te, in spite of the inconveniences, ravenously, and paid for my dinner
fifteen cents. Most of my neighbours took one course, stew or soup. I
rose half-satisfied, dizzy from the fumes and the bad air. I am safe in
saying that I never smelled anything like to Weyman's, and I hope never
to again. Never again shall I hear food and drink discussed by the
_gourmet_--discuss, indeed, with him over his repast--but there shall
rise before me Weyman's restaurant, low-ceiled, foul, crowded to
overflowing. I shall see the diners bend edged appetites to the
unpalatable food. These Weyman patrons, mark well, are the rich ones,
the swells of labour--able to squander fifteen to twenty cents on their
stew and tea. There are dozens, you remember, still in the unaired
fourth and fifth stories--at "lunching" over their sandwiches. Far
more vivid, more poignant even must be to me the vision of "Bobby." I
shall see her eat her filthy sandwich with her blackened hands, see her
stoop to blow the scum of deadly matter from her typhoid-breeding glass.

In Lynn, unless she boards at home, a girl's living costs her at best
$3.75 a week. If she be of the average[4] her month's earnings are
$32. Reduce this by general expenses and living and her surplus is
$16, to earn which she has toiled 224 hours. You will recall that
there are, out of the 22,000 operatives in Massachusetts, 5,000 who
make under $5 a week. I leave the reader to compute from this the
luxuries and possible pleasures consistent with this income.

[Footnote 4: Lynn's average wages are $8 per week.]

A word for the swells of the trade, for swells exist. One of my
companions at 28 Viger Street made $14 a week. Her expenses were $4; she
therefore had at her disposition about $40 a month. She had no
family--_every cent of her surplus she spent on her clothes_.

"I like to look down and see myself dressed nice," she said; "it makes
me feel good. I don't like myself in poor clothes."

She _was_ well-dressed--her furs good, her hat charming. We walked to
work side by side, she the lady of us. Of course she belongs to the
Union. Her possible illness is provided for; her death will bring $100
to a distant cousin. She is only tired out, thin, undeveloped, pale,
that's all. She is almost a capitalist, and extremely well dressed.

Poor attire, if I can judge by the reception I met with in Lynn,
influences only those who by reason of birth, breeding and education
should be above such thing