e, per head, more coffee, tea,
and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other
country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces,
and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any other part
of the world. They eat more meat, drink more liquor, and spend more in
trifles. And it is not likely that they contemplate any reformation of
these lavish habits, at least while wages keep up to the present rates.
Were it proposed, I think that coats and shirts would be about the last
things the men would begin with, and paper cuffs and collars among the
last the women would repudiate. They are fond enough of changing their
clothes, but have no idea of doing without them."

"I notice," I observed, "that you employ girls in your establishment,
several being occupied in feeding the stamping-rollers. Could a man feed
those rollers more efficiently than a girl? or would they turn out more
work in a week, if attended by a man than by a girl?"

"Not any more," he answered.

"Do the girls receive as much wages as the men?" I added.

"About one third as much," he replied.

"But," I suggested, "if they perform as much work as men could, why do
you pay them so much less?"

"Competition, Miss," he answered, "There is a constant pressure on us
from girls seeking employment, and this keeps down wages. Besides, those
whom we do employ come here wholly ignorant of what they are required to
do. Some have never worked a day in their lives. It requires time to
teach them, and while being taught they spoil a great deal of material.
It is a long time before they become really skilled hands. You can have
no conception of the kind of help that offers itself to us every week.
Parents don't seem to educate their daughters to anything useful; and
our girls nowadays appear to have little or nothing to do in-doors.
Formerly they had plenty of household duties, as a multitude of things
were done at home which even the poorest old woman never thinks of doing
now. The baker now makes their bread; the spinning, the weaving, the
knitting, and sewing are taken out of their hands by machinery; and if
women want to work, they must go out and seek it, just as those do who
apply to us. Machinery has undoubtedly effected a great revolution in
all home-employments for women, compelling many to be idle; and not
being properly encouraged to adopt new employments in place of the old
ones, they remain idle until force