best of purposes, and in the mode least burdensome of any that could be suggested. In truth, as there are nine of those societies to which the annual subscription is but one dollar-and two, a half dollar each-the support of them is within the power of operatives who work for a dollar per day. It is difficult to estimate the extent of the good that might have been accomplished had the project succeeded. Now let me ask a few questions of those who may be disposed to pronounce unfavourably of this plan: Was it not, under all the circumstances of the case, worthy of an experiment? Was it not reasonable, without being too sanguine, to hope for success? Is not the failure as much to be wondered at as to be regretted? This experiment was tried for twenty days and a half. The last four days there were but twelve dollars received-and on the last day, there was but a single dollar collected, which was not sufficient to pay the collector. It was then surely time to abandon the plan as hopeless. The result is the more wonderful, as a half, or at least a third of the citizens who have now subscribed, were actually subscribers to some of the enumerated societies. Female Hospitable Society, [21 subscribers $42-donations, $8,] $50 00 Association for care of coloured Orphans, [2 subscribers,] 4.00 Northern Dispensary, [one subscriber,] 3 00 Female Society for the relief of sick and infirm Poor, [29 subscribers $30, donations $10 50,] 40 50 Infant School, N. Liberties, [8 subscribers $8, donations $1 50,] 9 50 11 00 50 2.00 Temperance Society, [8 subscribers $8 00, donations $5,] 13 00 Dorcas Society of Southwark, [12 subscribers $6, donations $1,] 7 00 700 Philadelphia Infant School, [9 subscribers for 1828-1 for 1829-$18, donations $16,] 34 00 Female Association for relief of Widows and Children in reduced circumstances, [4 subscribers $12, donations $18,] 30 00 Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, [6 subscribers for 1828, $18—1 for 1829, $3, donation 50 cents,] 21 50 Female Society for relief and employment of the Poor, [9 subscribers $18, donations $1 50,] 19 50 Southern Dispensary, [4 subscribers $12, donations $3,] 15 00 Southern Infant School Society, [5 subscribers,] 5.00 Colonization Society, [1 subscriber,] Pennsylvania Society for promoting Public Schools, [1 subscriber,] 2.00 2.00 $276 50 The total number of subscribers obtained was 137. The money subscribed was $276 and 50 cents, of which nine dollars are not yet collected. The compensation of the collector, was for twenty and a half days, $23, leaving a balance of $244 and 50 cents, which has been paid over by Mr. Dornin to Mr. Isaac Lea, for Messrs. Collins, Earp, M'Alpin and self. By Mr. Lea it has been paid to the respective institutions. The printer's bill for the various addresses, hand bills, &c. &c., circulated to secure success to the attempt, amounts to $33, which, as a matter of right, I intended to have deducted from the amount collected; but that amount is so paltry, that I will pay the printer out of my own pocket. The expense of the agent, in consequence of the small collections is a high per centage-no less than nine per cent. The experiment may be tried in the fall, should the public appear disposed to afford it countenance. Philadelphia, June 29, 1829. To the Ladies who have undertaken to establish a House of Industry in New York. LADIES, It is a subject of rejoicing that you have come to the determination to open a House of Industry for the alleviation of the sufferings of a numerous and interesting class of your sex, of whom the greater portion of those who depend for support on their honest industry, are ground to the earth by the inadequacy of the wages they receive for their labours. The mode of procedure demands your most serious consideration-as it unfortunately often happens in human affairs, that the most disinterested efforts of benevolence, when not regulated by sound judgment, and enlightened views, produce not only a failure of the good proposed, but a mass of positive evil. The result of your labours, whether for good or ill, will altogether depend upon the prices you pay for the work executed for you. The rate of wages, then, ought to be the primary object of your attention, which is the more necessary, as radical and pernicious errors prevail on the subject. Be assured, that when a society which affords employment to the poor, in winter, or in any other season of distress, gives wages below the proper standard, it produces a serious permanent evil, which is but poorly compensated by the effectuation of a mere temporary good. The price they pay becomes the general standard; thus perniciously and injuriously reducing the rate of compensation, already oppressively low. The women you employ, indeed every industrious person, ought to receive wages adequate, with proper economy, to pay for their lodgings, and to procure a sufficiency of wholesome food, plain and decent clothing, fuel, candles, soap, &c. That no reasonable person in the nation will deny this position, I will not allow myself to doubt. With this plain maxim to guide us, let us investigate the subject. It was the unanimous opinion of a large number of the most respectable and benevolent ladies in Baltimore, assembled a few days since, that an expert seamstress, unencumbered with children, who worked steadily from six o'clock in the morning till ten at night, could not make more than eight or nine muslin shirts per week-and that those who were not expert, or had young children to attend to, could not make more than six. The price paid here, by the proprietors of slop-shops, by the Provident Society, and for government work, is but 12 cents for each shirt, and for all other articles in the same proportion. That these women are often unemployed—and are sometimes sick, from insalubrious dwellings, and from scantiness and bad quality of food, may be assumed without danger of cavil or denial, and six weeks in a year will be admitted to be a very moderate allowance for both these casualties. Their room rent is almost universally 50 cents per week. With these data, and allowing, for sake of argument, nine shirts per week, at 12 cents each, let us view the appalling result. 