The Project Gutenberg EBook of Prisoners of Poverty, by Helen Campbell

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Title: Prisoners of Poverty
Women Wage-Workers, Their Trades and Their Lives

Author: Helen Campbell

Release Date: October 12, 2010 [EBook #34060]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PRISONERS OF POVERTY

WOMEN WAGE-WORKERS,
THEIR TRADES AND THEIR LIVES.

By HELEN CAMPBELL

AUTHOR OF "MRS. HERNDON'S INCOME,"
"MISS MELINDA'S OPPORTUNITY," ETC.

BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1900

_Copyright, 1887_,
BY HELEN CAMPBELL

University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE

PRISONERS OF POVERTY.

"_Make no more giants, God,
But elevate the race at once. We ask
To put forth just our strength, our human strength.
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted,--
See if we cannot beat Thy angels yet._"

"_Light, light, and light! to break and melt in sunder
All clouds and chains that in one bondage bind
Eyes, hands, and spirits, forged by fear and wonder
And sleek fierce fraud with hidden knife behind;
There goes no fire from heaven before their thunder,
Nor are the links not malleable that wind
Round the snared limbs and souls that ache thereunder;
The hands are mighty were the head not blind.
Priest is the staff of king,
And chains and clouds one thing,
And fettered flesh with devastated mind.
Open thy soul to see,
Slave, and thy feet are free.
Thy bonds and thy beliefs are one in kind,
And of thy fears thine irons wrought,
Hang weights upon thee fashioned out of thine own thought._"

PREFACE.

The chapters making up the present volume were prepared originally as a
series of papers for the Sunday edition of "The New York Tribune," and
were based upon minutest personal research into the conditions
described. Sketchy as the reco