different sweaters, the
increasing competition accentuating these differences more and more. The
sweater himself is more or less at the mercy of the contractor, who says
to him: "Here are so many coats, at so much a coat. If you won't do them
at the price, there are plenty that will."

Already well aware of this fact, the sweater, if the rate falls at all
below his expectation, has simply to pursue the same course with the
waiting worker in his shop, a slight turn of the screw, half a penny off
here and a farthing there, bringing his own profit back to the rate he
assumes as essential. There is no pressure from below to compel justice.
For any rebellious worker a dozen stand waiting to fill the vacant
place; and thus the wrong perpetuates itself, and the sweater, whose
personal relation with those he employs may be of the friendliest,
becomes tyrant and oppressor, not of his own will, but through sheer
force of circumstances. Thus evils, which laws have not reached,
increase from day to day. Inspectors are practically powerless, and the
shameful system, degrading alike to employer and employed, grows by what
it feeds on, and hangs over the East End, a pall blacker and fouler than
the cloud of smoke and soot, also the result of man's folly, not to be
lifted till human eyes see clearer what makes life worth living, and
human hands are less weary with labor that profiteth not, but that
deadens sense and soul alike.

This is the general view of the system as a whole. For the special there
must still be a further word.

CHAPTER IV.

AMONG THE SWEATERS.

"'Nine tailors to make a man,' they say. Well, now if it takes that
amount, and from some lots I've seen I should say it did, you've got to
multiply by nine again if you count in the women. Bless your 'art!" and
here, in his excitement, the inspector began to drop the _h_'s, which
the Board School had taught him to hold to with painful tenacity. "Bless
your 'art! a woman can't make a coat, and every tailor knows it, and
that's one reason 'e beats 'er down and beats 'er down till 'ow she
keeps the breath of life in the Lord only knows. Take the cheapest coat
going and there's a knack to every seam that a woman don't catch. She's
good for trousers and finishing, and she can't be matched for
button-holes when she gives her mind to it, but a coat's beyond her.
I've wondered a good bit over it. The women don't see it themselves,
but now and again there's one that's