are not hearsay
oven.
stories,
but facts
that can be proved by undoubted evidence.
Women
are
preciation
of
the greatest sufferers from de-
wages.
Commissioner Carroll
Wright's report on the working- worn en in great

cities,
given to the
public
two years
contains some interesting facts.

tion
on which
the
report
is
The
since,
investiga-
based covered
twenty-two of the larger cities of the United

States, and three hundred and forty-two distinct
industries, excluding the professional
and semi-
professional callings, such as teaching, stenog-
KELATION OF WAGES TO MORALS
The
raphy, typewriting, and telegraphy.
number
121
total
of
women
is
only six or seven per cent of the
individually interviewed was
17,427.
This
women engaged
whole number of
work
of
indicated, but the
clares that the investigation
number
far as the
into
the
it is
of
is
Commissioner derepresentative so
is
women whose
given as
eighteen.
average at the beginning of work

teen years and four months.
great majority of the
are single,
the
women
is
great-
The general
is
put at
twenty-four
count it up
as
whole, are five dollars
cents.
Take your
fif-
interviewed
and the average weekly earnings
cities,
of
twenty-two years and
seven months, though the concentration

est at the age of
enter
affairs
The average age
to be considered.
women
in the class
pencil
for
and
and
room-rent, board, and clothing

and see how much you have left for books or
music, recreation or religion.
The twentieth annual

chusetts
Bureau
of
Labor
report of the MassaStatistics for last year
shows not only the poor pay of women, but

the cruel and unjust disparity of wages be-
WHITE SLAVES
122
tween men and women doing the same work.

Beginning with the lowest rate of wages, for
the first comparison of relative male and female
pay,
it
appears that of actual wages paid to
248,200 employes of both sexes, 8.99 per cent

of all males receive less than five dollars a
week, 4.85 per cent less than six dollars, and

6.77 per cent less than seven dollars.
That is,
about 20 per cent of
one dollar per day.
at this
low scale
cent of
all
males average less than

But the females working
all
wages comprise 72.94 per
of
the workers.
In the higher scale of
wages, 63.78 per cent of all the males receive

a dollar and a half or more per day. But only
a
little
more than 10 per cent
employed are paid wages

7,257 receiving twenty
as
high.
dollars a
But the
only 268 are women.
of the females
Out
week and
of
over,
cruelest part of
that
women, standing side by side

same shops and stores, are paid
This is an
far less wages for the same work.
aristocracy of sex that shames and belies all our
all
this
with
is
men
in the
claims to democracy.
This injustice in
already
beginning
the wages
to
of
women
is
bear a fearful fruitage.

Miss Alice
S.
Woodbridge, the secretary of the
Working-women's Society
of
her observations
in
New
York, after a
sums up the
recent tour of investigation,

of
123
the
result
following words
"
The wages paid to women average between four

and four and one-half dollars per week, and are
often reduced by unreasonable and excessive
fines.
The
do not average two

In one large house the aver-
little cash-girls
dollars a week.
age wages for saleswomen and cash-girls is

dollars and forty cents a week.
In many
two
fashionable
houses
the
saleswomen
are
not
allowed to leave the counter between the hours

of eleven A. M.
and
if
and three
P. M.,
except for lunch,
a saleswoman has a customer
when
the
lunch-hour arrives, she
is
obliged to remain and
wait on the customer, and the time so consumed
is
deducted from lunch-time.
" If mistakes are

made, they are charged to
the saleswomen and cash-girls.
Generally, the
goods are placed in a bin and slide down to

the floor below.
If a check is lost, the
goods
are charged to the saleswoman,
be the fault of
though
the shipping-clerk.
stores the fines are divided
it
may
In some
between the super-
WHITE SLAVES
124
In one store
intendent and the time-keeper.
where these
fines
amounted
three thousand
to
dollars, the superintendent
was heard
to
re-
proach the time-keeper with not being strict

Men's wages are very low," says
enough.
Miss Woodbridge, " but it seems that they can
not
fall
possible.
below the point where existence is

Women's wages, however, have no low
limit, since the paths of
shame
are always open
Cases might be cited where frail, deliwomen, unable to exist on the salaries they
The story
earn, are forced to crime or suicide.
to them.
cate
who threw
of Mrs. Henderson,
window
attic
of
herself
from the
lodging-house some time
ago, is the story of many another.

" There have been
many such instances in the
last
live
if
two weeks.
on the
death,
many
She could
salaries offered her.
she accepted the
The hope
ployers.
Mrs. Henderson could not
'
propositions
of
an easier
of
life,
and the natural clinging
to
live
her em-
the fear of
life,
turn
working-women into the paths of shame."

further adds that " in Paris
Miss Woodbridge
it is an understood fact that
employed in shops cannot
women who
are
exist without assist-

ance from other questionable
sources,
she continues, "unless something
must
once, this
and,"
done at
is
become the case
also
125
in
our
land, where we pride ourselves on our respect

for honest toil."
Helen Campbell,
in her " Prisoners of Pov-
window
erty," opens a little
into
temptation which comes to

souls under this
terrible
generous
of
pressure
the
young
unrequited
toil.
In her true story of Rose Haggerty, who was

sewing her very life into the support of her
orphan brothers and

illustration
of
sisters,
the
results
we have
of
a practical
this
injustice.
" There
came a Saturday night when she took

shirts again, and now
her bundle of work,
eighty-five cents a dozen [it
is
worse than that
under some of our Boston sweaters] there were

five dozen, and when the dollar and a half was
;
laid
away
left
for
for rent, it
food,
was easy
and
coal,
to see
Clothing had
light.
ceased to be a part of the question.
They had
dren were barefoot.
Sunday
tea
but for the
were the
pork,
now and
diet,
what was
The
a bit of
chil-
meat on
rest, bread, potatoes,
and
with cabbage and a bit of
then, for luxuries.
WHITE SLAVES
126
" Nora
(a
sick sister)
little
had been
failing,
and to-night Rose planned to buy her something with a taste to it,' and looked at the sauc
sages hanging in long links with a sudden reck-
determination to get enough for
less
all.
She
was faint with hunger, and staggered as she

passed a basement restaurant, from which came
savory smells, snuffed longingly by some halfstarved children. Her turn was long in coming
and as she laid her bundle on the counter, she
;
saw suddenly that her needle had jumped,' and

that half an inch or so of band required re'
As
sewing.
she
looked, the
slipped under the place, and

the band had been ripped.
he
said.
'
time.'
do
You
Give
4
over.'
it
are
it
''
moment
you
like,'
the
all
Rose pleaded.
if
it
half
That's no good,'
getting botchier
to me,'
Take
foreman's knife
in a
I'll
he said
is no
pay for that
counted her money as
he spoke, and Rose cried out as she saw the
c
indifferently,
kind
sum
o'
4
:
but there
He had
work.'
Do you mean you
will cheat
me
of the
whole dozen, because half an inch on one has

'
gone wrong?
'
R.
&
'
Call
it
what you
like,'
he
said.
Co. ain't going to send out anything but
RELATION OF WAGES TO MOKALS

Stand out of the way and
work.
first-class
127
let
There's your three
the next have a chance.
and forty cents.'

went out silently, choking down rash
that
would have lost her work altogether;
words
dollars
" Rose
the dark stairs, and felt again
but as she
left
the cutting
wind from the
river, she
stood
something more than despair on her
face.
still,
The
children could hardly fare worse without her
The
than with her.
river could not be colder
than this cold world that gave her no chance,

and that had no place for anything but rascals.
"
She turned toward
as the thought
it
came
but some one had her arm, and she cried out sud-
and
denly,
tried to
wrench away.
Easy now,'
You're breakin' your heart for

trouble, an' here I am in the nick o' time.
4
a voice said.
Come with me
for
my
than
it'll
Then
have no more of
pocket's full to-night,
be in the mornin'
in tow.'
just in,
an' you'll
It
that's
it,
more
you do n' take me

merchantman
was a sailor from a
and Rose looked
she
if
and
at
took his arm
him
for a
moment.
and walked toward
might be dishonor, but it

was certainly food and warmth for the children,
Roosevelt Street.
It
128
WHITE SLAVES
and what did

fight for
A BOSTON
struggle."
matter?
She had fought her

twenty years, and it had been a vain
it
When
"
BRIDGE OF SIGHS."
she poured her heart-break-
ing story into Helen Campbell's ears, she said,

" Let
God Almighty judge who's
I that
to
129
blame most
was driven, or them that drove me
to
the pass I'm in."
Ah
but you say, even as you sigh over this

fearful picture, " That is in wicked New York."
Yes,
but Boston has
its
tragedies equally as
heartrending and shameful.
week
During
a thoroughly respectable
woman, whose evidence
is
this past
young married
indisputable,
and
who, prior to her marriage, had worked for

several years as a saleswoman in the Boston
stores, told
me
that at one time her employer
told her that, on account of
the dull season,
he would have to discharge her, but that he

would give her a good recommendation, and if
she would take
another prominent drygoods house, which he named, he thought she

would at once secure employment. She took
the letter of
rected.
it
to
commendation, and went as
The employing agent
of
the
di-
firm to
which she was sent asked her how much salary

she had been receiving, and she answered, "Five
dollars a
week."
replied,
"I cannot pay you
can only give you three dollars a

to which she answered, " I can hardly
that much,
"
week
He
WHITE SLAVES
130
on what
live
have now, and
could not possi-
bly live on three dollars a week."
He
replied,
with an insulting and meaning smile, " You

would have to depend on the outside friend for
that."
want
to
She looked him in the eye, and said, " I

earn an honest living, and I don't want
any outside friend," and at that walked away.

She told her employer of her reception and he
said he did not intend to discharge her, but had
;
heard that this firm was in the habit of doing

that sort of thing, and was determined to find
out
if
it
were true.
I received a letter
way, N. H.,
that
this
from a gentleman in Con-
week, who writes, not knowing
was intending
to
discuss
this
ques-
" After
you have given the sweatingsystem one round, can you not take up the
tion
question of the girls working in the big stores ?

I have just heard a well-authenticated account
of a
man high
in authority in
stores, suggesting the

girl
from
the
one of the largest
to ruin to a
way
country, who
said,
young
when she
learned what her wages were to be, that they
would not be
port.
sufficient to give her a bare sup-
This not only shows the attitude of these
131
wealthy merchants to the souls of their working-girls, but it shows that they are conscious
of their attitude,
and have deliberately chosen
to take
am
it."
told,
upon undoubtedly
credible testimony, that another
who came
young woman
Boston from the country, and

sought work in several stores, was so outraged
at the vile suggestions which were made to
to
her about means of adding to her salary, that

a
she went back to the house of her friend,
lady of as high standing as any in the city,
and cried and sobbed
all
night long.
She said
she would beg or starve before she would sub-
mit herself to such outrage again.

It is impossible to turn these incidents aside
as exaggerations.
They
are horrible, I
but the most horrible thing about them

they are true.
You
know
is,
will say perhaps, as
some
have said during the past few weeks of

"
exposure of the sweat-shops,
it all
do, this
my
will
"
know how much good will be done.

know that I could not retain my self-
do not
only
What good
harrowing of people's minds with
these cruel stories

I
that
respect and keep silent.
WHITE SLAVES
182
Nothing
foolish than for us to keep
hoping that in some way these wrongs
still,
will
more
is
remedy themselves.
we look
Shall
to the
sweater, the chattel-mortgage shark, the lecher-
ous merchant, to reform themselves?
do not care how long, nor

men and women work, or
tremities they are driven.
at
what a
to
what
Reforms
They
pittance,
fearful exwill never
We
come from the gold-box of Mammon.
must cry aloud and spare not until these
devilish
cruelties
and unblushing crimes are
impossible in our fair city.
The words
of the
Christ, as interpreted
James Russell Lowell, are ringing
in
my
" With
gates of silver and bars of gold,
Ye have fenced my sheep from their father's
I have heard the dropping of their tears
In heaven these eighteen hundred years."
Then
some
who
"
if
we
pharisaical
are criticising
me
political
fold.
to-day
economists
Lord and Master, not ours the
We huild
by
:
reply with the selfish assurance of
of these
ears
guilt,
hut as our fathers built;
Behold Thine images, how they stand,

Sovereign and
sole,
through
all
the land."
How
his
fusion
answer will put us to shame and con-
" Then Christ

sought out an artisan,
A low-browed,
And
stunted, haggard man,

a motherless girl, whose fingers thin,
Pushed from her

These
And
set
He
faintly
in the
want and
sin.
midst of them,
drew back their garment-hem,

For fear of defilement, Lo here,' said He,
The IMAGES ye have made of Me! "
as they
'
'
133
'
VI
THE WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS OF

WORKING-PEOPLE
" Face to face with shame and insult

Since she drew her bahy breath,
Were it strange to find her knocking

At the cruel door of death ?
Were
it
strange
With the
if
she should parley
great arch fiend of sin
?"
ALICE CAKY: The Edge of Doom.
VI
THE WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS OF

WORKING-PEOPLE
HAVE
been asked to give a reason for the
me in regard to certain painmade by me in a recent sermon on
faith that
ful charges
is
in
Wages and Morals
to the effect that the per-
high in authority in some respectable

Boston stores regard favorably immoral relations on the part of the employes, in order to
sons
make
it
possible for
them
to live
on the slender
wages paid them.
Without repeating here any of the cases mentioned in my sermon, which has had considerable
publicity through the daily press, permit
me
to
quote Mr. Henry Chase, agent of the Society for

He says that in conthe Prevention of Crime.
versation with a leading Boston merchant, the
merchant said plainly that he had every reason

137
WHITE SLAVES
138
some
to believe that
of the
store paid the room-rent
men working in
trifling sum
and a
his
be-
working-girls, and lived with them

Another Boston merchant said to
regularly.
Mr. Ghase that he regarded that kind of life
sides
to
on the part of
his clerks favorably;
that the
wages these young men received made it impossible for them to marry and support a
wife.
I
am
informed of another
credible
authority,
strangers in the city,
who
upon perfectly
young women,
case,
two
of
applied to a leading
and were offered work, but

the wages they were to re-
store for a situation
when informed
of
ceive, exclaimed,
"How
could
we
live
on such
wages as that?" The employment agent of

the house replied, " It is presumed you will
have a gentleman friend to assist you." The
girls
looked at him
and when
who had
tears
his
dumf ounded
for a
moment
meaning dawned upon the one
acted as spokesman, she burst into
and they hurried from the
store.
Only
the dread of bringing unpleasant notoriety to
thoroughly respectable young women

saved this scoundrel from a horsewhipping
these
WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS

at
the
hands of their
indignant
139
male
rela-
tives.
A leading
Boston lady of wealth and social

standing, writing to thank me for calling public
attention to the subject, says that she herself
who was told to " ' look to her
knew of a
girl
gentleman friends
'
for the
means
to eke out a
livelihood supplied by her wages in a

"
and adds " Such things are
prominent store
bare
outrageous, and
it is
well you are making them
have within the past week received

another letter from the president of the W. C.
known."
T. U. in one of the Boston wards, a lady
who
has had more than twenty-five years' experience

practical reform work
" I have
just read in
says
in
in
my
this
city.
She
Congregationalist
the reference to your sermon of last
Sunday on
the officials in two of our large Boston stores
suggesting immoral means of eking out their

scanty wages to their employes.
want
to
thank you for presenting this terrible wickedness existing among us, and if the extent could
only be known, every white -ribbon
Boston would boycott those

call
names
of splendid
woman
stores.
in
I could
young women, thrown
WHITE SLAVES
140
on their own resources, applying for situations,

who were cursed, as we might say, with a good
and a
face
fine figure, fairly insulted
More young
made.
way than
that
in
girls
In sheer despera-
other.
any
with offers
have been ruined in
tion, not even earning enough to pay the rent
mean
of a
nothing of
after
and keep hunger away, to say

clothing and other things, they have,
attic
spending the
last
cent,
and not having
anything to take them home, resorted to the

last means."
This
is
a terrible
terribly true.
letter
could go on, column after column, with these

details.
name
public
"
But," the
critic says,
these firms, and put
contempt?"
them
can
tell
You cannot name
few words.
"
why
to
you why
innocent or pure she
is, is
to
in
the firms with-
woman
thus
name any young
wickedly approached
woman in such a connection, no matter
;
you
in the pillory of
out giving the name of the young
and
don't
how
put a mark upon
her as long as she lives.
No woman
and
so, in
is
willing to
run that gantlet;
the very nature of the case,
it
would
rarely happen that you could publicly punish
WAGES AND TEMPTATIONS

"
the guilty party.
141
Well, then," says the
critic,
"you would better hold your peace." Let us

If a burglary has
consider that a moment.
been committed in town, do you keep silent
you are prepared to name the burglar and

No, indeed.
publicly indict him for trial?
until
You
tell all
the neighbors,
and publish
in all
the newspapers, that such a house has been in-
What
vaded, that burglars are in town.
doing this?
of
good
knows
that
it
is
Why, any
their guard,
and
and
the
school-boy
every other
It puts people on
blessing
householder in the town.
is
to
calls special attention to their
any good reason

why we should not follow the same commonsense course in this matter under consideration,
bolts
do not
I
locks.
there
If
know what
is
it is.
do not bring a broad, sweeping accusation

persons especially con-
against either class of
cerned in this
kind.
article.
believe
am no
defarner of
that the majority of
my
Boston
I
pure-minded men.
believe that the majority of Boston working-
merchants are
honest,
women., old or young, are as pure and noble as
any women in the world.
Nevertheless, I have
WHITE SLAVES
142
stated in this article
which
undeniable facts
can substantiate to the satisfaction of
any honest man or woman who,

cares to see
These
facts
me
facts are
still
doubting,
personally about the matter.

serious
enough
to give us all
reason for solemn and earnest reflection.
VII
" That each should in his house

abide,
Therefore was the world so wide."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON

of Nature
and
Fragments
Life.
VII

our land, there
over one-half of
WHEN,
hung
the black pall of African slavery,
no other one thing, perhaps, did more
to reveal
the terrible cruelty of the system, and to arouse

the
of
indignation
the
civilized
world,
than
Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
In June, 1882,
when
the elite of American

'
literature gathered at
seventieth
birthday,
Holmes read
poem
Boston to celebrate her

Dr.
Oliver
Wendell
which Mrs. Stowe's
in
share in the emancipation of the colored race
was recorded with equal wit and pathos

"
When Archimedes
so long ago
Spoke out so grandly, Dos pou

Give me a place to stand on
'
sto
I'll
move your planet
He
little
The
for you now,'

dreamed or fancied how
sto at last should find its
pou
For woman's faith to land on.

