have under consideration. For the first,
diligent investigation in fourteen cities showed clearly that a very
small proportion among working-women entered this life. The largest
number classed by occupations came from the lowest order of workers,
those employed in housework and in hotels, and the next largest was
found among seamstresses, employees of shirt factories, and cloak
makers, both of these industries in which under-pay is proverbial. The
great majority receiving not more than five dollars a week, earn it by
seldom less than ten hours a day of hard labor, and not only live on
this sum, but assist friends, contribute to general household
expenses, dress so as to appear fairly well, and have learned every
art of doing without. More than this. Since the deepening interest in
their lives, and the formation of working-girls' societies and guilds
of many orders, they contribute from this scanty sum enough to rent
meeting rooms, pay for instruction in many classes, and provide a
relief fund for sick and disabled members. Aids, alleviations, growing
interest, all are to-day given to the worker. "Homes" of every order
open their doors, some so hedged about by rules that self-respect
revolts and refuses to live the life demanded by them. In all of these
homes, even the best, lurks always the suspicion of charity, and even
when this has no active formulation in the worker's mind, there is
still the underlying sense of the essential injustice of withholding
with one hand just pay, and with the other proffering a substitute in
a charity, which is to reflect credit on the giver, and demand
gratitude from the receiver. Here and there this is recognized, and
within a short time has been emphasized by a woman whose name is
associated with the work of charity organizations throughout the
country,--Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. I doubt if there is any one
better fitted by long experience and almost matchless common sense to
speak authoritatively. Within a short time she has written: "So far
from assuming that the well-to-do portion of society have discharged
all their obligations to man and God by supporting charitable
institutions, I regard just this expenditure as one of the _prime_
causes of the suffering and crime that exist in our midst. I am
inclined, in general, to look upon what is called charity as the
_insult_ which is added to the _injury_ done to the mass of the people
by _insufficient payment for work_."

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