y feet all day long for fifty cents. There are photograph
galleries--you pass them in Broadway admiringly--where girls 'mount'
photographs in dark rooms, which are hot in summer and cold in winter,
for the same money. There are girls who make fans, who work in feathers,
who pick over and assort rags for paper warehouses, who act as
'strippers' in tobacco shops, who make caps, and paper boxes, and toys,
and almost all imaginable things. There are milliners' girls, and
bindery girls, and printers' girls--press-feeders, book-folders,
hat-trimmers. It is not to be supposed that all these places are
objectionable; it is not to be supposed that all the places where
sewing-girls work are objectionable; but among each class there are very
many--far too many--where evils of the gravest character exist, where the
poor girls are wronged, the innocents suffer. There are places where
there are not sufficient fires kept, in cold weather, and where the poor
girl, coming in wet and shivering from the storm, must go immediately to
work, wet as she is, and so continue all day. There are places where the
'silent system' of prisons is rigidly enforced, where there are severe
penalties for whispering to one's neighbor, and where the windows are
closely curtained, so that no girl can look out upon the street; thus, in
advance, inuring the girls to the hardships of prison discipline, in view
of the possibility that they may, some day become criminals! There are
places where the employer treats his girls like slaves, in every sense of
the word. Pause a moment, and reflect on all that signifies. As in the
South 'as it was,' some of these girls are given curses, and even blows,
and even _kicks_; while others are special favorites either of 'the
boss,' or of some of his male subordinates, and dress well, pay four
dollars a week for board, and fare well generally--on a salary of three
dollars a week."

Is it a wonder that so many of the working women and girls of New York
glide into sin, with the hope of bettering their hard lot? And, when
thrown out of work, with no food or shelter, save what can be obtained by
begging or at the Station House, is it a wonder that they seek the
concert saloons, in sheer desperation, or join the street walkers on
Broadway?

But if the working woman has her persecutors, she has also her friends in
the great city. One of the best institutions which have been organized
for the protection and assistance of