145
WHITE SLAVES
146
Her lever was the wand of art,

Her fulcrum was the human heart,
Whence all unfailing aid is;
She moved the earth, its thunders pealed,
Its
mountains shook,
The
its
temples reeled,
blood-red fountains were unsealed,
And Moloch sunk
to
Hades."
Mrs. Stowe, in the preface of her son's biography of herself, aptly quotes the words of Mr.
"
Valiant-for-Truth in the " Pilgrim's Progress
"
My sword I give to him that shall succeed
:
me
in
to
him
my
pilgrimage, and
that can get it."
my courage and skill

May God grant us
" Uncle
courage and skill to use the memory of
"
"
of
Tom's Cabin to serve the " white slaves
own time and city

To begin by quoting from Mrs.
our
famous story
small
"
:
The cabin
log building
house,' as the negro
of
close
excellence
In front
garden-patch where every
it
summer
Stowe's
Tom
was a
to
'the
adjoining
par
his master's dwelling.
Uncle
designates
had a neat
strawberries,
raspberries, and a variety of fruits and vegetables flourished under careful training."
This
little log house was a small and crowded dwell-
ing-place
for
Uncle
Tom
and
his
wife
and

little
first
air.
pure
had several things in its favor.

place it had plenty of sunshine and
It was an individual cabin, occupied
ones, yet
In the
147
it
by Uncle Tom's family alone. The climate

was sunshiny and when Uncle Tom's wife,
;
Aunt
fire
on
Chloe, wanted to wash, she could build a
out in the open

the
fragrant
woolly-headed
air,
and spread her clothing
raspberry-bushes, while
little
flock
ing over the pastures and
Now
let
first place,
A
to
were sent scamperfields.
us look at the Boston cabins.
In the
there are no individual cabins for the
The
poor.
her
price of land
makes that impossible.
big Boston tenement house means from four

ten cabins on a floor, and from three to six
floors
under one
roof.
In a great
many of
these
an impossibility. Boston is peculiarly

sunlight
cursed with the rear tenement. All through
is
the North
and
End and some
" the
Cove," there
parts of the
abound dark
West End
courts, often-
times reached only by a tunnel, that are almost

entirely barren of the sunlight.
there
is
For instance,
a court off North Street, reached by a tun-
nel such as I have described, where the tene-
ment houses
are three deep
from the
street.
148
WHITE SLAVES
The
inside tenement,
facing on the court, through
most of the year is
densely packed with people.
COUET OFF NORTH
STilEET.
For a large part of the

length of the court it is
four
feet
only
wide, and the front windows of

the house, which
out
011
away.
three stories in height, look
is
the dark wall which
On a
149
is
only four feet
dark day there is scarcely any light

rooms and on the brightest sun-
at all in these
shiny day there
is
only a
little
light during the
middle of the day, and never any direct rays of

I found, up in one of these rooms, a
the sun.
young woman with her
first-born in her arms,
a pale, sickly little child, not yet a year old,
that will certainly die before the

if
it
born
summer
is
out,
This poor young mother was

Maine, and followed her husband down
stays there.
in
here from the green fields and the breath of the

pines.
The husband works out

coming home
of the city dur-
late in the
ing the day,

evening
and going out in the morning but all day long
the mother and wife is kept here with her
;
invalid
child.
Their faces look like potato-
sprouted and grown in the

They are dying for the lack of sun-
vines that have

cellar.
shine and pure
Modern
air.
science
is
imperative in
its
urgent
emphasis on the influence of light and sunshine
on health and we are told that children brought
up even in close valleys do not thrive so well as
;
WHITE SLAVES
150
those raised on the hillsides or the tablelands,
and that families through the generations grow

smaller in stature, and less vigorous in physical
and mental
force, if
and sunshine.
much excluded from
He was
a wise old father
lived out on the plains,
and came
light
who
to visit his
son, who had moved into a deep mountain gorge.

At family prayers he thanked the Lord that his
son was
although he lived where the

sun rose at nine o'clock in the morning and set
still well,
at four in the afternoon.

of
But
there are scores
Boston tenement houses where the sun never
rises at all,
except on the roof-tops, or
now and
down
into the
then sends a slant ray, thrown

dark court in seeming mockery.
ble for
any one
to get
It is impossi-
from language alone, either
spoken or written, an adequate idea of the lone-
and squalor,
of the apartments in some of these Boston tenement houses. It requires a strong stomach, and
liness, the sense of
still
gloom, the
filth
stronger determination that nothing shall
thwart you from knowing

sisters live, to take
a place.
how your brothers and
you the second time into such
Go with me
into one that
is
not ten
minutes' walk from the mansions of wealth and
153
luxury on Beacon Hill. We go back through a

narrow passage, where you can touch the walls
on either side of you, and then down some

Now you
steps into a dark underground court.
have to bend over almost double
to a door
you feel
and knock.
till
on your
left,
your way
In answer to the " Come," you open the door
and go in, and are barely able to stand upright
inside the room.
and
feet square,
like it
We
are in a cellar about ten
this is separated
We
by a partition.
ment house over our heads.
We look around us
as soon as our eyes get
darkness
width of
for the only light

glass, reaching
for
you cannot
old
man and
we
is
from the narrow
from the ground up to
see that this
call it
his wife.
accustomed to the
the floor which forms the ceiling of the
where we stand
room
under a crowded tene-
of a big cellar stretching
and
from others
are really in one
is
room
the den
of an
anything else
have
both
They
passed
Their locks are white, and they are

no longer. able to work as hard as formerly.
threescore.
They have had children, but they

The two old people, waifs from bonny
have probably made their
last
are dead.
Scotland,
move, until the
WHITE SLAVES
154
around its rough box and dead-cart
city sends
to
take them to their last sleep in the Potter's
They used
Field.
grew
older,
to live up-stairs
and were not
but as they
so spry as formerly,
they could no longer pay the rent, and therefore

moved down till at last they are at the bottom.
For
this
den of misery, in which a well-to-do
Western farmer would not think
of keeping his
hog, they pay one dollar per week.

to
cook,
eat,
pertaining to
ready to
sleep,
domestic
in this
life,
The combination
filthy hole.
But
scribable.
They have
and do everything else
flee,
one dark,
of smells
begin to sicken
as
is
inde-
and are
you
you remember, with a shock,
that
what sickens you so in five minutes this old

white-headed man and his wife have to endure
day after day, and night after night, and on
and on
there is no hope of anything better
this side of a pauper's grave.
Don't blame
not keeping their den
these
old
clean.
Nobody could keep
people
for
sunshine, and only a

light at
We
all.
little
it
talk with the old man.

jobs as
There
is
no
while in the day any
It is necessarily
and does such odd
clean.
he
damp and mouldy.
He
goes fishing
is able.
He
says
157
one of the worst things with which they have

and then he points out
to contend is the rats
;
places in the wall,
down next
that he has filled with
little
to the ground,
billets
of
wood,
stuck in every-which-way, in his efforts to
them
the rats from preying on
at night.
keep
Let
us foot up the column.
Old
and
age,
loss of
accompanying weakness
hopefulness and courage darkness,
with
its
with the brooding sense of gloom and melancholy that goes with it noisome smells, that
;
make even
a breath of
seem
like
mould, and
rats
street
really
domain,
tell
its
narrow, crowded
a draught from Paradise

filth,
that compete with you for what
;
has been taken
in all that,
the
from their appropriate
and yet remember that down there,

and more, for no tongue or pen can
wretchedness, live hundreds of your
brothers and sisters.
Not the drunken and the
about this place which I

have described, or its tenants, there was not the
dissolute
only,
for
slightest suggestion of liquor
Down
on North Street
is
anywhere.
an old house which,
the traditions tell us, was originally built for a

"
wayside inn, in the good old days before the
9'
WHITE SLAVES
158
word
hotel
was so well known
as now.
It is
not a very large house, as tenement houses go,

yet the missionary who is with me assures me
that he has found as many as thirty families
stowed away under its roof. A wall is built up

around the rear and on one side, corralling a
for
breathing-space or side yard.
little
two horses comes out

from
stench
these
of this space
stalls
stable
and the
with
mingles
stench of the water-closets which are
the
all situ-
ated in this yard, and the united fumes rise to
every rear window of the establishment.
The stairways
two places
,in at
first
we
find
are rickety
two
an old Irish
little
stricken
wreck
and
We
filthy.
woman who
go
In the
sample the tenantry.
to
lives here
She keeps house for them
with her two boys.

in
and
rooms.
Everything
The poor
dirty.
old
is
poverty-
woman
is
body and in mind. She has buried

seven daughters. She says, " I've buried a good
flock.
in
Too much
out of me."
is
an English
We
my
very
go in at another door.
woman
keeps a boarder.
building,
trouble broke
Here
she has two children and
She scrubs now
and washes
life
at
in a
other places.
bank
She
sewed
At
for a long time.
159
she was paid
first
fourteen cents a pair for finishing pants, then

thirteen cents, then twelve cents, and
ten cents, and then, as
finally
was impossible to get

bread for her children on what she could earn,
it
she went to scrubbing.
woman
physically, she
she had been
and
frail
Being a very rugged

able to do this.
If
is
delicate,
with a young
would have been compelled to keep

on finishing pants at ten cents a pair.
It is hot and dirty here everywhere.
How
babe, she
could
be otherwise?
it
Every one
housekeepers must have a
fire
in
of
these
her room
every time she wants hot water for washing or
Take the day of my visit,

it is ninety dethe hottest in June
any other purpose.

one of
grees in the shade, but with the
fire
in
the
rickety stove in the room in which this mother
and her
little girl are
working,
than a hundred and thirty.
it
cannot be less
But the
fire
can-
not go out, or the washing will stop, and there

For these two miswill be no food to-morrow.
erable
sweat-boxes
bed-bug dens that

cleanse
except a
paper half torn off,

nothing could thoroughly
fire
the
that
would exterminate
WHITE SLAVES
160
very walls
half per week.
the
she pays
As
two
dollars
and a
a striking illustration of
the good results of agitation on these subjects,

I
called at this house during the past week,
AN ARCtKHT TENEMENT.
when one
peated
of the tenants told
visits to the place,
me
and the
that
my
re-
fact that I
had had a photographer there making views of

it, had awakened so much comment in the section that the landlord
had got frightened and
161
had had the corridors washed, and had put new

paper on some of the rooms.
Norman
Off
Street in
court which I have
week
West End
the
visited
is
during the past
company with two other gentlemen.
in
The houses on
this court are
ian fruit-venders for the
The court
most
occupied by
Ital-
part.
up with refuse
and decayed fruit in a most filthy and unhealthy manner. In one of these large teneitself
ment houses there
no family which occupies

Let us investigate a few
is
more than one room.
Here
of them.
its
narrow end
wide, and
it
room
is
fifteen feet long.
At
only five feet six inches
end not quite seven feet

narrow lane five people live.
at the other
In
wide.
is
littered
is
this
bananas in every stage of

ripening hang over the piles of filthy bedding.
It is in the second story, and the corridor in
Huge
front,
strings
which
is
of
forty -three inches wide
ually spacious, as
you
will see later
taken up with boxes of decaying

of slops,
and
piles of refuse.
fruit,
The
unusis
half
buckets
walls are as
black and rusty as the stove.
Here
is
another family residence
in
this
WHITE SLAVES
162
The
building.
and one-fourth
The
and one-half by ten

Four people live here.
size is ten
feet.
entire furnishings are not
lars.
tition
The cupboard
in
dol-
five
a lemon-box with a par-
is
on
set
it,
kneaded and ready
worth
the
The
floor.
to bake,
is
bread,
on an
laid out
handkerchief on the pile of

there are no chairs, table, or other fur-
old, dirty, colored
bedding
niture of any kind.
Another room which
answers for home for four people,
and
feet long
the
of
sixteen
is
The
six feet five inches wide.
walls here, as in
sections
also
many
other rooms, have large
plastering
torn
off,
and
are
blackened with many years of smoke and dirt.

The next family we visit has three people.
The room
seven by nine
is
feet.
The bed
except thirty-one inches on one end,

and twenty-four inches on one side. There are
covers
all
boxes of fruit under the bed, some of

ing; what
is
too rotten to sell
home consumption.
And
so
it
decay-
must serve
for
we go on,
Now, section
room
after room, arid floor after floor.
fourteen
the
of
houses says
"
:
law
in
The tenant
regard to tenement
of
any lodging-house
or tenement house shall thoroughly cleanse all
BOSTON
the
rooms,
floors,
UNCLE TOM
CABIN
163
windows, and doors of the
house, or part of the house, of which he

to
tenant,
Health
the
the
Board
of
lessee shall well
and
satisfaction
and the owner or
is
of
the
ITALIAN FRUIT-VENDERS AT HOME.
sufficiently,
to the satisfaction of
said board,
whitewash and otherwise cleanse the walls and

in
ceilings thereof, once at least in every year,
the
months
privies,
of
drains,
April or May, and have the
and
cesspools
kept
in
good
WHITE SLAVES
164
order,
and
and the passages and
stairs
kept clean
good condition."
Now, I have no desire or intention
in
any
injustice to the
Health.
duties
am
of the
Board
of
They may be over-worked, and have an
insufficient force to
members
do
to
but
sure
pay proper attention
and
only the simple fact
I state
it is
to their
a fact that the people generally
when I say that there is a

ought to know
shameful and dangerous lack of such attention
In regard
in many of these tenement houses.
have just described the law is a
The passages and stairs are filthy
to the houses I
dead
letter.
beyond
description.
Some
of
are only twenty, twenty-three,
these
corridors
and twenty-nine
inches wide, and yet, dark and narrow as they
they are largely filled up with piles of

In one of these buildings
refuse and garbage.
are,
the water-closet on the landing has
door taken
down and put away,
so
had the
that
it
stands open day and night.
On some
of the walls of these living
the cockroaches and bed-bugs
swarm
rooms
in abun-
dance, literally by
hundreds, at ten o'clock in
The
walls and ceilings have not
the morning.
165
only not been cleansed or whitened this year,
but
it
must have been many years since there

made to clean them. In
has been an attempt
one of these bedrooms
counted twenty-five
COCKROACHES BY FLASH-LIGHT.
boxes of lemons, besides great bunches of halfLive chickens were kept

ripened bananas.
under the bed in one of these rooms. The
fruit
which
is
ripened in these places
daily in every section of the city,
is
sold
and people
WHITE SLAVES
166
who
from
live
with healthful surroundings, far away
this pestilent hole, are risking the health
of themselves
and
by purchasing
fruit that
their children, unwittingly,
absorbed something of
cannot help but have

the poison from the
BANANA SELLER.
atmosphere of these filthy, crowded quarters.
The Board of Health know about this place,
put up over the doors of these

rooms, telling how many are allowed to sleep in
each room but they might as well have kept
for their sign is
167
the sign in the office for all the good
done, for in nearly every
it
room the inmates
mitted to the Italian interpreter
panied me, that from two
ad-
who accom-
three
to
has
times as
persons occupied the room as the sign

One of these buildings, four stories
permits.
many
is
high,
so old
and rickety that
it
cannot stand
and has careened over against the building next to it. Everything is of wood, and if
it was once on fire, with its narrow, obstructed
alone,
halls
and stairways, the swarm
burn
like rats in a trap.
This
is
of tenants
by no means an isolated
would
When
case.
Rev. Mr. Barnett, of Whitechapel, London, was

here a few days ago, one of the inspectors of
the Board of Health took
him
to visit
some
of
the tenement houses of South Boston and the
Boston Herald reporter went

with them, and I quote from his report of the
North End.
"
The party first visited the tenement

houses of South Boston, occupied for the most
trip
part
by the fishermen and
their families,
the poorer classes of the Irish population.

first
one visited was the house
Slate block on First Street.
known
and
The
as the
Here was seen one
WHITE SLAVES
168
examples of the worst class of dwelland one in which legislation had accom-
of the best
ings,
plished but
little.
Here was a building where
the law had not been complied with regarding whitewashing, and the walls were dirty
Hardly a house was
and stained with smoke.

the
whole
seen,
in
where
this simple
law
course
it
In
many
of living
cases, it
had been
ob-
appeared as though
had not only been neglected
this
spring,
springs in the past.
In driving
this section of the city to the
North End,
but for
from
journey,
in the interest of health
arid sanitary condition
served.
the
of
many
Mr. Barnett made the somewhat startling remark, We have nothing nearly so bad as this
c
in Whitechapel.'
Doesn't
it
"
seem
a little strange to
an outsider
that the Board of Health keep on hand, as
were,
block after block
of
it
tenement houses,
where both landlords and tenants deliberately

set the law at defiance, which they can show off
at call ?
There could not be a greater
folly
than to put this question aside as a matter only

interesting to those poor people themselves.
The
slavery
of
Uncle
Tom and
his
woolly-
171
headed children cursed the plantation house, in
much
the end, as
must look
as it did the
after these people
the sake of others,
if
We
cabin.
and help them
not on their
own
for
account.
Dr. John S. Billings, in an address before the
American
Academy
of
and
Political
Social
"
When
diphtheria prevails in a tenement house,
many
Science in February of this year, says
school children are endangered, and the most

perfect plumbing in a house affords
little
pro-
tection against the entrance of this disease,

it
if
Typhus and
prevailing in the vicinity.
is
smallpox do not confine their ravages to the

vicious and foul, after they have acquired
Mingled with
those who might not be worth saving, is a
much
larger
and
people
number
of
intelligent
fairly
who
them.
amongst
malignancy
live
honest,
and
industrious,
energetic
gling against their surroundings

their
condition,
and especially
to
to
they themselves have had.
own
whom
sake.
it is
You
These
worth while
improve
give
children a fairer chance in the race for
people
poor
by days' wages, and are strug-
life
their
than
last are the
to help for their
will observe," says this cool-
WHITE SLAVES
172
headed doctor, " that
am
considering this mat-
ter entirely from the money point of view,

without reference to religion or morals or altru-
The
ism.
'
keeper?
is
'
question,
far
Am
my
more important,
brother's
admit
but
confine myself to a lower plane
to the bread-
and-butter aspects of municipal
life.
numbers
Great
of the incompetent, vicious, idle, de-
formed, or starved-brain class have been poured

into
this
last fifty
country by immigration during the

years, and have filled our slums and
tenement houses, our hospitals, asylums, almshouses, and jails to overflowing.

They cannot
escape the
results
of their physical organiza-
tion, which, in its turn,
ancestral
'hope
is
degeneration.
an inherited result of
them we
may
the present,
fatal
For
the best, but hold
daughter of the past/ Their death rates are

from two to three times as great as those of
the better class of population
their sickness
third of those
is
one-fourth of
treated by charities, and one-
who
among them are buried

The districts in which they
larger proportion of the work of
die
at public expense.
live require a
city officials, inspections,
removal of nuisances,

police,
the
courts,
etc.
on
and,
173
other
the
hand, they contribute but little to municipal

All this is well known ;
or other taxation.
but
we have not yet
arrived at the stage
of
applying efficient and systematic prevention,
which
is
perfectly possible,
and are
still
potter-
ing with the so-called remedies which are of

In these districts the deaths usulittle use.
ally
outnumber the
births,
so that
not for a continued stream of
new
population would diminish.
How
sions be prevented
One way
and prevent additions
to the
is
if
it
were
recruits this
can acces-
to get rid of
kind of dwellings
Do you say that they must

and
that there must be such
somewhere,
I do not think so.
It
places for such people ?
these people seek.
live
is
not necessary that any city should allow the
existence of any such houses within
and
if
their destruction
forces
its
limits
some persons
and drives others away, it

will be the cheapest and best in the end."
There are scores, and I think I should be safe
into the almshouses,
to say hundreds, of
city limits
inhabited,
of
tenement houses within the
Boston which are unfit to be
and where the landlords
do
not
WHITE SLA VE3
174
pretend to obey the laws of health required by

the statutes, and yet the tenants are paying a
sufficiently
large
rent
to
interest
pay good
on a clean, healthful tenement.
Our modern
science and our Christian civilization are alike
challenged by this condition of things.