46 weeks, at 112 cents, produce, Lodgings at 50 cents, Remain for meat and drink, clothing, fuel, candles, soap, &c. $51 75 26 00 $25 75!! Or less than half a dollar per week, about 7 cents per day. Now, is it not a national disgrace that in the most flourishing country in the world, such should be the miserable pittance for honest industry? Is it to be wondered at, that some of these poor women are, by poverty and desperation, driven to courses which render them a disgrace to their sex, and a bane and a curse to society? When this is the situation of the expert, and of those unburdened with children, how calamitous, how deplorable must be the case of the inexpert, the aged, the infirm, and of the expert who have children to support! Who can reflect on the extent and intensity of the distress that must necessarily result from thus "grinding the faces of the poor," without the deepest sympathy for the sufferers, and horror at such a state of society. And yet we have hundreds of persons " clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day," who cant about the worthlessness of the poor-ascribe their distress to their idleness-and defame and decry those benevolent societies which alleviate their sufferings, and often give them food when they have not a morsel to eat, nor a cent to purchase wherewith to rescue themselves from starvation. The house of industry in Boston, as I am credibly informed, gives but ten cents for the same kind of shirts. Let us apply the same test to the operations in that quarter. Or 30 cents per week-not quite equal to four and a half cents per day!!!! I have heard it said, and even by benevolent men, in justification of this hideous state of things, that these women do not complain-that they are thankful and satisfied, and therefore, that the subject ought not to be agitated. This is a very superficial and erroneous view of the question, and displays a very small degree of intelligence or judgment. "They do not complain." True. It would answer no purpose. If the price were brought down to six cents (as it sometimes is, or I am most egregiously misinformed), they would accept it, and thankfully too. Their numbers and their wants are so great, and the competition so urgent, that they are wholly at the mercy of their employers, and must accept whatever miserable pittance is offered them, however inadequate to their support.* * On the most careful inquiries that I have been able to make, it appears, that the number of women in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Balti Cold blooded political economists pronounce oracularly, with the most perfect sang froid, that the low rate of wages, however oppressive, is the inevitable consequence of extreme competition-that while this competition continues, a remedy is impossible that the evil must, therefore, be submitted toand that it is useless to spend time in an attempt at mitigation. In this doctrine I cannot agree. I cannot allow myself to believe, that the mass of those by whom these oppressed women are employed, have an idea of the inadequacy of the wages they pay. I feel satisfied, that had they been aware that it is impossible for them to procure for those wages, a sufficiency of the commonest necessaries of life-that they are obliged to make up the deficiency by the contributions of charitable individuals or benevolent societies-or by occasional aid from the overseers of the poor; they would have scorned to reduce the wages so low, particularly those of them who make large fortunes by the ill-paid industry of these ill-fated sufferers. That there may be some who are perfectly aware of the real state of the case, and who, nevertheless, take advantage of the necessities of the women in question, I admit-for there is an infinite diversity in the character and principles of mankind. But I fondly hope, the number is small; and if the subject attract a degree of attention, commensurate with its importance, public opinion may be brought powerfully to bear on these, and thus "to correct the procedure." The ladies who have opened a house of industry in Baltimore, actuated by the soundest and most enlightened and benevolent views of the subject, have, to their honour, set a most laudable example, which I hope and trust, will, in due time, be followed in all our cities, where such institutions are established. Although their resources are as yet very moderate, they have, depending for support on public liberality, raised the price of seamstresses' work; and accordingly, they pay 18 cents for those coarse muslin shirts, heretofore made for 121, and for all more, whose sole dependence is on their industry, amounts to from 18 to 20,000 say 18,000. Of these, about one-third are tayloresses, milliners, mantua-makers, colourists, attendants in shops, seamstresses who work in families, nurses, whitewashers, &c., who are in general, tolerably well paid. The remainder are seamstresses who take in work at their own lodgings, spoolers, shoe binders, &c. &c., whose cases fall within the description in the text. |