pleted. Mr Sweater would then congratulate him and assure him that
he was qualified to assume a 'position' in any House but regret that
there was no longer any room for him in his. Business was so bad.
Still, if the Man wished he might stay on until he secured a better
'position' and, as a matter of generosity, although he did not really
need the Man's services, he would pay him ten shillings per week!

Provided he was not addicted to drinking, smoking, gambling or the
Stock Exchange, or going to theatres, the young man's future was thus
assured. Even if he were unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain another
position he could save a portion of his salary and eventually commence
business on his own account.

However, the branch of Mr Sweater's business to which it is desired to
especially direct the reader's attention was the Homeworkers
Department. He employed a large number of women making ladies'
blouses, fancy aprons and children's pinafores. Most of these articles
were disposed of wholesale in London and elsewhere, but some were
retailed at 'Sweaters' Emporium' in Mugsborough and at the firm's other
retail establishments throughout the county. Many of the women workers
were widows with children, who were glad to obtain any employment that
did not take hem away from their homes and families.

The blouses were paid for at tie rate of from two shillings to five
shillings a dozen, the women having to provide their own machine and
cotton, besides calling for and delivering the work. These poor women
were able to clear from six to eight shillings a week: and to earn even
that they had to work almost incessantly for fourteen or sixteen hours
a day. There was no time for cooling and very little to cook, for they
lived principally on bread and margarine and tea. Their homes were
squalid, their children half-starved and raggedly clothed in grotesque
garments hastily fashioned out of the cast-off clothes of charitable
neighbours.

But it was not in vain that these women toiled every weary day until
exhaustion compelled them to case. It was not in vain that they passed
their cheerless lives bending with aching shoulders over the thankless
work that barely brought them bread. It was not in vain that they and
their children went famished and in rags, for after all, the principal
object of their labour was accomplished: the Good Cause was advanced.
Mr Sweater waxed rich and increased in goods and respectability.

Of