Yet, as you think of the horror of these
"
and their miserable
Boston " cabins
tenants,
"
will say,
They are at least free, they
cannot be bought and sold like Uncle Tom."
Alas
they are not free. True, no one can
you
take them to an auction-block, but their bond-
age
is
none the
less
real.
Into that fearfully
neglected Italian tenement house which
have
tried to describe in this discourse, the sweater
had come, and

of
knee
women were making
pants for
which means forty cents a day

people find
strata of
cities,
it
a fine class
twenty cents a dozen pairs,

in wages.
impossible to save.
wages in Boston, and
The
These
low^er
in all our large
has reached the point where the people
who depend on them labor simply to exist.

One day's sickness in father or mother or child
leaves a gap
over again.
it
takes weeks or months to bridge
BOSTON
UNCLE TOM
Sometimes a Southern Uncle
CABIN
Tom
175
or
Aunt
Chloe had
their son or daughter sold out of

their arms, leaving them with broken hearts.
But
the white slaves of the tenement house
TWO O'CLOCK
IN
THE MOKNING.
sound every deep of human agony.

Think
what it is to try to raise boys honest, when their
playmates are thieves from the cradle
Think
mother fighting the wolf

agony
of starvation day and night and finding, as,
one Boston mother did only a few weeks ago,
of
the
of
WHITE SLAVES
176
that the wolf of lust had devoured her one
lamb before she was yet thirteen years

Brothers,
"
it is
ewe
of age
not yet time for the " abolition-
put aside his tocsin or his sword while

so many of our brothers and sisters are living
ist
to
and sighing
" Where
in their despair
home
is
a hovel, and dull
we
grovel,
Forgetting that the world is fair;

Where no babe we cherish lest its soul perish,
Where our mirth is crime, our love a snare."
VITI
SOCIAL MICROBES IN BOSTON TENE^

MENT HOUSES, AND HOW TO
DESTROY THEM
"
Ring
in the valiant
The
man and
free,
larger heart, the kindlier
hand
Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring
in the Christ that is to be."
ALFKED TENNYSON
In Memoriam.
VIII
SOCIAL MICROBES IN BOSTON TENEMENT HOUSES, AND HOW TO
DESTEOY THEM
greatest claim Job ever
THE
self is that in the
makes
for him-
days of his prosperity,
when everybody knew him and was obsequious

him
man, he was not only kind

to the poor, but exhibited for them a genuine
sympathy which was illustrated in his carefully
to
as a rich
searching out the causes of their troubles.

There is a good deal that passes for kind-
and sympathy, in these days, that is

nothing more than lazy good-nature. Ignorant
ness
or indifferent charity
its
results as the
and the miser.

thing,
that
is
often as mischievous in
wicked greed
Sympathy,
must be incarnated,
it
to
of the skinflint
be
worth any
as in Job's case, so
to the lame and eyes to

Frances Power Cobbe declares that
becomes feet
the blind.
the most Christ-like thing she ever heard from

179
WHITE SLAVES
180
human
Shaftesbury
"The
was from the " Good Earl
lips,
"
of
friend of
all
the friendless 'neath the sun;
Whose hand had wiped away a thousand tears

Whose eloquent lips and clear, strong brain have done
;
God's holy service through his fourscore years."
When
he was speaking to her one day, in his

study, of the wrongs of young girls, which he
had just been investigating, the tears came to
his eyes
and
he added,
know
but
When
must soon
I feel I
world with
After a pause,
his voice trembled.
"
feel
how
die, I
it
old I am,
and
not wrong,
is
hope
cannot bear to go and leave the
all
the misery in
it."
People who have no genuine sympathy for

their
fellows, oftentimes
grow harder-hearted
at a revelation of the miseries of the oppressed,
which
stirs
nobler souls to
depths and awakens them

There
helpful benevolence.
St.
Hilary Loricatus,
their
to
is
profoundest
all
manner
of
an old legend of
who scourged
himself so
perpetually that his skin became like the hide of

a rhinoceros.
So, acquaintance with the sorrows
and woes of the poor and unfortunate, acquired

out of a morbid curiosity, or a hunger for that
SOCIAL MICROBES
181
kind of emotion experienced by the reader of

sensational novels, will result only in marring
and hardening
Very
us.
different
is
the result of such knowledge
when obtained through an
earnest
sympathy
and a holy ambition to assuage the sorrows of

the distressed.
Shelley never wrote anything
more
beautiful, perhaps, than this
" In sacred
Athens, near the fane
Of Wisdom, Pity's
Serve not the
altar stood;
unknown God
in vain,
But pay that broken shrine again,

Love for hate, and tears for blood."
emphasis on the need of searching

out the wrongs of the poor, because I am satisI
put
this
one of the greatest factors in the present tenement-house situation is the ignorance
fied that
and indifference
of the people as to the condi-
tion of things in the
slum tenement house.
am
sure that nothing but good can come from

an honest attempt to u let in the light of day
upon the landlordism of the slums, as you have

let it in upon Mormonism, and other hateful
things that prefer darkness rather than light."
We
need to bear in mind constantly, in con-
WHITE SLAVES
182
sidering this question, that society
and that an
evil in
its
greater or less degree,
We
must
bad tenement house
and
a wholly,
one class of our citizenship
cannot help but have
of society.
is
is
vicious influence, in a
upon every other portion]

also remember that the
the birthplace and cradle,
to a large extent the schoolroom, of mul-
titudes of boys
influence
and
girls
who
are to exert their
of
our city life in

have pur-
on every phase
Modern
the near future.
scientists
sued the study of disease microbes with such

diligence, that they claim to be able to recognize
beyond mistake the germs of certain diseases.

They find them in the atmosphere almost everywhere, and they prove that these microbes are
real germs of disease, by their experiments with
the lower animals.
The
soil
under our feet
organisms.
in
The
is full
of these micro-
smallest quantity of earth put
water reveals, through the microscope, beand mineral matter, a mass of
sides the organic
beings more or less complex, moving more or

less rapidly.
German
author, Mr. Reimers,
has calculated that every cubic centimetre of

earth
may
contain
several
million
germs.
raj
EXTEHIOIi OF
A NOKTH END TENEMENT HOUSE.
SOCIAL MICROBES
Among
these
microbes some have not been
studied, and the part they play

life is
not
known
in the
economy of
to us, while certain others have
which have been well determined.
functions
Carbuncle, for instance,
is
one of the most
which can attack
ble maladies
times
185
even men.
cattle,
terri-
and some-
thanks to the
Now-a-days,
malady had become

and tends more and more to disap-
labors of the scientists, this
quite rare,
For a long time it has been known that

carbuncle has been due to a particular microbe,
pear.
but
it
was not known how
it
M. Pasteur has demonstrated

tion
was due,
was propagated.
that this propaga-
in part at least, to the longevity
of the germs.
Thus
it
is,
you bury the dead body
if
of
an animal which has died of carbuncle, in a

ditch five or six feet deep, and cover
it
with
earth, the carbuncle bacteria will be found in
the
neighboring
We
interment.
cattle
to graze
put
ender from
when
it
is
it,
several
soil
can
on
may
years
after
understand, then,
this land, or fed
contract the
the cause of this malady
the
that
by provSo
disease.
was unknown,
not to be wondered at that superstitious
WHITE SLAVES
186
country people
these
called
places
" cursed
fields."
There are
no
social microbes
less
which
mischievous than those with
Some
deals.
who
of those
the contagion are put

in prisons
away
Pasteur
infected with
are
in pest-houses or
many more walk the
potent and
streets,
and
spread their dangerous infection through the

social, business,
My
claim
is
and home
of the people.
life
that the bad
tenement house
in
where people are

everywhere
together in crowded filthy quarters,
Boston, as
herded
else
where
sanitary laws
either
by landlords or tenants,
are
nishes a breeding -place
nearly every sin

society.
The
neglected or defied
the
for
and vice that
or both,
fur-
microbes of
infest our
modern
editor of the Portland Oregonian,
commenting on General Booth's scheme for the

rescue of the London poor, says: "Its most
hopeful features are those which propose to
provide the lowly with means to help themselves,
homes.
the
<
in
and
the building
Thousands
of
submerged tenth
'
maintenance
of
women belonging to
need almost as much
instruction in the simple
acts
of
housewifely
SOCIAL MICROBES
thrift
to the
"
and neatness,
189
as the
squaws belonging
North American Indian tribes.
Homes,
in the civilized sense of the term,
they have never had to keep, and their squalid

abiding -places, overrun with wretched and
quarrelsome half-clad children, and bare of the

commonest comforts of life, have offered very
unattractive fields for
painstaking endeavor.
wherein the laborer
is
womanly
and
originality
cheerful, quiet
home,
always sure of warmth
and light and wholesome food, has in it a

saving grace which all the creeds in Chris-
tendom cannot compass without
its
auxiliary
aid."
The power
other kindred
of the liquor traffic,
vices that
constantly re-enforced
of the neglected
and
the
all
cluster about
it,
is
by the social conditions
tenement house.
Temptation
drunkenness as into any
and in the foul and fetid courts of
enters as largely into
other vice
the North End, the West End, South Boston,

and the Cove, temptation to vice of every kind is
ever present.
The words
in his earnest study of life
London
George R. Simms,
in the homes of the
of
poor, apply with equal force
to
such
WHITE SLAVES
190
in
sections
home
Boston
The complete
lack of
comforts, the necessity of dulling every
finer sense in order to
endure the surrounding
horrors, the absence of anything to enter into
competition with the light and glitter of the

gin palace, and the cheapness of drink in comparison with food, all these contribute to
the poor easy victims to intemperance.
the poor, the constant
conditions of daily
war with
life,
make
Among
fate, the harassing
and the apparent hope-
lessness of trying to improve their condition, do
undoubtedly tend to make them drown their

sorrows,' and rush for relief to the fiery waters
c
of that Lethe
so
much
workers
which the publican dispenses at
Ask any
a glass.
in the viler districts,
of the temperance
and they
will tell
you how
they have watched hundreds of decent

folk come into a bad neighborhood, and gradually
sink under the degrading influences
surroundings.
worked
to
of their
There are few men who have
keep their brethren from the clutches
of the drink fiend
the advent of
air,
who would not
and
light,
and
gladly hail
cleanliness,
and
the enforcement of sanitary laws, as the best
weapons with which
to
do doughty deeds in
SOCIAL MICROBES
191
combats with intemperance among the
their
poor."
One
of the hardest things to deal with, in an
attempt to arouse good people who are well-todo and steadily prosperous to a serious study
of the troubles of the poor,
is
to shake
out of the erroneous conviction that
it is
them
always
the fault of the poor that they are in financial

straits
of
and compelled to resort
Put yourself
dwelling.
place,
and
listen
to
this
in
true
to
such places
your brother's
New
story of
England
There
enacted during the past year.

lived, until a little over a year ago, in
Western
New
life
Simmons,
York, a family which we will call

far removed from the real name.
The family consisted of the husband and wife,

each about thirty-five years of age, and four
children,
Mr. Simmons was
the eldest ten.
a confectioner by trade,
but for some years
had been travelling for a wholesale grocer's

house in New York. He was a man of good
address,
of
the
and was
fairly successful until, in
competitions of trade, the
some
New York
house determined to withdraw from that

tion,
and he was thrown out
of business.
sec-
After
WHITE SLAVES
192
about
casting
for
several
weeks
a vain
in
attempt to get employment, he decided to bring

his family with him to New England.
They
removed
to Worcester,
where
for
months he
sought employment, but was unable to find

anything except short jobs for a day or two at a
Mrs. Simmons, who was an educated
time.
and refined woman, and a most worthy lady in

every respect, did what she could to assist her
husband
in the
but as a
fifth child
was born
them
to
autumn, she was so weakened by sick-
ness and the
care
could do
besides looking after them.
little
her children,
of
that she
As
months passed, they were compelled to

the bank of the unresort to the pawnshop
the
fortunate.
First
went
their silverware,
which
was mostly wedding presents, an anguish to

part with to people of their history and character.
Then followed
their best
clothing,
and
some splendid books out of a well-selected

for remember that these were edulibrary
cated, intelligent people, with all the instincts
and
tastes
of
good
breeding.
Finally,
dis-
couraged with Worcester, they removed, with

what they had left, to Boston.
Again for
SOCIAL MICROBES
198
weary days, stretching into weeks, went on

Mr. Simthe disheartening search for work.
mons says
into
his
in those
soul.
To
days the very iron entered

see
his refined, cultivated
wife sick and wasting away, his children im-
THE BANK OF THE UNFORTUNATE.

properly clothed and hungry, and compelled,
day by day, to return to the tenement house

on the filthy street whither his condition had
forced him, with a feeling
ness, he declares that
of
utter helpless-
nothing but the religious
convictions of his youth, and the sense of the
WHITE SLAVES
194
cowardice of the
act,
saved him from the death
of the suicide.
During the winter they were compelled to

sell their excellent cooking-range, which they
had brought with them from
procure
were
left
followed
New
York, and
All the books
cheaper one.
that
then the bedsteads and
other furniture went, until there was only one
bedstead
day
to a
left,
and that was rented through the
man who worked
Many
nights.
days
they had nothing to eat but bread or crackers

and often that was of a stale quality and a
scant
The
allowance.
eldest,
little
boy,
attended the Sunday-school of a Boston church

he has one of the truest, noblest, and most
;
interesting faces I have ever seen.
him
for a couple of
On
missing
Sundays, the superintend-
ent of the school went in search of him, and

for the first time
knew
of the condition of the
family.
The Sunday-school superintendent found

little
scholar lying in a dry-goods box,
there
was no bed
in the daytime,
lack of food and clothing.

of the mother,
and
for
sick from
He made
at last, with sobs
his
inquiries
and
tears,
197
SOCIAL MICROBES
Their necessities were
she told their story.
re-
and through the sympathetic interest of

a number of Christian men the husband now
lieved,
Now,
has steady employment.
it is
easy to say
that he should have gone to the church, or the
and
with the story of his condition
think that is true; but, on the other hand,
charities,
I
you can
see that
it
was the very worthiness
the family, their very nobility, that
made
mind
that
Bear
course seem more bitter than starvation.

in
of
that these people were not dissipated,
that they were strictly moral
and
religious,
and
that both father and mother were of prepossess-
ing appearance.
This
man
did not drink, or
smoke, or chew, and was intensely anxious to

take care of his family he was willing to do
;
the humblest work, and preferred death to beg-
ging or dishonor.
Only a few weeks since,
called,
with a
brother minister, on a family of Maine people

in
a miserable tenement house in the
End.
The husband and
and out
of
time before
work
North
father had been sick
good while. A short

however, he had shipped
for a
my visit,
on a coaster from Hyannis to Philadelphia.
He
WHITE SLAVES
198
had arranged for a little credit for his family to

keep them from starving, until his expected
return
but the winds had been contrary, and
he was several days overdue.
The wife and
four children were in despair.
They had had
nothing since the morning of the day before,

and then only bread and water, except a little
broth which a neighbor, not
brought
little girl,
sick with
on Beacon
Hill,
the slums.
was
in
but
is
clean, as
down her cheeks
I give
in
babe, and
was impossi-
it
were her children; but the tears

as, in
tions, she confessed, as
nothing
down
little
go out to wash or scrub. Her

rooms were scrupulously neat
ran
false
"
little
and
ting a
off,
a beautiful
only "grip"
such delicate health that
two narrow
better
what would be "la grippe
The mother had
ble for her to
is
much
in to one of the children
crime,
if
answer
to our ques-
she had been admit-
poor soul, that they had had
to eat all day.
you these instances

the
idea
to
that poverty
show you how

arid
enforced
residence in a miserable tenement house are a
But think of
badge of sin or wrong-doing.
the agony of fathers and mothers, who love
SOCIAL MICROBES
their children as well as
199
you love yours, and
have ambitions for them as holy and pure, who

are compelled to see their loved ones deteriorating under their eyes, and through the contam-
A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE.
ination
of
the
poisonous
moral
atmosphere
which they breathe, dropping slowly, but certainly, down to a level with the brutality which
surrounds them.
Well, you ask, what
is
the
remedy
for all
WHITE SLAVES
200
My
this ?
main purpose,
courses, was
before
the
in
this series of dis-
to place the facts of the situation
people.
But
have some
common-sense suggestions
In the firstjjlace, we want an almost
practical,
to
plain,
make.
infinitely
better system of inspection of tenement houses.
Every tenement house
many
in
as eight families in
the city, having as

it,
ought
to be in-
spected carefully, at least once a
month
and
once a week would be better
by an
officer
who
holds his place under civil-service rules,
entirely
independent of
politics,
and who
is
held to a strict responsibility for the perform-
ance of his duties.
As
to the
tenement-house sweat-shop,
am
convinced that a very simple law, which oughtx

to be passed by the next legislature, requiring
every manufacturer, of any kind, to file with
the inspector of factories a list of the names
and addresses
of the people
would work wonders.

some firms
as
It
who work
may
be that there are
low down as the one whose super-
intendent remarked the other day,
what the
for him,
effect
would be
when asked
in their business if
it
were known that their goods were manufac-
SOCIAL MICROBES
201
tared in filthy tenement houses
make no
buy
would
difference at all; our customers
garments were made."
would
no matter where our
of us just the same,
would
" It
This firm,
am
sure,
mistaken, and, with a great

many others, would break off its connection
with the sweating-business if the law forced it
to
find itself
make
that relation public.
Yet
am
sure that nothing promises so
much
for reform as a revival of conscientious land-
lordism.
The landlord
one well
" an
says,
is
now, too often, as
enormous wealthy estate,

and there, who hire
with heirs scattered here
an agent, as their Southern brothers hired an

overseer,
unsympathetic,
irresponsible,
only to please his

balance of
profit.
patrons,
And
by
caring
showing a large
the poorer the tene-
No
ment, the larger the balance.
repairs,
no
accommodajanitor, no supervision to pay for

tions so wretched that only the very wretched,
;
who
will
will expect to be
apply for
it.
crowded and miserable,
too busy to collect your
indolent
to
of
landlord
own
or
rents, be
'
estate
'
!
not too
a
strict
require
your agent
account when he brings you twenty per cent
WHITE SLAVES
202
You would quickly bring him

he were suddenly to hand you six
instead of six
to
book
instead
him
is
if
of
twenty,
when
Mrs.
it is
but the time, to question

twenty."
Alice Wellington Rollins
says in the
Forum, speaking of New York: "Nothing is

more astonishing, in investigating the slums,
than the discovery of the enormous prices the
poor are paying for the most wretched accommodations.

