OVERWORKED GIRLS. No Eight Hours Day for Them.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 269, 26 August 1905, Page 6

OVERWORKED GIRLS. No Eight Hours Day for Them.

THE working man in New Zealand is a priceless orchid, whose health and recreation are of paramount importance to politicians. He has been able to convince most people that he would suffer like anything if he happened to forget when it was five o'clock, and worked until 5.15. We believe that the powerful navvy, the muscular carpenter, the brawny blacksmith, the strong bricklayer, and all the rest of the men of different trades are better, healthier, mentally more alert, and happier for being able to throw down the tools of their trades after eight hours' use of them. * * ♦ But, "keep your cradles full.'' How? By working the potential mothers of the future workmen from 7.30 or 8 in the morning until 7, 8, 9, or 10 at night. They are only girls, of coursei — girls who work in shops. The girl who carries buns and tea to you all day long, and who sometimes glares at you for your rudeness. The restaurant girl, and the shop-girl of every class. She is looking forward to the time, and she hopes it will come soon, when a man who< works eight hours a day will take her away from the drudgery and the draught, the ceaseless, monotonous grind of a shop or restaurant life, to make her his partner for life. * • * And then? She will have to work just as hard, or harder. She may become the mother of children, for whom she will toil in the night as well as the day. And is she fit for it ? Have the girls, who' are not considered in the least degree as deserving of as much consideration as men, the reserve of vitality, health, and energy that is necessary for the more important duties they all hope to assume ? You don't give these things a thought. You who have your coat on before the whistle goes, you who have lunch in town and drop m at the restaurant at night to find the same girl who served you at mid-day still working ! • • • Why shouldn't you think of it? You would punch the head of any man who physically ill-used a girl. Why don't you do something to stop the llluse that is constant and hurtful, and likely to permanently impair the usefulness of the "weaker vessel"? Miss Hawthorne, the inspectress of factories, remarks that as the Act stands an employer can have his women workers back to

business at 3 o'clock in the morning. They don't, of course, but they may if they choose. And the wages'* Well, they are only women anyhow, and 15s is a pretty good wage for lots of girls who carry cups and saucers for eleven to twelve, and even thirteen,, hours a day. * ♦ ♦ If there are any girls in Wellington restaurants who work less hard and less hours than a navvy, bricklayer, carpenter, or blacksmith, we shall be glad to know about them, and if there are any high-souled Labour men in Parliament, who have worried in the past about the poor male sufferer who nearly dropped dead after working nine hours per day, will they kindly worry a bit about the girl who still staggers on while working just as hard for twelve hours, and who, at the present moment, has no redress?