AN OVERWORKED CLASS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2167, 29 May 1886, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN OVERWORKED CLASS.

A ttAHOit meeting of East-end tailor*, mr.stly foreign Jews, was held lately at WhitechapeT, London, and during the proceedings some remarkable disclosures were made as to the hardships under which that class of the community hare to perform their work. Mr Lakeman, Inspector of Factories, presided, and said ifc might appear strange tha.t he should take the chair, but he looked upon himself as a public servant having a public duty to perform. How these tailors lived in the conditions in which they were placed he knew not, and until some great upheavel took place to rescue them from the bondage in which they were placed, ho feared the end would be bad to a great many of them. If the custom of the trade was that they should work fourteen hours per day, then it was a bad one, and they should demand that their hours of labor should be regulated according to the hours in other trades. Thore was a law for girls in the trade, but the inspectors could not interfere for the men. They must therefore combine. Mr Likeman stated that many of the rooms he had entered registered 90 degrees, and he read a letter which stated that " there were 23 foreign Jews working in one shop. The iron stores are enough to choke anyone. In the daytime it made us nil ill, working for weeks from 7 o'clock in the morning until 1 o'clo-k next morning. It is shocking to see the bight in there."

Hugh Conway appears to bo to ex. ception to the rule that " dead men tell no tales." '