One man boasts that he draws thirtythree per cent on his tenement investments."
The same
writer wisely says, farther: "The

not to be a philanthropist, willing to
landlord
is
sacrifice
himself for the good of others
he
is
be an intelligent capitalist, putting in his

money purely as an investment, and philan-
to
thropic only to the degree of
being satisfied
with six per cent returns, of hiring a janitor to

be on hand day and night, of being his
own
agent, or keeping a sharp lookout on the one he
employ, and of urging his wife to

But individual landlordism
collect the rents.
may have
to
need not necessarily be confined to individual

Individual corporations can become
persons.
landlords.
Why
should not some of the
insur/-
SOCIAL MICROBES
203
ance companies that complain of being unable

to find suitable investments for their immense
funds, take hold of the tenement question
life-insurance
of the
low
of Boston, complaining
company
rates of interest obtainable,
announce
that they never expect over five per cent,

find
it
" Half of the trouble

cruelty, but half
and
times to get four.
difficult at
landlords.
is
caused by the wilf nl
by the thoughtlessness,
wise
writer has
often
enough
of the
said recently
Often you don't need to say to a man, " Why
"
do you do so ?
If you can show him what he
:
is
doing,
it is
to
rouse
him
to
have faith enough in human nature

to believe that if we could organize a procesreform.'
and compel them to walk

through the tenement districts, they would besion of landlords
gin the reform themselves."
Let
me
relate
to
you a very
interesting
experiment that has indeed long since passed

era of experiment.
In 1879 Mrs. Alice
N. Lincoln and a young lady friend were so
the
wrought upon by the filth and misery which

they saw in certain tenement houses visited by
them, in connection with the Associated Chari-
WHITE SLAVES
204
ties,
that they determined to do something to
better the condition of these poor people.
They
hired a large house on the corner of Chardon
and Merrimac Streets. It contained twentyseven tenements, and the rent agreed upon
with the owner was one thousand dollars a
year,
though since the
first
year they have paid
The house had
twelve hundred.
possible reputation morally,
the worst
and had been under
the ban of the police for a long time.

It was, at the time
they took
it,
half empty,
because of the degraded character of the occupants.
Its entries
and corridors were blackened
with smoke, and dingy and uninviting. The

sinks were in dark corners, and were foul and
disease-breeding.
The
of water or broom,
stairways were innocent
and throughout the
entire
house, from top to bottom, ceilings, walls, stair-
ways everything was dirty and neglected.

was surely not an attractive task to attempt
bring cleanliness
It
to
and order out of such chaos,
but these resolute young reformers deliberately

set themselves to perform the seemingly impossible.
means
of
The
was painted, improved

lighting and ventilating the sinks were
interior
SOCIAL MICROBES
205
wood and coal closets arranged

each tenement on its own landing.
ordered, and
for
Previously the tenants had to keep their
The mouldy
fuel in the cellar.
removed from the

of plastering
entries,
was put
on.
wall-paper was
and a fresh surface
few of the worst
tenants had to be removed, but the majority,
pleased with the
new
administration of things,
were willing to accept its rules and remain.

Tenants were soon found for every room and
;
this house,
which had been regarded
as very un-
healthy, and had been a regular hive for fevers

under the old regime of carelessness and greed,
that did not care how dirty the tenants were
so long as they paid their rent, under the
new
became so healthy that disease was almost unknown, and was, and is to
rule of cleanliness
this day,
known by
borhood generally
The
the tenants and the neighas the " Good Luck House."
own rents, and kept

under their own supervision.
ladies collected their
everything well
close account was kept of
expenditures, and
at the
all
end of the
receipts
and
year the
balance of cash in hand was $111.67, or more than
eleven per cent on the investment.
first
The second
WHITE SLAVES
206
year
it
was
still
more
profitable, the net
the end of the year being $157.47.
coln
"
still
carries
sum
at
Mrs. Lin-
on the administration of the
Good Luck House," and no queen was
ever
THE "GOOD LUCK" TENEMENT HOUSE.
more genuine respect than she is

She is regarded as a most practical sort
treated with
there.
Yet there
of patron saint to the institution.
no element of charity suggested

with her tenants.
tice.
in
is
her dealings
It is simply Christian jus-
She seeks with great care
to help
them
SOCIAL MICROBES
their
retain
self-respect,
and
207
them
treats
fully her equal in personal responsibility.

rent is required to be paid regularly.
rigid rule enforced
all
upon
tenants
is
as
The
One
cleanli-
She pays for the weekly scrubbing of

the halls and stairways, but the tenants are
ness.
required to sweep them every
The
turn.
sinks and drains are kept clean.
All this
home
habits of
has a marvellous effect on the
rooms
and
have seen as clean and tidy

"
Good Luck " tenement house as
the
the inmates
in
have seen anywhere, and that,

when they were caught unawares,
I
the
in
day,
too,
it
on days
not being
when they expect the

All above six per cent has been put
regular rent day,
landlady.
bank
an emergency fund, and, from

time to time, the tenants have been permitted
in the
as
some unexpected pleasure from this.

Once a splendid entertainment was given the
to share
in
tenants,
views
public
method
of
expression,
pitcher and basin

this fund.
to
hall,
with stereopticon
at another time, it took a
know
more material
and a good blanket, a

came out of
for each family,
In every
way
the tenants are
made
that their interests are in perfect har-
WHITE SLAVES
208
mony with
To
those of the landlady.
encour-
age them to use more room, where they are

able to pay for it, a discount is made on each
additional
room taken, and ten cents a week
is
deducted for payment in advance. A majority

them avail themselves of this privilege.
of
he
If
grew
who makes
before,
is
who has made

to
grow and
and
is
grow where none
a tree to
a public benefactor, surely she

possible for
it
thrive,
many
yielding
their fruit in a pure
family-trees
their
home and
fragrance
social
life,
a benefactress in the highest sense.
Let us encourage on every side the transformation of filthy, neglected tenements into
" Good Luck " houses.
little
wise thoughtfulness
may
prove the childhood of the slums.
and
girls'
vastly im-
Boys' clubs
clubs are steps in the right direction.
They awaken an
interest in innocent
afford a glimpse of beautiful pictures,
games,
and give
zest to the intellectual appetite for fresh, wholesome books. The " sand garden " is also a
happy thought.
Think
of thousands of
dren reared in the narrowest,
who have never had
chil-
filthiest quarters,
a chance to
make even
SOCIAL MICROBES
209
mud-pie out in the pure air of heaven. It may

seem a small thing to some, but it is a tragedy
to
me.
When
remember
my own
happy
childhood over in the Oregon woods, where I
THE SAND GARDEN.

ran as free and untrammelled as a
young
colt
in the pasture,
and made mud-pies beside the
brook that had
its
home
in a great bubbling
spring on the hillside, breathing the air fragrant
with the perfume of wild
lilies,
while robins
and bobolinks and meadow larks sported and
WHITE SLAVES
210
when I consang without fear, on every side

trast a childhood like that with the child-life
in the
is
Boston slums,
am
"
nothing so sad as this
There
heart-broken.
murder
of the inno-
"
that is going on in all our great

Marianne Farningham sings their dirge
cents
cities.
"Such sights there are in the great sin-soiled

As might compel an angel into pity;
But none more sad
Than
in all the world of care,
a young child driven to black despair!"
Surely, trumpet blast never called
women
city,
men and
to a holier crusade than this rescue of
the lost childhood of the slums.
IX
OLD WORLD TIDES
IN
BOSTON
" There
is
a poor blind
Shorn of
Samson
his strength
in this land,
and bound
in
bonds of
steel,
Who
may, in some grim revel, raise his hand,

And shake the pillars of this Commonweal,
Till the vast
temple of our
liberties
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies."

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW:
The Warning.
IX
TRAVELLERS
tell
us that in some parts of
JL the ocean, when the waves are

water
look
is
still
and the
perfectly quiet, the curious eye
down through
may
the clear depths and see,
rising out of the ocean's
broken trunks of forest
bed, the gnarled
trees.
Once
and
this ocean-
bed was above the water-line, and these trees
grew
in
the
sunshine
and
stretched
their
branches upward to the blue sky of heaven.

But, as the result of some strange convulsion
of the earth, the coast-line has
sunk down and
down, until the incoming tide of the salt sea has

swept over it, and schools of porpoises and fishes
swim among
the branches of old forest trees
that in the former time were accustomed to the
chatter of squirrels and songs of birds.
one studying the older and more historic

sections of Boston will see many relics of a past
Any
213
WHITE SLAVES
214
by which he will be impressed in

very much the same way as is the sailor who
looks on the remains of an ancient forest in the
civilization
ocean's bed.
Standing in the North End, in
front of the " Copp's Hill Burying-ground," and
looking up at the tower of Christ Church where

the famous signal lanterns were hung, one can
almost hear the old church appropriating the
words
"
of the poet
By
I
An
a milestone gray
time's highway
watch the world march by;
moving men
mine eye.
Still, still they go; where, none can know;
And when one wave is gone,
Another and another yet
endless stream of
Rolls on beneath
Come
ever surging on."
seems strange indeed to go up and down

some of these old historic streets, and yet never*
It
in the course of one's
guage
walk hear spoken the
of the country.
In the course of
lan-
my
in-
vestigations during the past few months, I have
found
do anything practical
without an interpreter, sometimes in one language, and again in another. Often in entering
it
impossible to
an old rear tenement house," where
filth
and
CiliUST CliUKCH
TOWEK.
217
misery held riot, I have been astonished at the

splendidly carved ornaments over the doorways,
and the still-to-be-traced carving on the balus-
were
rear tenements
Once these old
trade.
abodes of Boston's wealthiest and most
the
cultivated citizens
come
and house
in,
but the Old World tide has
after house, block after block,
upon street, have been overwhelmed

by the waves of people who speak other languages, and whose habits of life are more foreign
and
street
than their speech.

I have no sympathy with those people
are crying out against all foreigners, yet
to
me
it
who
seems
that no serious student of the signs of the
times can take other than a sober view of the
submerging tide of foreign immigration which

has come into this country, of which the North
End
The
of
Boston
is
suggestive
illustration.
consideration which causes the most sober
thought
among
earnest
men
to-day,
entirely different class of immigration

to us
earlier
now from
that of former times.
days of American
intelligent,
self-reliant
history
part
of
the
it
is
the
coming
In the
was the
European
communities who dared the expense and hard-
WHITE SLAVES
218
ship of the long sea voyage by a sailing-vessel,
and faced the exigencies
The immigrants
of
those
of
the
days
New
World.
were
mostly
who brought
farmers and skilled mechanics,
with them the habit and prestige of success.

But under the new order of things, with the
great steam ferries which
make
a passage
to
America only a
brief holiday trip of a week,

with reduced rates, and controlled by companies
who scour every European city, by aid of their
agents, to gather in their
human
the poorest and most ignorant of

classes, it
The
cargoes from
all
the labor
becomes a very different question.
ftiotives that
impel people to this country

now, are very different from what they used to
be.
The San Francisco Alia well says " The
:
time was
when
the majority of foreign immi-
grants came because of an intelligent devotion
government.
Ninety-nine per cent of
them were free from merely material motives.
They were not urged by starvation, they did not
to free
come
in the squalid steerage, they did not,
on
landing, feel compelled to invent servile occupations, before
unknown
to get the crusts
in this country, merely

and scraps that would keep
OLD WOULD TIDES IN BOSTON

them
219
Their motive was intellectual more
alive.
Their descendants are found in
than material.
ON THE CUNAKDEK.
every State,
of
the fibres that
good
report,
foremost
make up American
O.'
THI
UNIVERSITY
among
character.
WHITE SLAVES
220
may have been
Their blood
English, Irish,
ish,
German,
they are
the beginning
Scotch, French,
Italian,
now Americans, because
motive was
was
ethical,
real,
of liberty,
is
United States
any country
in
unreal.
immigrants
Their decision
is
not for lack
The purpose
Every old emigrant from
Europe knows
who genuinely
this
to
be
The
Italian
who
believed in Joseph Mazzini, and sought
own
lib-
no fraternity in the
erty for
its
immigration that has poured
sake, finds
so.
expatriated himself,
Italian
since the suppression of the

Sicily,
At
all
but for lack of bread.
animal entirely.
the expatria-
and not
for material reasons only.
to migrate to the
Spanmatter
and not material.
present ninety-nine per cent of
come
No
Scandinavian, or Slav.
tion of their ancestors

Its
in
upon us
murder guilds
and the decline of the industry
of
of assas-
sination in that country."

I
think
it
is
indeed one of the hopeful
fea-
tures of the situation that nearly all our adopted

citizens,
who
are themselves thoroughly Ameri-
canized, share strongly in this view.
many
of
them seem
to realize the
keenly than do the native-born
Indeed,
danger more
citizens.
was
OX THE WAY TO THE
liAliUI

very much
at
the
223
New
England
Chautauqua the other day, to hear Mr. John
M. Langston, the colored orator of Virginia,
interested,
read a letter from a leading
Hebrew
of
Wash-
ington City, in which he reminded Mr. Langston that he had often pleaded the cause of the
Negro, and appealed to him in turn to plead the

cause of the Hebrew, by arousing public senti-
ment against the
too rapid influx of Russian
Jews.
The
swift
incoming
of
these
Old World
tides has very close relation to the
laboring people.
laborers
than
who
are
" slaves of
in our
The
of
Large numbers of the alien
coming now, are
little
better
contractors, steamship
lines,
and the professional European

labor.
wages
jobbers in
pauper
large proportion of those
engaged
mines and on public works have been
secured through these sources, either in direct

defiance of our laws or by the evasion of the
laws.
They come
in
direct
competition with
the native-born and the worthy foreign immigrant,
who comes
here for the purpose of apply-
ing for citizenship and securing a home.
not only come into
They
competition with every
224
WHITE SLAVES
worthy class of laborers, but they are, for the

most part, too ignorant to comprehend Ameri-
PASSING THE QUARANTINE DOCTOR.
can institutions, and have no broader idea of

liberty than to insist that
it
includes license.
At every
225
point of contact with our labor sys-
tem, they debase it."
An
illustration of this class of labor
in the fact that a year or
found
may
two ago
be
forty-
seven alien miners employed in phosphate mines

near Waterboro, S. C., were imprisoned because
they refused to fulfil the contract under which
they had been employed. Their story was that
they had been met at Castle Garden by labor
agents who induced them to sign a paper which
they did not understand, but which proved to

be a contract to work for one and two dollars a
week
phosphate mines, and board themWhen they learned, on their first pay-
in the
selves.
day, of the trick which had been played
ever, induced
them
upon
few days in jail, howreturn to work on the old
them, they revolted.

to
terms.
The Chicago America, commenting on

incident, says this picture
is
the
a startling contrast
demagogues concerning the digAmerican labor. While they scheme
to the prate of
nity of
to
get the
labor in
votes
many
of
intelligent
parts of this
workingmen,
country is being
enslaved by means of the hordes of foreigners
WHITE SLAVES
226
who
are imported in violation of law
Mr. Powderly
which he paid
to
the conditioji of
were imported
right.
the North American Re-
tells, in
view, of a visit
investigate
and
to a
mining-camp
the
men who
to take the places of
American
workmen who had demanded higher wages for

labor done.
These men lived in huge barracks.
Their dining-room, smoking-room, sitting-room,
There were
kitchen, and bedchamber were one.
rows of bnnks, three deep, each one thirty

inches in width and seventy-eight inches long
five
the
bunk eighteen inches from
first
the floor,
the next, supported by rough hemlock posts,
but two feet above
it,
above the second one.
and a third two
Each bunk was
feet
filled
with straw, and covered with coarse coffee-sack

material for bed-clothing.
Two rows
of
hemlock
boards, each one twenty feet in length by three

feet in width, constituted the tables.
came
in
The men
from the mines while he was present,
down to
and water. One
and, before washing face or hands, sat

their supper of salt pork, meal,
hundred and
five
men
lived in a building one
hundred and sixty feet in length by thirty feet

He found no one to answer him in
in width.
227
When it was bedtime

English tongue.
they lay down without divesting themselves of
a single article of clothing some of them took
the
but the majority did not even

These men took the places of Ameri-
off their shoes,
do
that.
can
workmen who were
receiving from two dol-
and a half per day. The

compensation allowed them was but seventyAs a careful infive cents a day, and board.
lars to
two
dollars
vestigation proved that fifteen
and three-eighths
would provide the food furnished each

man,
outlay was but ninety and threecents
the
eighths cents a day.
common custom on
It is getting to
railroads
other places where
this
and
class of
in
be quite a
mines and
laborers are
employed, to attach to the waistband of each
man
a leather strap fastened to a large brass
baggage check.
Every
check bears a number, and the man who carries
check,
it,
or to
similar
whom
number on
it
is
is known by the
Mr. Powderly grimly
fastened,
check.
"
Fancy the future of the American

whose name is forgotten, and whose
comments
laborer,
his
to
only means of identification rests with a brass

check, which may be substituted for another
WHITE SLAVES
228
while he sleeps."
what
white slavery,
If this is not
is it ?
These Old World
tides
have also close
tion to the health of our cities.
rela-
Large num-
bers of these people have been accustomed to
crowded quarters, on
live in
and without any regard
insufficient food,
for cleanliness, in their
They come here, bringing

habits, bred in them sometimes
native country.
their filthy
generations.
ciitics
tell
have no doubt that some of
the truth
tenements
squalid
Jews and
Italians in
when they say
all
for
my
that the
occupied by the Russian

Boston are better than the
homes whence they came.
So far as these
for-
eigners themselves are concerned, even these

wretched conditions are perhaps an upward step
in
if we are
going
we
must
Boston,
expect
evolution.
Naples
in
But
to
have
to
have
Neapolitan cholera epidemics as well.
These Old World
have also a very close

relation to the morals of our people.
An over-
whelming majority
tides
of
all
the
criminals
who
and are supported in

and penitentiaries, were born abroad.
figure in our police courts,
our
This
jails
is
very easy to understand when
one
OLD WOULD TIDES IN BOSTON

investigates a little
courage
229
the methods used to en-
emigration to this country.
The
in-
SUliGICAL THEOLOGY.
vestigation
committee
made by
revealed
the
the
Ford Congressional
enormous extent
to
WHITE SLAVES
230
which
steamship
Europe
for
our shores.
men
are
drumming
human freight, to be dumped on
" To these
unscrupulous fishers of
companies
'
'
everything that walks or crawls is acceptable. Quantity, not quality, is the desideratum.
The worse the specimen, the more

usually,
less the
is
effective,
the emigration prize offered, and the
opposition interposed by government
In
has
been
thrown over nearly the entire European
conti-
officials.
word, a
drag-net
nent, with the result of having recently col-
lected for shipment to this country a class of
humanity, which, wherever
it
may
be, is a
men-
ace to good order and a tax upon the police
and charity departments
of the country."
One who speaks with the highest authority

on questions of political economy puts the immigration problem in a strong light when he
says
"We
are
now
pools of population
lectual
draining off great stagnant

which no current of intel-
or moral activity has stirred for ages.
Thousands and hundreds
who
of thousands of those
represent the very lowest stage of degra-
dation to which
human
beings can be reduced
by hopelessness, hunger,
squalor,
and
supersti-
OLD WORLD TIDES IK BOSTON

found among the new
tion, are
231
whom
citizens
the last decade has brought into the Republic."

It is
known beyond doubt
that prisoners' aid
European countries have

shipping convicts to the United
in various
societies
been steadily
Neither has
States.
it
been an uncommon
thing for criminals to be let off
by the
courts,
on condition of their emigrating to America.

