round and she hadn't a stitch of warm
underclothes, and she took a cold in December, and by January it had
tight hold of her. I went to Madame myself then, and begged her to pay
Jenny if it wasn't but a little, and she cried and said if she could
only raise the money she would. She didn't; and by and by I went again,
and then she turned ugly. I looked at her dumfounded when she spoke her
real mind and said if we didn't like it we could leave; there were
plenty of others. I wouldn't believe my ears even, and said to myself
she was worn out with trouble and couldn't mean a word of it. I wanted
money for myself, but I wouldn't ask even for anybody but Jenny.

"Next day Madame brought her ten dollars of the two hundred and twenty
she owed her, and Jenny got shoes; but it was too late. I knew it well,
for I'd seen my sister go the same way. Quick consumption ain't to be
stopped with new shoes or anything but new lungs, and there's no patent
for them yet that ever I've heard of. She was going last night when I
went round, and sure as you live I'm going to put her death in the paper
myself. I've been saving my money off lunches to do it, and I'll write
it: 'Murdered by a fashionable dressmaker on ---- Street, in January,
1886, Jenny G----, age nineteen years and six months.' Maybe they won't
put it in, but here it is, ready for any paper that's got feeling enough
to care whether sewing-girls are cheated and starved and killed, or
whether they get what they've earned. I've got work at home now. It
don't matter so much to me; but I'm a committee to attend to this thing,
and I'll find out every fraud in New York that I can. I've got nine
names now,--three of 'em regular fashionables on the west side, and six
of 'em following their example hard as they can on the east; and a
friend of mine has printed, in large letters, 'Beware of' at the head of
a slip, and I add names as fast as I get them, and every girl that comes
in my way I warn against them. Do much good? No. They'll get all the
girls they want, and more; but it's some satisfaction to be able to say
they are cheats, making a living out of the flesh and blood of their
dupes, and I'll say it till I die."

Here stands the experience of one woman with fearlessness enough to
protest and energy enough to have at last secured a tolerable living.
The report, for such it may be considered, might be made of many more
names than those upon her black list, or found on the books of the