I can't afford
to take the risk, sir; so many will cheat us.'
Respectability is a good thing, you see. Let me whisper a few other
prices to you, which respectability pays its poor girls. Fifteen or
twenty cents for making a linen coat, complete; sixty-two cents _per
dozen_ for making men's heavy overalls; one dollar a dozen for making
flannel shirts. Figures are usually very humdrum affairs, but what a
story they tell here! These last prices I did not get from Mary. I got
them in the first place, from a benevolent lady who works with heart
and hand, day after day, all her time, in endeavoring to better the
condition of the poor girls of New York. But I got them, in the second
place, from the employers themselves. By going to them, pencil in hand,
and desiring the cheerful little particulars for publication? Hardly! I
sent my office-boy out in search of work for an imaginary 'sister,' and
to inquire what would be paid her. Having inquired, and got his answer,
it is needless to say that James concluded his sister could live
without taking in sewing.
So, you see, that in order merely to pay her rent, Mary must make two
shirts a day. That being done, she must make more to meet her other
expenses. She has fuel to buy--and a pail of coal costs her fifteen
cents. She has food to buy--but she eats very little, her father still
less. She has not tasted meat of any kind for over a year, she tells
us.
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