Prisoners of Poverty Abroad

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Campbell Helen. Prisoners of Poverty Abroad

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA

CHAPTER II. IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE

CHAPTER III. THE SWEATING SYSTEM IN GENERAL

CHAPTER IV. AMONG THE SWEATERS

CHAPTER V. CHILD OF THE EAST END

CHAPTER VI. AMONG THE DRESSMAKERS

CHAPTER VII. NELLY, A WEST-END MILLINER'S APPRENTICE

CHAPTER VIII. LONDON SHIRT-MAKERS

CHAPTER IX. THE TALE OF A BARROW

CHAPTER X. STREET TRADES AMONG WOMEN

CHAPTER XI. LONDON SHOP-GIRLS

CHAPTER XII. FROM COVENT GARDEN TO THE EEL-SOUP MAN IN THE BOROUGH

CHAPTER XIII. WOMEN IN GENERAL TRADES

CHAPTER XIV. FRENCH AND ENGLISH WORKERS

CHAPTER XV. FRENCH BARGAIN COUNTERS

CHAPTER XVI. THE CITY OF THE SUN

CHAPTER XVII. DRESSMAKERS AND MILLINERS IN PARIS

CHAPTER XVIII. A SILK-WEAVER OF PARIS

CHAPTER XIX. IN THE RUE JEANNE D'ARC

CHAPTER XX. FROM FRANCE TO ITALY

CHAPTER XXI. PRESENT AND FUTURE

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With the ending of the set of studies among the working-women of New York, begun in the early autumn of 1886 and continued through several months of 1887, came the desire to know something of comparative conditions abroad, and thus be better able to answer questions constantly put, as to the actual status of women as workers, and of their probable future in these directions. There were many additional reasons for continuing a search, in itself a heart-sickening and utterly repellant task. One by one, the trades open to women, over ninety in number, had given in their returns, some of the higher order meaning good wages, steady work and some chance of bettering conditions. But with the great mass of workers, the wages had, from many causes, fallen below the point of subsistence, or kept so near it that advance was impossible, and the worker, even when fairly well trained, faced a practically hopeless future.

The search began with a bias against rather than for the worker, and the determination to do strictest justice to employer as well as employed. Long experience had taught what was to be expected from untrained, unskilled laborers, with no ambition or power to rise. Approaching the subject with the conviction that most of the evil admitted to exist must be the result of the worker's own defective training and inability to make the best and most of the wages received, it very soon became plain that, while this remained true, deeper causes were at work, and that unseen forces must be weighed and measured before just judgment could be possible. No denunciation of grasping employers answered the question why they grasped, and why men who in private relations showed warm hearts and the tenderest care for those nearest them became on the instant, when faced by this problem of labor, deaf and blind to the sorrow and struggle before them.

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"And so, when there was no work anywhere, though I was ready for anything, I didn't care what, and I saw we were just taking the bread from mother's mouth (though it's little enough she wanted), then I told Billy to stay with her, and I went out and to the Square and sat down with the rest, and wondered if I ought to sit there and wait to be dead, or if I hadn't the right to do it quicker and just try the river. But I saw all those I was with just as bad off and worse, and some with babies, and so I didn't know what to do, but just to wait there. What can we do? They say the Queen is going to order work so that the men can get wages; but they don't say if she is going to do anything for the women. She's a woman; but then I suppose a Queen couldn't any way know, except by hearsay, that women really starve; and women do for men first anyhow. But I will work any way at anything, if only you'll find it for me to do – if only you will."

For one of the fifty-three thousand work and place have been found. For the rest is still the cry: "I will work any way at anything, if only you'll find it for me to do; if only you will."

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