WORKING WOMEN IN LONDON.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1262, 7 May 1886, Page 3

WORKING WOMEN IN LONDON.

The number of women earning their own living, and often assisting to keep the family, in London, is increasing every day. Hundreds are employed in the Post Office, in some of the insurance companies as cashiers and bookkeepers, in tracing engineer’s plans, in type writing, in telephone work and cigarette making—all employments of comparatively recent date, for it is not. many years since the trial of female clerks in the clearinghouse of the Post Office was thought a wonderful innovation, and one which many wise heads predicted much evil of. There are besides, of course, the very large number of working women in the more ordinaly sense--the dressmakers, milliners, and shop as* sis'ants. Among the latter, perhaps, it is truest that we know little how they live. One thing is not half enough is known about them, and that is the large number of girls and women employed in London at a rate of payment wnich is quite inadequate for them to live upon, however careful they may be. They are generally machinists or dressmakers, or milliners’ assistants, sometimes attendants in second-rate shop. It is a common thing for these women to be paid 8s a week or less—they think themselves well off when they earn 9s and the work is not constant ; because, when times are bad, or the slack season sets in, they are turned off. They will go day after dav to some of the shops where their work is known, and sit in the waiting room on the chance of an odd hand being wanted. If these earnings are only part of the household, means, it is well enough ; the girl’s woik pavs the rent if it does not always keep her, and she is not without food or shelter during the time the work fails. But it .is wholly diffeient with the young woman who has no borne but that she pays for. If she is quiet and respectable she generally lodges with some fellow.worker older than herself who has furniture. Hu; pays 2s or 2s Gd a week for a bed in the same room and for her share of the firing and light. She buys her own food and cooks it herself. Six shillings for seven days is not very much, everyone will allow ; but when we show that the recipient is expectal to. dress well—that is respectably and find her own boots, that in going out in all weathers her clothes wear out more quickly, no one need be surprised that her wages alone cannot keep her and dress her.

In must of the large shops the assistants live in houses provided ;or them, under the char-re of a matron or housekeeper; but there are a very large number of women in London employed during a day who have to

find housed for themselves us best they may. By combination, good, wholesome food can lie obtained at a rate which is shindy impossible to separate catering—a fict which is, of coarse, self-evident, although tew are aware of the tiginea which represent this saving, As an example, I may mention that to my own knowledge a dinner consisting of roup, a cut from a freshly-cooked joint, two vegetables, and a roll cost something under fid a head, when supplied to forty people for the actual food aloof-—that is to say, without charge for kitchen tire or attendance ; and that when five or six people join together for tea it costs them, including sugar and milk, about 3d per week, ft is easy to see how cheaply a number of women could i e provided for if the food were well managed.

So far the clubs or lodgings whore the plan has been adopted of a common kitchen have been eminently successful, and the only difficulty is that there are not nearly enough of them, and that th -re are never any vacancies in those which exist. In some of these an excellent hot dinner of meot, two vegetables, and bread, is served in the rooms at the rate of 8d per head, than which nothing be' ter or cheaper could be desired. For 4s 8d per week a woman can thus have the food without which she cannot con tinue to work, and her breakfast and tea are small items in comparison to dinner. This is, of course, only to be had in residential clubs for a higher class of women than a milliners’ assistant, who out of her scanty earnings could never afford 4s 8d a week lor her dinners. The evil in these cases is that the dinners are only served up in the middle of the clay, and many of the workers who cannot get home to dinner are unable to benefit by them. It is not by any means, however, among this-class of women only that there are workers struggling hard to keep their heads above water It is no exaggeration to say that in London there are hundreds of gently hied and cultured women living actually alone, going forth to their daily work and returning to their lodgings in tho evening, with perhaps a stinted fire or bad light. Many of these are quite young, and, to their credit be ic spoken they live as blameless lives, although cut off from all supervision, as their carefully guarded sisters, whose parents surround r hom with every possible protection and would tain have them ignorant, that evil exists.— ‘ The Queen/