42 HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



girl, and visited, each day, one or more factories where 

 women are employed, where she secured employment and 

 worked a few hours or managed to stay long enough to 

 learn the condition of the employees, and the Times con- 

 tained the story of misery as seen by Miss Nelson. 



"On July 10, she visited the Western L,ane factory, 

 218 State street. There she found the most wretched 

 conditions of poverty and serfdom. As she entered the 

 office she was followed by a young lady who had been 

 crocheting mats, and as she had come to draw her pay and 

 quit the company's service, it gave the reporter an 

 opportunity to make a note of her earnings, and when the 

 clerk opened the books, it was found the poor girl had 

 worked from the first of last January to July 10, for the 

 princely sum of fifteen dollars, and instead of paying her 

 she was put off in a dark room to wait until the proprietor 

 came in. Miss Nelson then applied for work and learned 

 that for making mats of the size and style made by the 

 poor girl, the company had paid 60 cents per dozen ; that 

 a dozen was an ordinary week's work, and that all the 

 other grades of work given out by that company were 

 correspondingly the same price. That company lets its 

 work out by the piece and the employees carry it to their 

 homes. The Times reporter found that to get work one 

 must pay two dollars for the privilege, and deposit one 

 dollar to secure the return of the material. The reporter 

 then visited Rosenthal & Co.'s factory and found that the 

 company only pays 50 cents for making a lady's cloak. 

 It was too much for Miss Nelson and she left without 

 further investigation. Her next visit was to L,udden's, 

 121 Market street, where she applied for work and got it. 

 Holding up a pair of brown cottonade pants, the foreman 

 said, ' Here is a sample. The work is cut out but you will 

 have to do everything yourself. I want you to make the 

 fly extra strong and press the buttons. We pay seventy- 