It is folly for us to
criminal class,
of
purlieus
who
expect to take this great

were born to crime in the
European
cities,
thieves from their cradles,

fresh from jails
and
into useful citizens.
tinue
will
to
who have been
and who come
prisons,
They
and change them
will not only con-
be criminals themselves, but
spread
their vile
is
they
and wicked contagion

There is not a single
wherever they go.

cause of reform or progress in
that
to us
this
country
not constantly discouraged and post-
poned by these Old World

and vice.
tides of ignorance
There can be no doubt that there
is
a rising
public sentiment in this country in

favor of a careful and wise examination of every
tide
of
emigrant who
offers himself as a candidate for
WHITE SLAVES
232
American
citizenship in the future.
I think, in
view of the fact that we are getting a very

large and increasing proportion of our immigration
from Southern Europe, which
BUILDING USED BY THE BlilTlSH AS

illiterate
portion of the
ern Italy,
for
instance,
wisdom
year to the
in South-
seventy-nine
adding hundreds
number
the most
A HOSPITAL.
Old World
every one hundred are illiterate

to be an educational test.
There
in our
is
out
of
there ought
is
certainly no
of thousands a
of illiterates already here,
who
are
unable to read
the
233
Declaration of
Independence, and have not the
faintest con-
ception of the principles of our Constitution.

/
The examination
the
other side
many
ifest
of emigrants
of
ought
We
the water.
to be
on
have had
recent illustrations in Boston of the man-
hardships experienced under the present
Every person intending to emiAmerica ought to be required to give
arrangement.
grate to
notice of that desire through the nearest
ican Consul,
and furnish a clean
Amer-
bill of health,
both moral and physical and no one should be

permitted to sail without a certificate of such
;
investigation
and
satisfactory
finding.
This
would not shut out any one who would be of

value to American institutions, but it would
require European countries to care for the criminals
and paupers which their own
social
system
has bred.
But what
we do with these multitudes

who
are already living in our
foreigners
midst? In the first place, we must cease to re\
shall
of
gard them as foreigners or aliens, and set to

work with a definite purpose to Americanize
them
as quickly as possible.
We
must
not, for
WHITE SLAVES
234
moment, be satisfied to let them herd together

in the filth and squalor to which they may have
a
We
been accustomed at home.
hand them over
cannot afford
greedy tyranny of the

sweater.
Nothing will help us more than the
abolition of the neglected tenement house, and
to
to the
the provision for a healthier, cleaner shelter for
the people.
Some
of our public-spirited
men
of
wealth
cannot do better than to look in this direction

as a field in
which
uplift of their race
far greater
demand
to
make
If
mark upon
There
the
is
for this class of benevolent
investments than there

universities.
their
and their time.
some
is
of
added colleges or
the vile and unhealthy
for
tenements that have been described recently,

not only by myself but by the reporters and the
daily press, could be replaced by such buildings
as the Victoria
it
Square building in Liverpool,
would be a great public benefaction.
former
site of
On
the
Victoria Square were miserable
tenement houses.
To-day a magnificent structure stands there, built around a hollow square,

the larger portion of which
is
given up for a
healthful play-ground for the children,
"
The

halls
light,
237
and stairways of the building are broad,

and airy the ventilation and sanitary
;
arrangements,
The apartments
perfect.
are
divided into one, two, and three rooms each.
No room
is
six inches
smaller than thirteen by eight feet

most of them are twelve by thirteen
feet four inches.
" All the

ceilings are nine feet high.
A super-
intendent looks after the building. The tenants

are expected to be orderly, and keep their apart-
ments clean.
The roomy character of halls
and chambers may be inferred from the fact
that there are only two hundred and seventyfive
apartments in the entire building.
The
returns on the total expenditure on the building,
which was three hundred and thirty-eight
thousand eight hundred dollars, it is estimated

will be at least four and a half per cent."
The
rents will
seem miraculous
to those of
you who
have been following the prices given in this

series of discourses.
In this beautiful Victoria
Square dwelling, with
its
large, shrub-encircled
play-ground for children
attached, light, airy,
three-room
tenements
and
forty-four
dollar
are
furnished
cents
for
per week.
one
For
WHITE SLAVES
238
those containing
eight cents a
two
week
room quarters are
Who among
large rooms one dollar
is
charged
week.
let at fifty-four cents a
our rich
some grand crusade
of
and
while the one-
men
will lead off
this
sort?
we want
thing
to
in
Another
to do
Americanize these
people,
is
furnish
to
them employment under
conditions
sistent
with health,
intelligence,
rality.
con-
and mo-
Instead of the
crowded sweat-shop,
the moral atmosphere
of
which
as the
is
physical,
must have
conducted
spirit
as filthy
of
we
factories
the
in
Christian
civilization.
Let
day as
me
tell
I sat
you
of a vision I
had the other
meditating and dreaming
in.
my
study chair. I dreamed I was walking down the

streets of an American city when I saw a large
239
brick building which I might have thought
was
a factory except that there were white curtains

at
every
window
in the house.
As
neared
the door, I asked a passer-by what it was, and

he astonished me by saying, " This is the great
Christian factory."
see
what
Being a
little
anxious to
life in a really Christian factory
would
be like, I went in on* a tour of investigation.
There were several hundred employes in the

factory, most of whom were young women.
To my
astonishment, I found bath-tubs in this
factory,
with an abundance
water, linen towels,
and
of
hot and cold
toilet soap.
Did one
such luxuries in a factory of

In the girls' bath-room there were
ever hear of
any sort?
rugs under
foot, the finishing
was done in oak,
the trimmings were nickel-plated, the sanitary
arrangements were perfect, and everything was

as bright
it.
and clean
as
it
was possible
to
make
Each employ^ was allowed thirty minutes

and if one was so fastidious as to
for a bath,
need three-quarters of an hour, no comments

The structure was commodious
were made.
and convenient, substantially built, and heated,

lighted, and ventilated throughout according to
WHITE SLAVES
240
the most improved system.
was
attractive
in
Even
the cellar
completeness, from the
its
steam-engine that operated the machinery of

the building, to the culinary department where
those who desired could purchase a noon-day

lunch at actual cost of material. The cook in
charge of the kitchen devoted her entire time

to the work.
Every day, tea, with milk and
was supplied by the firm free of charge

oaten meal was furnished three days in the
sugar,
week
at
same
the
rate.
Delicious soup was
served at three cents a bowl.
was carefully cemented

clean, and there were
those
who lunched
was allowed
it
was
tables
The
light,
entire floor
warm, and
and benches
in the building.
at noon,
and while
all
An
for
hour
were ex-
on hand promptly at one o'clock,

living at a distance from the factory
pected to be
the girls
were thoughtfully permitted to leave a few

minutes before twelve o'clock.
On
the main floor goods were stored in the
centre of the room, the remaining space being

reserved for the pleasure and convenience of
the
employes.
floor there
At one end
of
this
spacious
was an improvised music-room, with

a piano and
window garden, where
241
the girls
could sing and sun themselves every noon.

Opposite was an enclosed sanctum, divided into
a reading
and reception-room.
The
rugs were scattered about.
was
Bright,
soft
reading-table
as well stocked with current literature as
man's library table.

The papers and
periodicals were reserved for the exclusive use
a club
of the girls.
An
open
fireplace
attractive features of the
there
was one
of the
reception-room, and
was a mantel-mirror, too
grace so dear to the gentler sex.
that
means
of
WHITE SLAVES
242
The two upper
contained the work-
floors
and machines.
tables
On
entering these work-
rooms one was struck by the neatness of the

place.
Everything seemed to have a white lining.
The atmosphere was not only
fresh
and sweet.
no
fluff,
There were no
clean,
rags,
but
no dust,
no smell of dripping grease from over-
A special staff of men

hanging machinery.
was constantly employed to look after the
premises, and their vigilance
anticipate the
of light
wear and
tear.
was such
as to
The abundance
and sunshine would astonish and de-
light not only business people, but school com-
Each work-shop was the

floor, so that light was admitted
missioners as well.
size of
an entire
from four sides of the building, the windows

almost adjoining one another. The white cur-
which softened the
gave the place a

homelike appearance which was very pleasing.
Another charm was the love of flowers. There
tains,
light,
were potted plants on every floor, and they

were as green and lovely as if nourished by a
practical florist.
On making some
inquiries, I
found that Friday was pay-day, and that indirectly much good resulted from this thought-

Not only did
ful system.
of
families
the
it
243
give the hundreds
benefit of the early Saturday
markets, but in a great measure did away with

the credit-books, and, best of all, was instru-
mental in keeping the
girls off the street Satur-
No
charges were imposed upon the

They did not have to buy thread,
day night.
operators.
pay machine-rent, or replace broken needles.

If an attachment was displaced, it was restored
by the
firm,
and even the
girls' scissors
were
kept sharpened at the expense of the employer.
Hot and
cold water, mirrors, towels, and soap
were among the conveniences.

the stationary
wash basins was
Posted over
this
request:
"Please help with your forethought to keep

clean
things
oblige."
and
nice.
Any
attention will
This was signed by the firm.
The
work was so systematized, and the training so

thorough, that the tyrannical forewoman and
domineering foreman had no place in the establishment.
whom
The manager was
the only person to
the hands were accountable.
Adjoining
was a pretty garden containing a

pear-orchard, with arbors and seats, where the
the factory
girls
lunched in
fine
weather.
Women
as a
WHITE SLAVES
244
show the
good keeping, and

these workers were not an exception.
There
class
effects
of
were a great many pretty faces among them,

and not one that betrayed " boss-fright " or
time-terror.
As a class they looked more like
normal college students than

Compared with overworked,
anxious-faced
girls
in
the
factory
hands.
nerve-strained,
sweat-shops,
and
indeed in most shops and factories, these trim,

tidy-looking,
seemed
world.
to
me
cheerful
and
contented
women
the very noblesse of the industrial
Ah
245
you may say, that is only an idle and

visionary dream and no doubt my critic of a few
weeks ago, who thought I belonged to the most
!
dangerous class in the community when I was

"
describing the misery of the white slaves of the
Boston sweaters," would be ready to say that
am engaged
dangerous task in
putting such ideal and impossible dreams into
the heads of working-girls.
But, dear sceptical
friend,
dream
on
of
in a scarcely less
what
at
all,
have been telling you is not a

but a heavenly reality that is going
I
modern work-a-day world, in the city

Newark, N. J., and I have merely been sumin this
marizing for you the report of Nell Nelson in

the New York World, giving an account of the
Christian experiment of Ferris Brothers' factory
for the
I
making of
was at this
Thursday
corset waists.
point in
at half-past
" Isn't
to myself,
it
my
discourse
one o'clock, when
on
I said
a little hazardous to take all
even on the authority of a newspaper reporter ? Will not a great many of your
this for fact,
audience say
reporter's
I
it
is
only a pleasing fancy of a
imagination?"
was on the
train for
New
So at three o'clock
York, and at eleven
WHITE SLAVES
246
that evening
was
bed
in
a hotel
in
in
Newark.
Friday morning, at half-past seven,
was
going through ,.Ferris Brothers' factory. It is

with great pleasure that I tell you that, on
returning, I did not have to strike out a single
word
On
had written.
dences of thoughtfulness
every side were

;
evi-
for instance, a large
portion of the girls employed live in a section
In order
of the city to the rear of the factory.
walk
to save the extra
of a block or two, three
hundred additional keys have been made to the

orchard gate, so that they can come and go
that way.
number
large
in the office.
of umbrellas are
If a girl is
caught at the
factory in an unexpected shower, she finds an
umbrella waiting to be loaned in just such an
kept
emergency.
With
the
manager
went through
They make
nary department.
every day, and
sell
for three cents.
large
the culi-
ice-cream
plates
now
to the girls
careful account
is
kept of
the cost, and the manager said he thought he
should be able to reduce the cream to two

cents a plate.

I
the
249
looked through the reading-room and over

carefully
manager
selected lists
said that
among
of
The
papers.
the girls were
some
excellent musicians, and others with good liter-
and told me,
thought with a
pardonable degree of pride, that a few months
ary
abilities,
since,
when some
desirable
positions
Newark Public Library were open

tition, the
two young
Brothers' factory
ladies
who were
to
compefrom the Ferris
successful, scored
ninety-five points out of a possible

their literary examination.
the
in
No
hundred
in
employe* works
more than nine and one-quarter hours a day,

and Saturday afternoon is free. The average
wages, including beginners and help girls, is
seven dollars a week, and a good worker makes
twelve dollars.
You may
say that
many
of these things that
have mentioned are insignificant and only

trifles, but, after all, it is such things as these
I
that in a large
human
But
lives
lest
degree make or unmake our
and a human
life is
no
trifle.
some hard-headed business
shall shake his
head and
bankrupt themselves,"
"
say,
The
man
fools will
must add, that aside
WHITE SLAVES
250
from the beauty and grace of
this
thoughtful
business philanthropy, the enterprise has been

entirely satisfactory
from a commercial stand-
point, the firm agreeing that not only
employes done more, but
One
ever before.
have their
work than
better,
of the firm assured
while there were, of course,
many
me
that,
discourag-
and occasionally an employe who

showed little appreciation, on the whole there
ing things
had been a steady improvement during

three
experience
years'
in
this
their
and
factory,
under no circumstances would they be willing

to go back to the old factory regime.
To
contrast a factory like this with some of
the sweat-shops I have visited,
is
like contrast-
There may be, and I

ing heaven with hell.
doubt not are, many other factories where the
same Christian thoughtfulness
is
exercised in
the treatment of employes, as here.
such
may
their
numbers be multiplied
the benediction of
The Church,
too
Church, formed of
Christianity
in
"
"
sincerity
who
all
Heaven
Upon
rest
all
May
mean
the
the great Catholic
branches
of
our
love the Lord Jesus Christ
must open
its
arms with a

heartier
the
251
tone of welcome and brotherhood to
and
tried
disheartened
working-people.
Nothing in recent art has stirred me so deeply

as a dim copy of Hacker's " Christ and the
Magdalene," reproduced by Mr. Stead in the
Review of Reviews. The Christ is standing
with coarse clothing and toil-worn hands by
the work-bench in the carpenter-shop at Naza-
The shavings
reth.
are heaped in piles around
him on the otherwise bare

ing at
his
feet
the Magdalene.
in
floor,
penitence
Brothers,
is
it
while kneel-
and
Christ," for
whom
is
this carpenter
Christ, as Frances Willard aptly puts
Monday
trust
it,
" the
the toil-worn world
it
will welcome when
sees
hungers,
Him manifested in us, in the shop, the fac-
and
tory,
and the counting-room,
as well as in the
church.
Zoe Dana Underhill
sings, in Harper's
Maga-
song the modern Church needs to learn,

until its great heart shall throb with its spirit.
zine, a
" The Master called

to His reapers,
4
Make
scythe and sickle keen,
And bring me the grain from the uplands,

And the grass from the meadows green,
WHITE SLAVES
252
And from
Where
off the mist-clad
marshes,
the salt waves fret and foam,
Ye shall gather the rustling sedges,

To furnish the harvest-home.'
the laborers cried, O Master,

We will bring Thee the yellow grain
That waves on the windy hillside,
Then
And
the tender grass from the plain

But that which springs on the marshes
Is dry and harsh and thin,
Unlike the sweet
So we
will not
field-grasses,
gather
it in.'
But the Master said, Q foolish

For many a weary day,
Through storm and drought, ye have labored
For the grain and the fragrant hay.
i
The generous
And
earth
breezes of
Where these, in
Have ripened
is
fruitful,
summer blow
the sun and the dews of heaven,

soft
and slow.
But out on the wide, bleak marshland

Hath never a plough been set,
And with rapine and rage of hungry waves
4
The
shivering
soil is
wet.
There flower the pale green sedges,

And the tides that ebb and flow,
And
the biting breath of the sea-wind
Are the only care they know.

'
They have drunken
of bitter waters,
Their food hath been sharp sea-sand

And yet they have yielded a harvest
Unto the Master's hand.

So
shall ye all,
reapers,
Honor them now the more,
And garner
The
in gladness,
with songs of praise,
grass from the desolate shore.'
5:
253
OUR BROTHERS AND
SISTERS,
BOSTON PAUPERS
THE
And
An
Sir Launfal said,
image of
Him who
'
I behold in thee,
died on the tree;
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;

Behold, through Him, I give to thee!"
Sir Launfal.
X
OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, THE
BOSTON PAUPERS
"
Now
man and he was clothed

sumptuously every day: and
a certain beggar named Lazarus was laid at his gate full of
in purple
there was a certain rich
and
fine linen, faring
sores."
**
Inasmuch as ye did
even these
least,
nPHESE
ye did
it
it
two views
unto one of these

unto Me."
day
when
tempt
They
are the
same
to-
by Jesus of
The one looks on poverty with con-
Nazareth.
looks
brethren,
of poverty ever stand over
J_ against each other.

as
my
it is
upon
so graphically described
The other
the view of selfishness.

it
with sympathetic brotherhood;
the view of humanity at
its
highest attainment,
or from the standpoint of Jesus Christ.
Both
these scriptures, however, agree in teaching us
the solemnity of our relation to our neighbors
who
are
in trouble
wood, in her story
or poverty.
of " The
Mrs. Gather-
Lady
of
Fort
John," in the August Atlantic Monthly

257
St.
WHITE SLAVES
258
of
tale
country,
tions
the
early French settlements in this
illustrates
by a weird
one of
the old
supersti-
an old Hollander who
tale of
had married a very young wife who, when he

came to die, was still only a girl and the cun;
ning old
Dutchman endeavored
supremacy over her
to maintain his
after his death
by grimly
providing in his will that his right hand should
be severed from his body, and, preserved by
some
main
rare chemical process, should always rein the possession of his
sacred treasure
it,
for
if
or failed to look on
widow
as her
most
she lost or destroyed

it
once a month, name-
and weird calamities, foreseen by the dying

man, must light not only on her, but on those
less
who
loved her best.
And
in his grave, that horrible
so,
long after he was
memento
of the past
held this poor woman in the clasp of its skeleton fingers, and guided her course across the
oceans, and into distant lands.
This was the
grip of a superstition only but there is a real

u dead
hand," of which this ghostly
grip of the
;
story
is
only a faint intimation
yesterday on to-day
the grip of
my
of to-day
duty toward
the grip of
on to-morrow
my neighbor that
OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS

cannot be shaken
off,
259
which even death
itself
does not loosen.
There
is,
no keener test
perhaps,
of
the
standing of a person or a city in the scale of

civilization, than their treatment of the sick or
poor dependent upon them. Dives,

the barbarian, whether in Jerusalem two thou-
helpless
sand years ago, or in Boston to-day,

poor
lie
lets the
at his gate in indifference, at the
mercy
prey upon them.

on the road to
whether
Samaritan,"
of every scavenger that

The " Good
may
Jericho, or at Rainsford Island, stops with
pathetic eye, a helpful hand,
symand open purse to
share his best with the victim of
misfortune
or wrong.
We
come
this
morning
to
examine into the
attitude of Boston toward her paupers
who
are
cared for in the two institutions at
and Rainsford Island.
Long Island
have made repeated
and approach this discusmany weeks of reflection, and
visits to these islands,
sion only after
a careful sifting of
I
the information received.
have hesitated about treating the subject at
all,
because a criticism of a public institution
supposed by so many people to mean
is
a personal
WHITE SLAVES
260
accusation or attack upon the parties in charge

of
it.
far as I
wish to say, in the beginning, that so
have been able to
see, the officers
imme-
diately in charge of these institutions are kind-
hearted and humane, and are endeavoring to do

the best they can, with the means at their
After saying that, I propose, withdisposal.

