CHAPTER II.

ALL of us children were sent to the

public school as soon as we were old enough. There was no urgency required to get us off in the morning, as we were too fond of books and reading to be found lagging as to time, neither were we often caught at the tail of a class. Fred was particularly smart in his studies, and was generally so much in advance of myself as to be able to give me great assistance in things that I did not fully understand, and there was so much affection between us that he was always ready to play the teacher to us at home.

When fifteen years old, I was taken from school,- my education was finished, that is to say, I had received all I was to get, and that was supposed to be enough for me: I was not to shine in the world. Though far short of what the children of wealthy parents receive at fashionable establishments, yet it was quite sufficient for my station in life, which no one expected me to rise above. I had not studied either French or music or dancing, nor sported fine dresses or showy bonnets; for our whole bringing up was in keeping with our position. Was I not to be a sewing-girl? - and how improper it would have been to educate me with tastes which all the earnings of a sewing-girl would be unable to gratify! I presume, that, if we had had the means, notwithstanding our peculiarly strict training, we should have been indulged in some of these superfluities. I know that I could easily have learned to enjoy them quite as much as others do. But we were so taught at home that the desire for them was never so strong as to occasion grief because

it could not be gratified. I think we were quite as happy without them.

As soon as I had left school, my mother installed me as her assistant seamstress. She had at intervals continued to work for the slop-shops, in spite of the low prices and the discourteous treatment she received; and now, when established as her regular helper, I saw and learned more of the trials inseparable from such an employment. I had also grown old enough to understand what they were, and how mortifying to an honorable self-respect. But I took to the needle with almost as great a liking at least at the beginning to my books. The desire to assist my mother was also an absorbing one. I was as anxious to make good wages as she was; for I now consumed more stuff for dresses, as well as a more costly material, and in other ways increased the family expenses. It was the same with Fred and Jane, — they were growing older, and added to the general cost of housekeeping, but without being able to contribute anything toward meeting it.

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A girl in my station in life feels an honorable ambition to clothe herself and pay for her board, as soon as she reaches eighteen years of age. This praiseworthy desire seems to prevail universally with those who have no portion to expect from parents, if their domestic training has been of the right character. It does not spring from exacting demands of either father or mother, but from a natural feeling of duty and propriety, and a commendable pride to be thus far independent. If able to earn money at any reputable employment, such girls eagerly embrace it. They pay their parents from their

weekly wages as punctually as if boarding with a stranger, and it is to many of them a serious grief when dull times come on and prevent them from earning sufficient to continue these payments.

So unjustly low is the established scale of female wages, that girls of this class are rarely able to save anything. They earn from two to three dollars per week, and in thousands of cases not more than half of the larger sum. It is because of these extremely small wages that the price of board for a working-woman is established at so low a figure, being graduated to her ability to pay. But low as the price may be, it consumes the chief part of her earnings, leaving her little to bestow on the apparel in which every American woman feels a proper pride in clothing herself. She must dress neatly at least, no matter how the doing so may stint her in respect of all bodily or mental recreation; for, with her, appearance is everything. A mean dress would in many places exclude her from employment, while a neat one would insure it. Then, if working with other girls in factories, or binderies, or other places where girls are largely employed, and where even a fashionable style of dress is generally to be observed, she feels it necessary to maintain a style equal to that of her fellow-workers. Thus the tax imposed upon her by the absolute necessity of keeping up a genteel appearance absorbs all the remainder of her little earnings.

Not so with the servant-girl in a family. She pays no board-tax, —her earnings are all profit. But thus having more to spend on dress, she clothes herself in expensive fabrics, until she generally outshines even her mistress. So numerous is this class in our country, so high are their wages, and so uniformly do they spend their earnings in costly goods of foreign manufacture, all now paying an excessive import duty, that I am half inclined to think these foreign cooks and chambermaids may even be depended on to pay the interest of the public debt, if not the great bulk of the debt itself. Their con

sumption of imported fabrics on which a high duty is levied is very large, and no increase of price seems to prevent them from continuing to purchase. Whoever shall inquire of a shopkeeper on this subject will be told that this class of women generally buy the most expensive goods. Indeed, one has only to observe them in the street to see that they all have silks as essential to their outfit, with abundance of laces and other foreign stuffs.