out any regard as to whom it may please or
displease, to point out candidly what seems to
me
inexcusable
thoughtlessness and grievous
errors in the treatment of the paupers in these

institutions.
The
largest
Island.
and best building
Here the men
on Long
is
There are
are kept.
about three hundred on the average, but this is

increased to between four and five hundred in
the winter.
And
right here
is
a wrong that
ought to be righted.
The excuse for careless and indifferent
ment
of the really deserving
are on
Long
Island
is
pauper
treat-
men who
that every winter the
"
crowded with " bummers who come
to
place
is
Long
Island in the winter for free quarters, and
as
soon as the weather
is
fine
for
tramping in the summer, they go
out-door
away
to

escape
work
in
the institution, coming back
again in cold weather.
very easy to devise a

sible.
No
261
It
would
certainly be
law to make
able-bodied person
who
this imposis
able to
TRAMPS.
work, ought under any circumstances to be sent

to the almshouse.
People who are able to work
and support themselves, and do not do so under
their
own
direction,
ought
work-house, and compelled
to be sent to the
to
do so under the
WHITE SLAVES
262
This would take
direction of a proper officer.
away from Long Island
who congregate
a lot of drunken tramps
The same
there in the winter.
remark applies to women. The intemperate

and vicious woman ought not to be sent to the
almshouse;
it
should be sacredly kept as "a
refuge and a home where the respectable poor,

those who have outlived
the sick, and the old
have broken down
their children, or
of life
may
find shelter
and
in the race
But the
care."
honest cases ought not, and need not, suffer in

order to punish these frauds.
on one of
on the
my
sick-roll,
a trained nurse.
food
is
At Long
Island,
men
visits, there were ninety-two
and only one nurse, and he not

I
am
also
satisfied that the
insufficient either for sick or well.
reporter of the Boston Post
rogate an old
man who was
side of his little cot.
managed
able to sit
to inter-
up by
the
In answer to a question,
man said they did not get any

and yet there is a large farm attached to
the institution, and there is no excuse for not
this sick old
milk
having plenty of milk provided at very

expense for these infirm old people.
man
said they
little
The
old
had meat three times a week
263
remember that means three meals out
of twentythe reporter, " What
and when asked by

kind of meat?" he answered
one
me
wouldn't do any good for
but
it's
mighty poor
in full a little
of a
few weeks
since,
to tell you,
Permit me
stuff."
article
pathetically, "It
to
sir,
quote
in the Boston Herald
under the
title,
"
Some
Harbor Policemen Overpowered by Long Island

"
Hospitality
" There is a
:
little
joke which
siderable merriment at the
causing con-
Harbor police station
and the key
at the present time,
tained in the words,
is
Long
to it is con-
Island hospitality.'
'
Protector
few days ago the police-boat
was ordered to take to Long Island a party of
6
who were to lay out grounds for

the proposed new hospital.
"The work of the boat's passengers occupied
surveyors,
an unexpectedly long time, and as no provision had been made for dinner, the party in-
voked the hospitality

island.
of the
The surveyors and
almshouse on the
officers of the
boat
were assigned to one part of the institution,

while the crew were invited into the large dining-hall, usually
occupied by the inmates.
It
WHITE SLAVES
264
is
which
this last-named party
is
bearing the
brunt of the joke. The feast of which they

were invited to partake consisted of a lot of
potatoes with their jackets on, without the for-
mality of a platter, a plate of what the boys

termed
soup-meat,' a soup-dish minus the
c
knives
soup,
and
Grace was omitted

first
gazing
A common
of
all,
at the
forks,
the
and
men
empty
and then
feast,'
mugs.
spent the time in

at each other.
thought seemed to occupy the minds
word they simultaneously

and left the room.
for without a
arose from the table
"
They waited at the boat until the surveyors'

work had been completed, and then came back
It was then time to make the regto Boston.
and with empty stomachs
they started out again and finished the day.
It was the intention of the victims to keep the
ular afternoon trip,
matter
'
shady
such things
will,
but the joke leaked out, as

and it is worse than shaking a
Long Island hospitalblue-coats who labor on the
red rag at a bull to say

ity'
to
water."
certain
And
'
yet they were there at one of
the three lucky meals out of twenty-one,

there was "
soup-meat."
when
Among the men in

out to
me
this institution
a marble-cutter,
who was
respectable, self-supporting
265
was pointed
a thoroughly
He was
workman.
hurt while at work by the falling of a stone,
and
so disabled
by an injury of the spine that
he was unable to continue employment. As

soon as sickness had used up what money he
had, having no relatives
who could
there was nothing left for
him but
One
of the officers spoke of
terms,
and told
from any one

cuits of
else,
him
to
help him,
come
here.
in the highest
me how, without
direction
he sought by
daily cir-
many
the building to strengthen his spine.
was assured by the same officer that many

others who were inmates were there purely
I
through misfortune which was from no fault of

their own, but from such accidents as are likely
to
happen
to
any honest laboring-man.
maintain that such
men ought
Now
to be treated
with
a decent regard for their self-respect, and given

a comfortable home. It is an outrage that this
marble-cutter,
and others
shabbily than
if
like him, are fed
more
they had been convicted of a
crime.
In addition to the
men on Long
Island, there
WHITE SLAVES
266
is
one ward in the hospital used for women.
There were fifty-two sick

this
ward
at the time of
women crowded
my
visit.
into
There was
only one nurse, an excellent woman, but with

The
no special education for her duties.
night helper is a
fifty cents a day.
woman who
For
this
sick
women
there
The
nurse's
own room was
was no
is
ward
hired
for
of fifty-two
bath-room at
situated at
all.
the
other end of the building from her ward, and

she had to go across the men's ward to get to
her patients at night, if she went. There was

no place for insane or refractory patients, or for
the dying, except in the general ward.
Some-
times their cries and groans are very distressing

In a recent case of death
to the other patients.
from mania, the whole ward was disturbed for

several nights.
of the women are kept at Rainsford
and
there are many more reasons for
Island,
The only
criticism there than on Long Island.
Most
hospital there is an old smallpox hospital, more

than three-score years old. This is crowded
beyond
all
thought of the requirements of saniThink of a room for confinement
tary science.

cases only seven feet wide
and
less
267
than twelve
In the annual report of Public Institutions for 1889 we find the following statefeet long.
ment by the then resident physician " It is

remarkable that a building which was a small:
pox hospital
fifty-seven years ago,
and which
undergone no material improveshould

ment,
up to the present time be the only
hospital connected with our pauper institusince then has
tions."
The doctor might have added
building was abandoned a quarter
that this
of a century
ago by the State, as unfit for sick persons.

is
certainly no extravagance
It
to say that these
arrangements for the care of the sick on Rainsford Island are more than half a century behind
The only thing modern
the times.
saw was
the keen-eyed physician.
There
is
about the entire institution a lack of
careful though tfulness for the comfort of the in-
mates, that
is
exceedingly painful to a thought-
For example, the island is very

situated, and there are many fine
ful observer.
bea-utifully
trees in the shade of
arrangements,
it
which, with comfortable
would be
delightful experience
for
most healthful and
hundreds
of
these
WHITE SLAVES
268
and aged women
to sit on summer days ;

searched
but, although
carefully throughout
the grounds, I found only two benches under
infirm
anywhere, and a half-dozen more,

on the sea-front, and not one
around
perhaps,
Think of arranging
of them with a back to it.
the
trees
for
the comfort of
your own grandmother,
eighty years old, in that
The food
here, too,
stance, the matron told
is
way
that only those
worked were allowed butter on

These old women are
set
For
insufficient.
me
down
their
in-
who
bread.
to bread
and
and bread and soup for another

have a little meat of some kind three
tea for one meal,

they, too,
times a week, and potatoes at dinner.
Again
repeat that, with the large farm attached to
Long
no reason why these old women,

as well as the old men, should not have an abun-
Island, there
is
dant quantity and an appetizing variety of vegetables, as well as plenty of nourishing milk.
And
I maintain that it
is
a shame and disgrace
that the Boston which less than five years ago
could spend more than twenty thousand dollars

in feasting
came
and wining a Hawaiian woman who
to visit us,
expending four thousand
dol-
cannot afford to furnish a
lars for flowers alone,

little
butter to spread on the bread of the help-
less old
women on
Rainsford Island, even
Think
are unable to work.
words
of
if
they
of the stolid indif-
ference, or thoughtlessness
table
269
to
hunt
for chari-
an institution having several
hundreds of people to care for, and yet making

no difference in its hospital diet. No matter
what the
disease,
it is
to eat
up
to the cast-iron
programme, or starve. Who that has been ill

or has watched anxiously with their own dear
ones, but
sick
has noticed the capriciousness of a
person's
the
appetite,
longing for
delicacies, for just a taste of
pensive
mean
little
and un-
are not ex-
that
somebody shall
genuine sympathy and thought-
they only
little
rare
Such things
usual dish or drink?
invest a
some
fulness in the matter.

institution,
Throughout this entire

hospital and all, having over four
hundred women, there
is
not a single trained
In this day of enlightenment it ought

to be a crime for any hospital to be carried on
nurse
without trained nurses.
watchman on
There
is
no night
the whole island, and, after eight
o'clock in the evening,
nobody who
is
responsi-
WHITE SLAVES
270
ble at
In the main institution on Rainsford
all.
Island the attic
an extent as
to
is
crowded with beds
make
to such
a healthful atmosphere
impossible.
You must remember

are paupers
Many
of
that
through no
them
many
fault
of
people here
their
own.
are victims of incurable disease
such cases the Boston hospitals

are closed, the almshouse is for them the only
and, as against
open door.
Public sentiment must be aroused
demand, with Florence Nightingale, that

" work-house sick shall not be work -house in-
to
mates, but they shall be poor sick, cared for as

sick
as
who
are to be cured
if
possible,
becomes a Christian country
if
and treated
they cannot
We
people who are followers of

Him who confessed, " The foxes have holes, the
birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man
be cured."
hath not where to lay His head," cannot afford

to treat people
who
are,
through misfortune, in
the same condition to-day as though they were
some species
of criminal, rather than as the hos-
Perhaps you say these

people are not appreciative, are not refined, do
how do you know that?
not have fine feelings
tages of our Christ.

That
is
271
doubtless true about some of them, but
them nothing could be more

do
not lose their powers of apprePeople
ciation when they lose their money, and I doubt
about
of
many
false.
not that these people would average, in the

of
sential characteristics
character, with the
the same age
es-
manly and womanly
same number
of people of
you could gather from the homes

Last Christmas some kind-
street.
along your
hearted women went
some
down
to Rainsford
One
gifts for the sick poor.
with
of them, writ-
ing about their reception, says: "It was very

touching to see the happiness our little gifts
The first was a poor old woman,

more than eighty, nearly blind from cataracts
over her eyes. She is called
Welsh Ann beconferred.
'
cause she
had been
is
from Wales.
My
friend told her I
She seemed so glad to

shake hands with one who had been in her own
in Wales.
country, and her voice choked with tears as she
thanked
the'
me and
tears
while
my
my
gift.
But she brushed
away from her poor
sightless eyes
friend repeated to her the
third Psalm,
prayed.
took
and then
Twentyand
at her request knelt
The apron which
gave her has quite
WHITE SLAVES
272
a history.
girl
who
own
earns her
living,
was making these aprons, sent me this

hearing
one which she bought. It was worked across
I
the bottom, and I thought, as poor
Ann
rubbed
her hands over the work she could not see, but
only touch, how cheered the young lady would

be when she heard of the joy her gift gave. I
was asked
to give one pretty apron to another

one they called Greenland Ann,' because she is so very fond of hearing them sing
From Greenland's icy mountains.' r
And
Ann
'
surely that spirit of the Christ, which
is
warm
to impel men to dare the frost of

"
" Greenland's
in order to comicy mountains
enough
with His blessed Gospel their Esquimau

brother, ought to prompt us to deal thoughtfort
and tenderly with the dear old soul that

to hear Him sung about on Rainsford
fully
likes
Island.
I
shall
upon
never forget
the
me by Mark Guy
impression
Pearse,
made
one of the
greatest of the English preachers, in his story

of
how he was
" It
ordained a preacher.
He
said
was no bishop or presbytery that consecrated

me, but a saintly Cornish woman, whom we

children called old Rosie, and
who
273
was, indeed,
my right reverend mother in God.

" So far as I can
recollect, it was always sunshiny
course
when we
it
visited old Rosie, though of

must have rained sometimes. She
had a single room in a

squeezed behind the rest.
tiny
little
narrow
cottage
strip led
no room for any

window in front, except the one right above
the door, peering out from under the heavy
thatch.
There is no one to answer if we knock,
to the door,
so
lift
and there
we push our
the wooden
fingers
latch.
w^as
through the door and
My
father,
who goes
with us almost every Sunday, has to stoop his

head in climbing the narrow stair, and of
course the
little
their heads too
one of me.
ing smile.
lad of six and his sisters stoop

there are four of the girls and
Rosie welcomes us with her beam-
She
is
sitting
up
in bed, as she has
done for eleven long years. She is a hundred

and five years old, and her hair is snowy white,
yet there is not a wrinkle on her brow, and her
cheeks have the rosy brightness from which
All her relations
she gets the familiar name.

are gone,
and she
is
now
a pauper with only
WHITE SLAVES
274
two
three
or
parish.
"
We
bedridden, yet she
The
is
Bible
brimful
is
of
happiness.
and she
constantly at her hand,
is
the
her poor and lonely and
call
might
week from
shillings
generally thanking
God
for all
His mercies.
She has lived in the light and love of the Savand she
iour since she was eleven years old
has gone so long and so far in the good way,
now
that
it
is
as
she
if
were
sitting
just
outside the golden gates, crowned with radiant
beauty and clothed with white raiment, w aiting

until her Lord shall bid her enter.
r
"At
little
service
Bible, then a
to
have a
a chapter read from
first
hymn
sung
the prayer was
favorite,
'
Rock
of
the
'
Ages was her
to 'Rousseau's Dream.'
When
over, old Rosie would lay her
hand on the
thin
we used
dear old Rosie's bed
little
lad's
curly head, and
say as she turned her face upward, O Lord,

Bless him and make him
bless the little lad
'
a preacher.'
I didn't like that prayer of hers,

used to say to myself, I will never be a
preacher; I will be a doctor, and gallop about
the country visiting people.'
But one Sunday,
and

after the service
'
'
to us all.
good-by
more
now,
so
and her
it
until
'
little
prayer, she said
You won't
must be good-by
we meet
275
see
me any
for a long time
We
at home.'
wondered
Two days after, she was carGod's

ried home by
angels from her lonely
room. My little heart was like to break at the
what she meant.
thought of never seeing her again
and
went
out by myself to the garden and prayed, Please

4
God,
don't care so much, after
come a preacher,
'
if
it
will
all,
if
I be-
make dear Rosie any
happier.'
It
would be better
for us
that a millstone
were hanged about our necks, and we were cast

into the depths of the sea, than that we should
be thoughtless or indifferent of one of God's
poor, like old Rosie.
Well, you ask,
My
answer
change
in.
is
how
can
it
be
made
better?
that there ought to be a radical
the Board of Control of Public Insti-
do not make any personal fight on

I make war on
the three men now in control.
tutions.
the whole system.
As
it is
and about Boston, ten public

pied by
thousands of
now, there
are, in
institutions, occu-
men and women and
WHITE SLAVES
276
on at an expense of nearly six

hundred thousand dollars, entirely under the
children, carried
commissioners.
three
of
control
wise.
There ought
This
is
to be a large advisory
not
board
made up of distinguished citizens. This should

be composed of women as well as men. It is
certainly a very short-sighted
that,
arrangement
although there are in these
hundred women and
institutions several
dren, there
and thoughtless
chil-
no woman who has any authorized

There is every reason why
is
interest in them.
women
should be on the Boards of Control of
Public Institutions.
York Nation says

there has been
Hospital,
for
of Blackwell's
in
editor
the condition of
and Hart's
been due
of
and
to
the
New
Whatever improvement
example, and of
past twenty years

as a rule,
The
"
Bellevue
the
hospitals
Islands, during the
it is
very great
women's
has,
initiative
and
labors."
The
fact
is,
that everything that concerns
and good morals occupies the

minds of women more than it does the minds
health, education,
of
most of their husbands and fathers
and
in
every department of municipal administration,

where the conditions of the
streets,
277
of
the
sewers, of the hospitals and almshouses, and of
the
police,
in
are
women have an
question,
men, and in order to the

public well-being and safety, ought to have an
equal voice. I am sure that an advisory board
equal interest with
of leading citizens,
level-headed,
on which were three or four
humane women, would work
revolution that
is
Do
Boston's paupers.
aside.
This
is
not put this question
Boston's question, and you are
As some one sang
a part of Boston.
Boston Transcript not long ago
Lazarus
lies at
in the
your gate!
O proud and prosperous city,

How long will you let him wait?
Listen and look; have pity.
Dives, oh, cannot you hear,

For the music and dance of your high land,
The moaning of misery drear
That comes from the desolate island?
Finest of linen you wear;
Comrades
Sumptuous
What
the
needed in the treatment of
in
luxury you cherish,
daily
you
fare.
of your neighbors
who
perish?
WHITE SLAVES
278
When you would heighten your cheer

By a contrast that's very dramatic,
Fancy what scenes may appear
In a certain dim hospital
attic.
Swarming and sweltering, and scant

foul to soul as to senses,
Of air,
Where he that is guilty of Want
Meets a doom
for graver offences.
fit
Worn-out, the pauper nurse sleeps
The sufferer, forsaken, is crying

With no one to moisten his lips,
No one to mark that he's dying.
Who
should hear the catch in his breath
'Mid the coughs, curses, ravings, resounding

Through the ward o'er the bed of his death,
From
And
the close-crowded pallets surrounding
picture the scenes, to
come
Perhaps, of another sorrow
Nearer your stately home,

That you will not have to borrow;
When
hushed
is all
merry din,
And your smiling guests have vanished;

When your flowers come blooming in,
To be glanced
When
vain are
That
at
all
Mammon
once and banished
the crafts
serve,
and never
Your costliest, coolest draughts

Can quench the fire of your fever;

When your street is red with tan,
And your oft-pulled door-bell muffled,
That the peace of a dying man
By no
When
faintest
sound be
love, to give
Doth
you
ruffled;
rest,
with soothings fruitless;

has done its best,
toil
And skill
And the
town's best
skill is bootless;
When the chaises leave the place,

And the helpless, poor patrician
Lies looking up in the face
Of only the Great Physician,
God grant
it
with joy
be
may
That you hear, What you did toward others

Ye have done it unto Me,
'
In the least of those
Lazarus
lies at
brothers
your gate;
Our kindly dear

Let him no longer
Open
My
old city,
wait;
the doors of your pity! "
'
!
279
XI
COMMENT ON "OUR BROTHERS AND

SISTERS,
THE BOSTON PAUPERS"
" There
Which
Which
is
no caste
in blood,
runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears,

trickled salt with all."
XI
COMMENT ON "OUR BROTHERS AND

SISTERS, THE BOSTON PAUPERS"
ALICE
MRS.
a large
N.
LINCOLN, who
amount
interest to the treatment of
who
has given
and painstaking
the paupers, and
of time
deserves more credit than any one else for
the present hopeful
writes
campaign
as follows in
in
their behalf,
the Boston Transcript of
August 28
:
"
Those
enough
of
your readers
who were kind
to follow in
the articles
your columns, last winter,

for which you courteously made
space there concerning the poor of Boston, will,

I think,
be interested to
know what
been done for the islands, and

controversy
is
why
has since
so
much
aroused by the sermon of Dr.
Banks on the paupers.