The change from the low wages, the hard work, and the mean fare in Ireland to the high pay, the light work, and the abundant food of the kitchens in this country, seems to produce a total revolution in their habits and aspirations. Look at them as they land upon our wharves, all of them in the commonest attire, the very coarsest shoes, many without bonnets. Mark the contrast in their appearance which only a few months' employment as cooks or chambermaids produces. Every thread of the cheap home-made fabrics in which they came to this country has disappeared; and in place of them may be seen flashy silks or equally flashy chintzes or delaines, all the product of foreign looms. Every dollar they may have thus far earned has been spent in personal adornment. At home, extremely low wages and scanty employment made money comparatively unattainable. Here, high wages and an active competition for their services have put money into their hands so plenteously as to open to them a new life. They see that American women generally dress extravagantly; that even their own countrywomen whom they meet on their arrival here are expensively attired; and the power of these pernicious examples is such, that, when aided by that natural fondness for personal decoration which I freely confess to be inherent in my sex, they begin their new career by imitating them. At home, public example taught them to be saving of their money; here, it teaches no other lesson than to spend it. There, it came slowly and painfully, and was consequently valued; here, it comes

readily and for the asking, and is parted with almost as quickly as it has been earned. I have never been the victim of this common infatuation, to spend my last dollar on a dress that would not become my station; I have been the architect of my own bonnets; I have never been the owner of a silken outfit.

The idea of this class of women being large enough to pay the interest on our public debt, in the shape of duties on the imported goods which they consume, will of course excite a smile in all to whom it is suggested. It will be a wonder, moreover, how the attention of a quiet sewing-girl like myself should have been drawn to a subject so exclusively within the domain of masculine thought. But all know that the nation has been feeling the pressure of a universal rise of prices. When any woman comes to buy the commonest article of dry goods for the family, she finds that foreign fabrics are generally much higher in price than goods of the same quality made in this country. On asking the reason for this difference, she is told it is owing to the tariff, to the greatly enhanced duty that has been put on foreign goods, and that those who buy and consume them must pay this duty in the shape of an increase of price. I have resolutely refused to purchase the imported goods, and preferred those made at home, thus unconsciously becoming a member of the woman's league for the support of domestic manufactures.

But it is not so with the army of foreign servant-girls among us. They choose the finest and most expensive articles, loaded as they are with a heavy duty. There are millions of American women who purchase in the same way. This craving after foreign luxuries seems to be unconquerable by anything short of absolute inability to indulge in it. But I suppose there must always be somebody to purchase and consume these imported goods. And perhaps, after all, it is well that there should be; for if the nation is to pay a great sum every year for interest out

of its import duties, it could hardly raise the means, unless there were an army of thoughtless American women and Irish servant-girls to help it do so. If they are willing to undertake the task, I am sure they have my consent.

If the reader should be surprised at the idea of the interest on the public debt being paid from the extravagance of one class of women, he will be more so at the assertion made by a speaker in the highest deliberative body in the country, that another class would be able to pay the debt itself. He said our dairy-women alone were able to do it, that in ten years they would churn it out, because within that short period they would produce butter enough to discharge the whole amount. This may be all true; for how should I know the number of cows in this country, or the disposition of the dairy-maids? But I presume he had not consulted them as to whether they were willing to milk cows and churn butter for a term of ten years for the sole benefit of the nation. I am inclined to think they would make no such patriotic sacrifice, except on compulsion. But with tawdry servant-girls and equally tawdry ladies, the case is widely different; the latter pursue their great task voluntarily; indeed, it would seem that they rather enjoy it; so that the more one reflects on the idea, the less absurd does it appear.

It is very certain that the Irish who come among us have for many years been sending home millions of dollars to pay the passage hither of friends whom they had left behind. When these friends arrive here, and have earned money enough, they repeat the process of sending for others whom they in turn have left. The most limited inquiry will show how universal this system of thus helping one another has become. Thus the stream of remittances swells annually. The millions of money so transmitted proves the ability of this class to achieve great pecuniary results in a certain direction. That they thus exert themselves is strong evidence of the intense affec

tion existing among them. There are innumerable instances of the father of a large family of children coming out as a pioneer, then sending for the most useful child, and their joint savings being devoted to sending for others, until finally the amount becomes large enough to bring the mother with the younger children, - the latter being meanwhile generally supported at home from savings remitted with affectionate punctuality from this country, until the happy day when they, too, receive the order for a passage. Many times the entire family of a widowed mother, with the mother herself, has been thus transferred to our shores from the savings of the son or daughter who first ventured over. I refer to this remarkable trait in the Irish character, not to censure, but to praise.

But they remit only a fraction of their total earnings, yet that fraction constitutes a very large sum. The remainder, which so many of them spend principally in dress, must be enormous. I have neither the taste nor the talent for reducing it to figures; but the more one looks at this question, the more reasonable does the idea seem that the Irish servant-girls, together with the flash women of this country, have deliberately undertaken to pay the interest on our great national debt.