"
Early in the spring two new commissioners

were appointed. It was hoped that this change
283
WHITE SLAVES
284
in the board
would bring about good
but, in point of fact, matters
the same.
The
results,
remained much
appropriation for a
new
hospital,
though made months ago, was not acted upon

until
this
week, when bids for the building
\vere opened.
WOMEN'S HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND.I

"
On August
5 I had the honor to lay before
the commissioners eight requests on behalf of
the inmates of the island, as follows

" 1. More
for the able-bodied.
:
occupation
"
2.
More comfortable
women, who
1
This
on the
is
right,
chairs
for
the
aged
are obliged to rise at 5.30 A.M., and
the best hospital
behind which
is
ward on the two

a dying woman.
islands.
Screen shown
COMMENT
are not allowed
to
285
down without
lie
permis-
sion.
" 3.
More benches out
of doors for the benefit
of the inmates.
" 4.
room
for the
dying (it having

been urged by both the physician and superintendent that the cries of dying patients often
separate
disturbed a whole ward for several nights).

" 5. More
privacy for women in bathing (and
perhaps, shock your readers, as
it will,
it
did the
writer, that one of the commissioners affirmed
and repeated
that he
not
did
consider this
necessary).
" 6.
Another nurse
at
Long
Island,
O'Brian has charge of fifty-two sick

where there is no bath-room.
"
7.
Another nurse
Building
on
Rainsford
laundry-matron has
women
addition
in
at the
Main
Island,
where Miss
women and
Institution
where
the
of
charge
forty-two sick
to her other duties, and
with no assistance except what
is
given her by
inmates.
"
8.
new matron
for the hospital.
reason for making this last request

believe
the
is
My
that I
present matron to be inefficient.
WHITE SLAVES
286
She has had no previous hospital training to fit

her for her duties, and certainly the hospital
and
its
patients,
when
evidences of neglect.
I last
saw them, bore
The beds were not
clean,
and the patients showed a lack of personal

When I first visited the
cleanliness and care.
hospital the floors were dirty
and the
closets
were unwashed, but there has been an improveI was present when
ment in those respects.
dinner was served to thirty patients in one ward
or,
indeed, to seventy inmates of the hospital
and the matron took no charge
of the food,
which was put before the patients

uninviting manner
great
most
in a
contrast to
the
neat wooden trays which are in use at Tewksbury.
Moreover,
in the patients, to
testimony when
discerned a want of interest
which the matron herself bore
she said that she never washed
a wound, and was engaged as a matron
not as
a nurse.
"
These, then, were the grounds upon which
I asked for the appointment of another nurse or
matron, and fortunately one has applied for the

position entirely without my knowledge or
solicitation.
One
of the commissioners
doubted
COMMENT
287
whether a trained hospital emergency nurse

could be found to go to the islands but this
;
seems to set that question at
offer
to be
rest,
and
it is
hoped her application may be considered
favorably.
" I also had the honor to
lay before the com-
missioners the
tenants,
little
report of
who was an inmate
one of
my
former
of Rainsford Island
more than a year ago.

was a young woman who went down
" She
there because of a
lump in her breast, taking

But for the baby she would
her baby with her.

have been admitted to the City Hospital
she did not
like to
leave
but
her child, and her
husband, who was absent, was unable to care

for it.
Consequently, she became for the time
an inmate of the Rainsford Island Hospital.

" She
complained first of the indignity of
having to
strip in the
presence of others, no
screen or curtain being provided as a shelter

to the necessary bath,
which
is
the
first
step on
entrance to an institution.
"
During her stay
of three
weeks she had no
towel given to her, and only one clean sheet was

furnished.
WHITE SLAVES
288
" She was

expected to cook all the food for her
make and
baby, and to
although she was
own
her
clean
bed,
partly incapacitated by the
lump in her breast, which affected one arm.

" The food was
very poor and unsatisfactory
and when she complained that the porridge was

sour, the matron told her if she did not like it
she could leave
"
Worse than
day
it.
all,
her baby
fell ill
on a Wednes-
she could obtain no medicine for
Sunday (though she asked for
it
it
until
repeatedly),
and on Monday the baby died.

" The mother left the institution the next
day.
She speaks in the highest terms of the physician
in charge
and
of the assistant, Miss
McDonald,
but she says the matron

never did anything for her and was not with her
when the baby died; also, that the milk and
at Rainsford Island
other food ordered for the patients

received
by them.
statement
is
And
in
my
me, with
respect her
this
tenant,
inmate of Long Island when
women
often not
corroborated by the remarks
another woman, also
for
is
it
several years ago.
bated
breath,
that
of
who was an
was
This
the
first
opened
woman
told
food
was
COMMENT
miserable
it
289
was killing her
died soon after, though
and, indeed, she
think grief hastened
her end.
GETTING
BiiEATH OF
FiiJtiSH Alii.
have seen these people in their

own homes that I feel such sympathy for them
"It
is
because
WHITE SLAVES
290
They have known the comfort and

independence of their own surroundings, and if
as paupers.
by reason of old age or sickness

through no
fault of their own
they become paupers, they
should at least be treated with due consideration
and nursed with
all
tenderness.
no plea for the lazy and

class
for
who seek
whom,
people, even
best care.
Banks
as Dr.
;
but
entering
and intemperate
an almshouse, and
idle
the refuge of
the proper place
am
says, the
work-house
paupers, are entitled to the very
if
We
do not begrudge it to them in

or our State almshouse
our City Hospital

therefore,
why
is
do say that old or sick
is
it
too
much
to require it of
the city of Boston's pauper hospitals?

" No wonder that an
attack such as has been
made by Dr. Banks meets with

tion
and
whose
denial.
officials
He
violent opposi-
attacking institutions
depend for their bread and butter
is
on the positions which they fill. But Dr. Banks

and I have no axe to grind,' and he is only
'
stating the truth
when he
says that the pauper
institutions at Rainsford Island are
(so overcrowded that nearly

sleep in a close and stifling
overcrowded
fifty
attic,
old
women
under the
COMMENT
roof),
and
and that the
sick,
is
fare, especially for the old
not what
it
The Boston Herald

exhaustive
article,
291
should be."
of
August 30 begins an
more than
five
columns long,
by saying
"For some time there has been an earnest
:
and vigorous agitation going on regarding the

management and condition of Boston's pauper
institutions
at
Long and Rainsford
Islands.
Heretofore this agitation has been out of the

sight of the general public, with the exception
of a
few
letters
which have appeared from time

consequently, the sermon
to time in the papers
of
Rev. Louis Albert Banks
Sunday on
last
the subject came like a revelation to

" The Herald had been
a
making
many.
thorough
in-
vestigation of the charges brought, previous to
Mr. Banks' utterances, and
this has
been con-
tinued up to the present time, in order that the

people of Boston
may know
accurately and to
the fullest the precise condition of

institutions
and
their inmates.
that investigation,
it
may
As
its
pauper
a result of
be boldly said that
the criticisms which have been
made public do
not give an adequate idea of the disgraceful
WHITE SLAVES
292
condition in which the institutions are at present,
nor the
receive
treatment
which
the
paupers
and under which they exist rather than
live.
" This statement
is
a strong one, but
it
can be
borne out by facts which are indisputable."

In the course of this long article, which
fully sustains
all
statements set forth in
my
Herald reporter, commenting on

the crowded condition of the buildings on
discourse, the
Rainsford Island, says

" It is in the main
building at Rainsford that
:
the greatest lack of even decent surroundings

prevails,
mates
is
and where the condition

the worst.
of
the
Here the fault seems
in-
to lie
not only with the commissioners, but with' the

matrons in charge, for there is no system disin
cernible
the
The
whatever.
women who
housekeeping
infirmary
is
arrangements
occupied by those
are not able to get about
and the
rooms composing that part of the building are

pleasant and airy of themselves, but they are
spoiled
by
their keeping.
There
cation of inmates, and old and

together, as well as the vicious
nate.
is
no
classifi-
young are all

and the unfortu-
COMMENT
293
which might be made

was suggested by the presence of two women
who were so unfortunate as to be afflicted in
"Another
classification
such a manner that the whole
was contaminated on
air of the
their account.
room
This was
through no fault of their own, and they should

not be made to suffer for it but it seems hardly
fair that all the other women should be com;
to
pelled
presence.
breathe the air
Add
decent living
made
foul
by
to this detriment to health
the
their
and
bad sanitary arrangements,
and the result
is, indeed, open to criticism.

" This
building is so old and antiquated that
it
originally
had no place provided inside for
water-closets and bath-rooms.
In putting these
in they were built directly in the corners of the
rooms
and these corners were then partitioned
off, but for some unknown reason the partitions

were not continued up to the ceilings, the
result
left
in
Owing
being that the closets were practically

the room and a screen put around.
to the fact that there
island, it all being
brought
is
in
no water on the
tanks by steamer,
not that abundance used in flushing out

the bowls which otherwise might be the case,
there
is
WHITE SLAVES
294
and which would go so far toward removing the

horrible odor which is so prevalent in every
part of the building.
Aside from the discom-
fort in being obliged to smell this odor continually,
the danger to the health of the inmates
is
a serious thing.
"
Throughout the wards in this building there
is
considerable overcrowding, although not to
the extent that
The
is
to be seen in another part.
by the women themand conversation with the matron showed
beds are all cared for
selves,
that there was a regular time for changing the

bed linen, although that time was not the same
any two rooms, and the writer, after continued questioning and asking for explanation,
failed to discover that there was any regularity
in
whatever about
"
it.
few beds were taken at random and
stripped to see their condition.

sheets were dirty, very dirty
Invariably the
but
this
was ex-
plained by one of the inmates who was in

charge of this ward by the statement that it
was time they were changed, according to their

usual practice, but for some reason, not given,
it
had not been done
this
week.
On
nearly
all
COMMENT
295
the sheets were plainly seen the marks of dead
bed-bugs and other vermin, some of it dried on

and looking as though it had been there for a
long time.
" It
is
in the attic of the
main building, how-
ATTIC AT RAINSFOKD ISLAND..

ever,
that one should go to
Dickens'
pictures
of
pauper
realize
life,
some
of
for there
is
a picture here that needs no exaggeration to
make
1
it
appear on a par with those in
Cut shows one wing.
Another crosses
it
fiction.
at right angles
and
is
partly occupied.
Thirty women occupy this room, allowing about
320 cubic feet of air-space per person. The only ventilation is through
windows jutting out on the roof, each one being 2 feet 10 inches by
4 feet 8 inches in size.
WHITE SLAVES
296
In this attic live the older women, and they

pass their sleeping hours and many of their
waking ones under the eaves

"
Throughout
this attic the
of this old house.

is
peak
so low that
can be touched by the hand of a man of ordinary height while standing, and the roof pitches
it
until
it
Under
comes
two feet
of the floor.
the eaves here are placed the beds of
these old
roof,
to within
women,
under the
their heads close
and extending
in a line
down
the length
of the building.
"
The width
of this attic is eighteen feet,
and
but it is
length is that of the building
In one of
divided up into several apartments.
its
these apartments were thirty beds, all occupied

at
night.
The
total
air-space
of
this
room
allowed about three hundred and twenty cubic

feet to each person, where a thousand are considered necessary with good ventilation, according
to
Mr. Commissioner Newell.
The only
this attic gets is
few small windows
let
enough
are
to
light
through a
into the roof, not large
and ventilation that
furnish ventilation for rooms which
not overcrowded, and certainly not large
enough
to purify
rooms where the
air is
made
COMMENT
by being breathed by
foul
too
many
297
at least three times
persons.
"Moreover, these old
women
are required to
and are comevery morning

pelled to remain up until 8 o'clock in the evenat 5.30 o'clock,
rise
They
ing.
are not allowed to lie
down during
the day without a special permit from the doctor, as,
they say,
it
would cause
disorder.
This
permit he says he is always willing to grant,

but they seldom come for it. This seems perfectly natural, as one hardly can expect that the
old
women would
take pains to hunt up the
doctor every time they wanted to take a short

nap.
" Not
only are they not allowed to
lie
down
for
a nap without this special permit, but comfortable chairs are not furnished them.
bed
is
a single ordinary
cheapest kind, and this
is
wooden
By
each
chair of the
allotted to the
one
Now and then a dockingbe seen, but they are few and far
occupying the bed.

chair
may
between.
"
Some time ago a benevolent and kindhearted lady visiting the island was struck with
this lack of comfort, and sent to the institution
WHITE SLAVES
298
a
number
of rocking-chairs for use in the old
women's ward.
They
arrived on July 16, but
an active search for them failed to disclose their

whereabouts.
It
was plain that the women
MAKINlfiKS
for
HOME.
whom
they were intended were not getting the

Nobenefit of them, and inquiry was made.
body seemed
to
know where
sent
Sev-
something of the kind had

down, but knew nothing more,
eral believed that
been
they were.
COMMENT
299
Finally, after an energetic search
the
kins,
chairs
by Dr. Har-
were discovered in a
store-
house, or paint-shop, where they had been put
when they landed on
Two
the wharf
long ago.
days later these chairs had been taken out
so.
and placed in the wards, and there were two

hundred women eager for the six comfortable
rockers.
"
Another criticism which might be made is

that the paupers are provided with no regular
religious service.
At Deer
Island there
is
paid chaplain, and although his duties do not

call him to the almshouse, he sometimes goes
There
over.
a large
is
room
called the chapel,
and here religious services are held when there

is
any one
down
goes
to lead them.
twice a
week
Catholic priest
to minister
to the
wants of the Catholics, who are in the majority

something
like ninety-five
that persuasion.
The
per cent being of
fact remains, however,
that the city of Boston does not give
its
pau-
pers the benefit of any religious service or guid-
As was
ance.
facts
'
:
said by one lady on hearing the
In the eyes of the city
it is
crime to be a pauper than a criminal.'
a greater
v
WHITE SLAVES
300
Rev. Dr. Frederick B. Allen, of the Episcopal

City Mission of Boston, writing in the Herald
of
August
31, says
" In the
management
of
human
beings, espe-
cially the aged, the infirm, the insane,

sick, there
eration
is
and the
needed a wise and tender consid-
which sheer business management
is
apt
to miss.
"
The
sociological problems of pauperism
and
crime, the study of successful methods in other
and other
cities
lands,
the deep sense of
sacredness of our humanity, even in
and most unfortunate members,
demand
their
whom
its
the
weakest
these
make
men and women to

human life and death
for the aid of
these questions of
are at least as controlling as the reduction of
the city tax rate.

" Were there
any such board of advisers to
do
in our city institutions
ties
Aid Society has done
we should not have been

are,
what the State Charifor
New York
confronted, as
State,
we now
with poorly planned, inadequate, and badly
managed
those
buildings, lack of
permitted to
and untrained
discrimination in
occupy them,
nurses for the
insufficient
sick,
lack of
COMMENT
301
proper ventilation and food, and everywhere

the absence of devoted personal, human, moral
oversight and control.
"I second most positively Dr. Banks'

tion that
'
an advisory board of leading
asser-
citizens,
on which are three or four level-headed and
humane women, would work

that
ers
is
and
revolution
the
needed
in the treatment of " our broth-
sisters,
the Boston paupers."
OF TH
UNIVERSITY
OF
XII
"
When
But
wealth no mere shall rest in
sinit
In
many
And light
Thro'
all
mounded
heaps,
with freer light shall slowly melt

streams to fatten lower lands,
shall spread,
and man be
liker
man
the seasons of the golden year."
XII

who
one
NO
life'
this is
is
in touch with the throbbing
of this time can fail to perceive that
an age peculiarly given up to the worMammon. The literature of our day
ship of
bears certain evidence of this fact.
Magazine of
last
Scribner's
year contained, under the
title
and comprehendealing with the debauch of a noble
of "Jerry," a painfully realistic
sive story,
character by the
fascination of gold.
Jerry
white
trash"
of
the
"-poor
belonged
Cumberland Mountains, and on the death of his
to
the
mother, being cruelly treated at home, he ran
away
the
to the
little
fell into
West.
After
many
wanderings,
wayfarer, tired out and almost dead,

the hands of a quaint old miner
who
was digging and hoarding up gold in his cabin

in the Northwestern Mountains.
In the midst
of this wild region, educated
305
by a kind-hearted
WHITE SLAVES
306
physician, Jerry
grew up to be a young man

and heroic character. He
of peculiarly noble
remembered with painful distinctness that he
common
belonged to the poorest of the
and the ambition
of his life
own class.
The fearful tragedy
the miserly old miner
known
to
Jerry,
young ward
ment, that
is
of the story begins
who,
his
when
the time un-
all
hoarding up gold for his
discovers, to his great astonish-
gold
has
no fascination for
young man, and
strange
people,
was to uplift
lofty ideals all his toil for
fears
him
this
that with his

will be in vain
So the shrewd old man

and unappreciated.
him
to
the
to
send
East, where his eyes
plans
may
be dazzled with the brilliancy of fashion-
able
life,
power
and where may be revealed
his old log cabin
on the mountain
to
him the
Sitting in
gold gives to its possessor.
side, the old
miner would rub his hands back on his stubbly

" If
Jerry
gray hair and reason with himself
:
knew gold; if Jerry could only see what

could
then he
gold
get, could only spend gold
would be willing to take all he could get and
only
never ask where
it
came from."
So the old
307
miner determined that "Jerry must learn to

spend money, must learn to love it, and then
to tell
And
then the story goes on

of the deterioration of this noble young
go well."
all will
how that gradually he becomes dominated with the passion for gold, until he is not
only willing to work for it, but murder for it,
soul
if
only he
may have
gold and the power that
it
brings.
In another
field
Mr. Charles Dudley Warner
same warning, in
Journey in the World."
gives us the
"
Little
Warner
tells
his
story of
In this Mr.
us of one of the sweetest and
young women, who has the highest

and whose standards of morality are of
purest of
ideals,
the noblest,
who
is
married to an unprincipled
young speculator on Wall Street, New York;

and under the influence of her husband, and
the society into which she
is
drawn by
his busi-
ness relations, in which he gathers millions of
her holy and lofty ideals are overthrown, and she becomes simply a material,
money,
all
worldly woman. This is the way he reasons

about it " But we, I say, who loved her, and
:
knew so
well the noble possibilities of her royal
WHITE SLAVES
308
under circumstances favorable to
nature,
its
development, felt more and more her departure

from her own ideals. Her life in its spreading
prosperity seemed more and more shallow.
do not say she was heartless T do not say she

was uncharitable I do not say that in all the
;
externals of worldly and religious observance
she was wanting
was assimilated
she
do not say that the more

to
the
serenely worldly
nature of her husband, she did not love him, or
that she was unlovely in the worldliness that
ingulfed her and bore her onward.
know
that there
history.
But
it
do not
anything singular in her
the pain of
and
certainty
is
it
to us
was
seemed so near
the decay of her higher
life,
in the
in the
that
in
hardening
process of a material existence, in the transfer

of all her interest to the trivial
gratifications
fixed on
them
and sensuous
time, mind, heart, ambition, all
we should never
regain our
What I saw in a vision of her

Margaret.
a beautiful woman in
future was a dead soul
all
the
success of
envied prosperity, with
a.
dead soul."
If
we turn away from
these revelations of
worm
the
made
at the heart of our social
life,
309
that are
fascinating by the art in which they are
clothed, to the rude happenings of every-day
observation,
the
same danger
is
everywhere
CHILDREN PLAYING IN COPP'S HILL BURYING GROUND.
apparent.
The
associated press despatches from
San Jose, Cal., a few weeks since, bore this

" One of the best -known men in
burden
:
California died yesterday in a squalid hut on
Colfax Street.
ger,
who
He was
at one time
Herman
Kottin-
was the leading
violinist
Prof.
WHITE SLAVES
310
on the Pacific Coast, and well known as a

A World's
writer of prose and poetry, of
'
History,'
and
also of text-books
He was worth
on
free thought.
hundreds of thousands of
dollars,
acquired by a lifetime of miserly frugality. At

the time of his death sixteen hundred dollars
gold coin was found secreted in his bed.

But one child, William Kottinger, a farmer,
in
was present
at the death.
When
raised himself
in his death-throes
the son rushed to his
side.
the old
up
man
in bed,
His father, mistak-
ing the act, with a frenzied yell waved him

back, and clutching at the bedclothes, pulled
them back, disclosing to view the gold. He

made a grab at it with both hands, and with
the bright pieces in his fingers fell back with
a gasp and expired.
" Prof.
Kottinger
was
once
doctor
in
Heidelberg University, and was ninety years

old.
He was so wasted by hunger that his
body weighed
less
than forty pounds, and was

His bed and clothes
in a disgusting condition.
were reeking with

bed hung a violin
filth.
Over the head
of great value.
was the old professor that
of the.
So miserly
ago he
fifteen years

drove his wife and
saying that
it
From
them.
his children
all
cost too
much
311
from home,
to feed
and clothe
that day until yesterday,
when
the end was approaching, not one of his relatives
had come
Danish
Two
big fierce
starved, have
for years
near him.
mastiffs, half
been the old man's only companions, and they

guarded the shanty so well that not even a
tax-collector could approach.
killed yesterday before
get into the house.
When
They had
to be
undertaker could
the
it
was learned that
Kottinger was dead, a number of his relatives

hastened to his hut. There has been a shameful
neglect of the dead shown, and indecent
haste in ransacking the place in search of the
gold and other treasures known to be hidden."

All these show the destructive power of gold
But these are by no

upon its worshippers.
means the only victims of this worship of the
gold god.
For every one who is hoarding up

and who is dominated by the love
its very shine and glitter, there are
his millions,
of gold for
hundreds and thousands who are toiling for

insufficient wages, and are suffering in poverty
and want, that
this lordly
his devotions to the
money
worshipper
god.
may pay
WHITE SLAVES
312
some
If
made
of
these
their millions
poor, in
mines, and
money kings who have

by the oppression of the
mills, and factories, were
suddenly called to face the bones of the dead
DIGGING IN THE ASH-BARRELS IN WINTER.
who have gone
to
their
graves from
weary,
unrequited slavery, in order for their financial

triumph, they would stand back aghast at the
price of their
It
is
this
own
success.
worship of the gold god which
is
at
313
the bottom of all the wrongs which have been
pointed out in this series of discourses.
The
wealthy merchant who pays the poor widow

one cent apiece for making white aprons, and
by his avarice and his lust induces the young

sell them to eke out their scanty
women who
wages by the
sale of their honor, is a
of the gold god.

his
work through
The sweater who
worshipper
parcels out
the miserable tenement houses,
grinding the face of the poor to the very last

indegree possible with physical existence,
deed,
times
many
beyond the
possibility
of
when helped by charity,

is
an obsequious devotee at the altar of Mammon.
existence, except
The chattel-mortgage
shark,
who watches
all
the necessities of the poor as anxiously as ever
hawk watched over
bird,
by a
and the
traffic
health, the
all
liquor-seller,
who
fills
or crippled
his coffers
which injures and destroys the

intelligence, and the morality of
the people
investing
a helpless
whom
all his
he can draw into his net,
cunning
in
methods
to entrap
unwary, and gloating over the increasing appetite and the devilish passion for strong
the
drink in his victims, are only brothers to the
WHITE SLAVES
314
others
god
who gather
to
pay
their devotions to the
of gold.
If
shall
we do not approve these worshippers, what

we say of ourselves for permitting this state
FOUR SHINERS.
of things to
come
condemn the
which
to pass?
liquor-seller
licenses
him
It is impossible to
retain
him
to
It
is
inconsistent to
and honor the
city
do his damnable work.
condemn
the sweater and
your respect for the public which permits

on his nefarious business. The
to carry
THE GOLD GOD OP MODERN SOCIETY

spirit
315
of avarice
ciety has
is in the very air, until sobeen poisoned by its breath.

Dr.
writing in the Forum a few

" The healthiest form of
says
Howard Crosby,
years
since,
human
society
is
where the many are equally
independent in their management of their

affairs, where professions and trades are represented by individual thinking minds, and where
those engaged in any one branch of industry
stand on a level with one another.

dition of
things
promotes invention,
interest, manliness,
and good
the gold-hunt system

all
this.
This con-
It seeks
Now
directly antagonistic to
is
to
activity,
citizenship.
destroy the
many
inde-
pendent tradesmen, and to make them servants

in a gigantic
monopoly.
The happy homes
of
freemen become the pinched quarters of serfs.

The lords of trade have their hundreds^ and
thousands of humble subordinates over
whom
they rule, often with a rod of iron.

They
may be turned away from work and wages
at
any moment, by any whim
employer.
lose their
of
the
selfish
Hence, through fear of this, they

manhood, and dare not assert even a
decision of their conscience.
There
is
no more
WHITE SLAVES
316
melancholy sight to
often
eyes than that which I
my
former happy possessor of a shop or store, who has lived comfortably and with the true nobility of a citizen,
see
the
nowadays
and whose family have

home,
now made
felt the
dignity of the
a clerk and drudge in a
huge
establishment that,
by its relentless use

has undermined and overthrown
millions,
of
all
while
the
independent stores of a large
his
family are thrust into the unsavory com-
munism
of a
delicate
refinements of
tenement house, and
easy to say that this

trade.
So
of tigers.
to
district,
to
is
is
the natural law
this truth will
not reconcile us
the process.
stealing directly,
we
If
we can
are to stop
men from
stop them from steal-
ing indirectly.
If natural
law works
the community,
we
make
which
are
to
will act as supernatural law,
social equality destroyed,
serfdom to take
evil
to
statute law,
and control
Unless we wish our
the offensive principle.
tical
It is
but the natural law of
devour men
But
lose all the
a quiet home.
and a system of pracwe must put a
its place,
limit to the acts of greed,
and so preserve the
independence of our citizens."
317
Every thoughtful observer of the "signs of

"
knows that the deepest problem
times
the
of
our age
struggle
is
the amicable
between labor and
solution
capital.
the
of
Some
of
SOUTH BOSTON KAG-F1CKEKS.

the
ablest
work done
time, has been
in
literature,
produced out of
an
in
our
earnest
more recent types of this

white slavery, which has, in one form or another,
desire to abolish the
threatened the masses since the days of

John Ball of early England.
Perhaps
old
the
WHITE SLAVES
318
strongest portrayal, yet, of
many
phases of the
question, especially those relating to the city,

"
be found in Mr. Howells'
Hazard
may
story,
New
of
really
For the country, if one

see what is behind the great
Fortunes."
wants
to
upheaval in the West, which has
its
outward
manifestation in the Farmers' Alliance, he only
needs to read Mr. Hamlin Garland's
"Main
Travelled Roads."
In the meantime
"
What
the
is
most
out
way
of
"
us
As
are
asking,
for myself, I
being only a student. I have no

word of sneer or scoff for any man's honest think-
confess to
ing,
who
and
sisters
sincerely trying to uplift his brothers
is
and yet
have not been able to

of the
I feel
are
must say that, as yet, I

become a disciple of any
new systems
something
good things
that have been presented.

" There
like the man who
says,
to be said in praise of Social-
ism or Nationalism, as compared with the crushing and wearing methods of competition but
;
what the world

shall either
is
waiting for
show us how
is
the thinker
to reconcile the
who
new
system with human liberty, or else convince us

that we can do without liberty."
In the mean-
319
time I believe in God, in His wise purpose in

the creation of the world, in His providential
care over
shall
it,
and that under His grace there
come the triumph
of righteousness in
it.
To my mind, Chrismuch as it did nearly

two thousand years ago, when Jesus hung upon
the cross between two thieves.
The anarchy
Jesus Christ.
I believe in
tianity stands to-day very
which, atheistic and reckless, would destroy
law and
all
is
property,
one of the thieves, and
the devotee of the gold
of our time,
clutches his
says,
god
money-bags and
right to get all the
what
money
stands between
them
I can,
who
"I have
and do with
it
other thief.
I please," is the
all
Christianity
her mission
is
to
change
them both, and bring them with a regenerated
purpose into brotherhood and fellowship.
;
George Macdonald says

change
only as
the
heart
Growing intellect, growing
"
The world
of
man
will
changes.
civilization, will heal
man's wounds only to cause the deeper ill to

break out afresh in new forms, nor can they
satisfy one longing of the
sires
it
human
soul.
are deeper than that soul itself,
Its de-
whence
groans with the groanings that cannot be
WHITE SLAVES
320
As much
uttered.
in times of civilization as in
those of barbarity, the soul needs an external
presence to
make
tianity of to-day
make men
its life
must
brothers,
good
to it."
The
Chris-
set itself, as did Jesus, to
by bringing them to a recog-
nition of the fact that they are all alike the chil-
dren of one
God and Father
over
Christianity will necessarily be at
gold god
The
of our time.
all.
Such
war with the
clear-cut declaration
of Jesus, "
is
as true
remember
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon,"

now as when He uttered it. I do not
have seen
put as clearly
anywhere else as by Henry D. Lloyd in an
article in the North American Review entitled,
"
to
this issue
The New Conscience."
listen while a delegation
remonstrates with the
He
says
Let us
from the Money-power

Conscience for its
New
unreasonable sentiments and ideas.
Here they
come, one by one, and range themselves about.

First speaks
THE MERCHANT PRINCE
have a right to
buy where I can buy cheapest.

CONSCIENCE: See these little stunted,
low-eyed girls coming out of that factory.
LAWYER Wages
:
are settled
by contract.
hol-

CONSCIENCE: Where can
workingmen
I find
321
white-haired
CAPITALIST: Every man has a right

what he will with his own.
CONSCIENCE
What
is
do
to
the price of a senator-
ship to-day?
STATISTICIAN: Never were food,
fuel,
and
clothing so cheap.
CONSCIENCE
Little
Mary
Mitchell works in
five
days a week from
Waterbury's ropeworks
six in the
evening
till
six in the morning.
RAILROAD KING: Every man makes his

I
was a workingman myself
own career.
and
now I keep a carriage, a
twenty years ago,
and several judges and
four States, and
butler,
legislators,
CONSCIENCE: That tired-looking man
is
in
railway conductor of a company owned by half

a dozen men worth three hundred millions of
which
not enough for them, so they

squeeze a few more dollars a month out of him
by making him, on every alternate trip, do
dollars,
is
twenty-eight and a half hours' work without

sleep.
BANKER: Our wealth
is
increasing one
bill-
WHITE SLAVES
322
We
have boards of trades,

the best railroads in the world, and packingion dollars a year.
houses that can
CONSCIENCE
tered
air,
the
kill
ten thousand hogs.
The sickening
foul
sights of
stench, the blis-
the
tenements,
and the motherhood and the childhood choking

there.
CONSERVATIVE
in the world.
This
America
CONSCIENCE: Listen
"
is
is
the best government
good enough for me.
to that " tramp, tramp,
men out of work.

MANUFACTURER: Without this system
tramp
of a million of
of
industry the subjugation of North America to
would have been impossible we

could never have shown the world the magnificivilization
cent spectacle of -
CONSCIENCE
There
is
little
boy standing
ten hours a day up to his ankles in the water in
a coal-mine.
:
COAL MONOPOLIST: I have a statistician

who can prove
he can prove anything
that
the
workingman
is
a great deal better off than
he ever was, that he makes more than I do, that

small incomes
are increasing
decreasing, that there
is
and large ones
no involuntary poverty,
323
and that the workingmen could live on twentyfive cents each a day and buy up the United
States with their savings, and
How long shall it be cheaper

run over workingmen and women at the
CONSCIENCE
to
railroad crossings in the cities than to put
gates
up
CLERGYMAN
The poor we
are to have with
us always.
CONSCIENCE
That sewing-woman you see
pawning her shawl has lived this winter with

Are
her two children in a room without fire.
you wearing one
STATESMAN
of the shirts she finished
The workingman has
and the newspapers.
lot
CONSCIENCE:
see
how
the
As
number
the
of
He
is
the bal-
a free citizen.
nights
girls
grow colder
on
the
street
increases.
It is this
new
conscience, the conscience of
Jesus Christ, that appraises a hungry child to

be of more value than ten thousand palaces,
that must animate and dominate the church that
by His name, in its war against the

gold god of modern society.
is
called
You may
find this
conscience throbbing in
WHITE SLAVES
324
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's plea for " Justice, not
Charity."
" All hail the
of a new day breaking,

armed nation shall take away
The weary burden from backs that are aching
With maximum work and minimum pay.
When
dawn
a strong
When no man is honored who hoards his

When no man feasts on another's toil,
And
millions,
God's poor, suffering, starving billions
Shall share His riches of sun and
There
is
gold for
There
is
Enough
is
all
food for
soil.
in the world's broad bosom,

all
in the world's great store;
provided if rightly divided,

Let each man take what he needs
no more.
Shame on
the miser with unused riches,
Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard,

Who beats down the wage of the digger of
And
steals the
Shame on
And
ditches,
bread from the poor man's board!
the owner of mines whose cruel
selfish
measures have brought him wealth!
While the ragged wretches who dig his fuel

Are robbed of comfort, and hope, and health.
Shame on
the ruler
who
Bought by the labor
Men who are shut out

And are herded like
rides in his carriage,
of half-paid
of
men
home and
marriage,
sheep in a hovel pen."
There must be no doubt about the attitude

of the church in a time like this.
Against the

gold god and
325
oppressions the Christian
all his
Church must stand with an unflinching front.

Our God is the same who spoke through the
voice of
of old, saying, "
Amos
Hear
this,
oh
ye that swallow up the needy, even to make

the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will
new moon be
the
And
we may
gone, that
the sabbath, that
we may
sell
the poor for silver,
for a pair of shoes
the wheat?
"
yea,
as
Yet
He
great,
That
and the needy
sell the refuse of
that sounds like
going on at the present
the things that are
time
and
Ah! how much
set forth wheat,
making the ephah small, and the shekel

and falsifying the balances by deceit?
we may buy
corn
listen to the oath of the
looks on such things
sworn by the excellency
"
Almighty
The Lord hath
of Jacob, Surely I will
Shall not the

never forget any
land tremble for this, and every one mourn that
And it shall come to
dwelleth therein ?
of their works.
Lord God, that I will

cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will
darken the earth in a clear day and I will turn
pass in that day, saith the
your
mourning, and all your songs
and I will bring up sackinto lamentation
feasts into
WHITE SLAVES
326
cloth
upon
head; and
all loins,
I will
and baldness upon every
make
it
as the
mourning
of
an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter

day."
our blessed Christianity

to save the world from that bitter day
by so
It is the mission of
changing and transforming
it
that
it
will
longer deserve bitterness, but peace, at
hand
of
God.
Although
have
felt
no
the
compelled,
uncover many
dark and loathsome places in our social system,
yet I am no pessimist, and I do not despair.
in this series of discourses, to
Jesus Christ, our Captain, saw " Satan fallen as

lightning from heaven
"
;
and when we
are as
devoted to God, and as thoroughly consecrated

to our mission of curing the world's heartache
was He, we, too, shall live in sight of the

same glorious triumph. When we are imbued
as
and exalted
with this
faith,
Him, we
will not dare to say that the sweat-
into fellowship with
shop, or the neglected tenement house, or the
noisome liquor saloon,
is
a necessary contin-
And we will know that

gent of human life.
whatever is good enough to be true, may be
and
shall be true to the sons
and daughters of

God.
In that faith
we
shall be able to sing
with the poet:

" 'Tis
coming up the steeps of time,
And this old world is growing brighter;
We may not
see
dawn
its
sublime,
Yet high hopes make the heart throb
We may be
When
lighter!
sleeping in the ground,
awakes the peoples' wonder;

But we have felt it gathering round,
And
it
heard
its
voice of living thunder;
Christ's reign, ah, yes,
Aye,
it
must come
Is crumbling,
The sword
'tis
coining!
the Tyrant's throne

with men's hot tears rusted;
earth's
327
mighty have leant upon

men's hearts' blood crusted!
Is cankered, with
Room for the man of love make way

Ye selfish great ones, pause no longer;
Ye cannot stay the opening day,
!
The world rolls on, the light grows

The Master's advent's coming!"
stronger
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.

THE OPPEESSION OF THE

EEV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D.

THE PEOPLE'S CHRIST," ETC.

BY LEE AND SHEPARD

All Rights Reserved

INSTILLED INTO MY MIND AND HEART, IN THE DAYS OF

To THE MERCY AND HELP DEPARTMENT

us that ninety per cent

of the energy that there is in coal

power goes to waste in

in the devotional meet-

the present day, and the meagre

of society into the likeness of the

not to be forever seeking to build tabernacles on some

This book of Dr. Banks' s

is a positive stimof social transformation.

The young men and women

Such study will open their eyes to sad

forces that alter social conditions always

I take great pleasure, therefore, in

may make you indignant.

that more were alive enough

Lord at the forces

it will help you

have me to do?" When in works of Mercy

Then, as slavery has passed away, war and

tyranny and idleness and poverty will be

WILLIAM INGRAHAM HAVEN,

INWOOD LODGE, PINE ISLAND N.H.

THIS volume had

in the daily duties of a city

The inadequate wages received by

to christen their children, pray with

bury their dead, so aroused

against the cruel or indifferent causes of their

upon a thorough and

the worthy Boston

do not mean to indicate a

but the poor people of the city

series of studies here presented, entered into a

discussion of the vicious

have tried to perform, as

to make a plea for

and garrets rather than beg or

larger part of the matter

originally delivered in a series

from the pulpit of St. John's

make a personal acknowledgment

are here recorded.

Mr. B. O. Flower, Editor of The Arena, for

kindnesses, and especially for the use of

several interesting illustrations originally

magazine over which he so ably

Boston Baptist Bethel, the

Rev. Geo. L. Small, of the Mariners'

House, the Rev. John G. May, of the Italian

unwearying kindness and

also greatly indebted

Mr. Sears Gallagher, the brilliant young

Boston Highlands, Mr.

Lours ALBERT BANKS.

WHITE SLAVES OF THE BOSTON