How much it costs to clothe one of these gaudy creatures I cannot say ; but the silks and finery worn by them are known to every shopkeeper as expensive articles. As I have never been able to indulge in such, I have been content to admire them as they flirted by me in the street, or swept up the aisles of our church on Sunday. It is so natural for a woman to admire ornament in dress, that I could not avoid being struck with the finish of an exquisite bonnet, the shape of a fashionable cloak, or the pattern of an elegant collar. All these were paraded through the streets and in the church, as much to my gratification as to that of the wearers. They felt a pride in making the display, and I a pleasure in beholding it. I was like the poor lodger in the upper story of

an old house, the windows of which overlooked a magnificent garden. The wealthy proprietor had lavished on his domain all that taste and art and money could command to make it gorgeous with shrubbery and flowers. The poor lodger, equally fond of floral beauties, beheld their glories, and inhaled their soft perfumes, as fully and as appreciatively as the owner. No emotion of envy disturbed her, po longing to possess that of which she enjoyed gratuitously so abundant a share. Her mere oversight was all the possession she desired.

It was ever thus with me when the fine dresses of others swept by me over the pavement. I confess that I admired, but no repining thought ever came to disturb the perfect contentment with which I regarded my plainer costume. It was no grief to me to be unable to indulge in these luxuries. I saw them all, which was more than even the wearers could say. They wore them for the gratification of the crowd of lookers-on ; and if the crowd were gratified, their mission was fulfilled. But I did sometimes think upon the cost of these expensive outfits, how some girls equally poor with me must toil and struggle to obtain means for an indulgence so unbecoming their position, how others, the wealthy ones, who, having never earned a dollar, knew nothing of its value, clothed themselves with all the lavish finery that money could command, while the meek sewing-girl who passed them on her way to the tailor's might perhaps be kept from starving by the sums expended on the rich silks which hung round them in superfluous flounces, or the costly brilliants which depended from their ears.

It was said by Solomon, that “every wise woman buildeth her house." It was averred by another wise man, that the mother of a family must furnish it with brains, and that he never knew a man or woman of large capacity who had a foolish mother. It is historically true that the great men of all ages have been the children of wise and careful mothers. Such women understand the

art of skilfully managing the whole machinery of the family. Taste and manners come to such by nature. They cultivate the heart, the mind, and the conscience. They moderate the aspirations of their daughters, and purify and elevate those of their sons. It is from the influence which such mothers exercise over the household that respectability and happiness result. My nother taught us moderation in our views, and conformity to our position in 'ife, especially to avoid overstepping it in the article of dress. She was at the very foundation of our house; it may be said that she built it. While, therefore, our appearance was uniformly neat and genteel, none of us were at any time dressed extravagantly. Thus educated from childhood, it became a fixed habit of the mind to feel no envious longings at the display which others made.

But curiosity could not be repressed. It was always interesting to know the cost of this or that fine article which others wore. There was little difficulty in obtaining this information as to the outfits of our neighbors. The fine lady invariably told her acquaintances how much her cloak or bonnet cost, and from these the information was communicated to the servants, whence it quickly radiated over the entire neighborhood. The pride seemed to be, not that the new bonnet was a superb affair, but that such a fashionable artist produced it, and that it cost so much money. Had it been equally beautiful at half the cost, or the handiwork of an obscure milliner, it would have been considered mean. Thus, instead of a necessity for being extravagant, it struck me there was a desire to be so, and principally in order that others, when they looked on the display, might be awed into deference, if not into admiration, by exact knowledge of the number of dollars which dangled from the shoulders of the fashionable butterfly. This boastful parade of information as to how much one expends in this or that article implies an undertone of vulgarity peculiar to those who have nothing but money to

be proud of. The cultivated and truly genteel mind is never guilty of it. Yet it somehow prevails too extensively among American women. Display is a sort of mania with too many of them. A family in moderate circumstances marries off a daughter with a portion of only two or three thousand dollars, yet it is all laid out in furnishing a house which is twice as spacious as a first start in life can possibly require. Not a dollar is saved for the future. The wedding also has its shams. Costly silver plate is hired in large quantities from the manufacturer, and spread ostentatiously over tables, to which the weddingguests are invited, that they may admire the pretended presents thus insincerely represented as having been made to the bride. When the feast is over, it is all returned to the maker. Truth is sacrificed to display. The latter must be had, no matter what may become of the former.

As I was animated by the common ambition of all properly educated girls in my position, to pay my own way, so I worked with my needle with the utmost assiduity. I worked constantly on such garments as my mother could obtain from the shops, going with her to secure them, as well as to deliver such as we had made up, each of us very frequently carrying a heavy bundle to and fro. Should the tailor sell the cheapest article in his shop, scarcely weighing a pound, he was all courtesy: to the buyer, and his messenger would be despatched half over the city to deliver it. Not so, however, with the sewing-women. There was no mes. senger to wait on them; their heavy bundles they must carry for themselves.

The prices paid to us were always: low. As the character of the work varied, so did the price. Sometimes we brought home shirts to make up at only twenty cents apiece, sometimes pantaloons at a trifle more, and sometimes vests at a shilling. No fine lady knows how many thousand stitches are required to make up one of these gar ments, because she has never thus em-ployed her fingers. But I know, be-