CONDITIONS FOR CONTINENTAL WORKERS.

For France the census of 1847 showed a list of 959 women workers in
Paris earning sixty centimes a day; 100,000 earning from sixty centimes
to three francs, and 626 earning over three francs. That for 1869 showed
17,203, earning from fifty centimes to one franc twenty-five centimes
daily; 11,000 of these workers being furnished lodging, food, and
washing. Of the entire number 88,340 earned from one franc fifty
centimes to four francs a day; 767 earned from four francs fifty
centimes to ten francs daily, most of the latter class being heads of
work rooms or shops. The rise in wages affected the better orders of
worker, but left the sewing-woman's wage nearly unchanged. Levasseur[31]
tells us that toward the end of the reign of Louis Philippe the wage of
a woman varied ordinarily from twelve to twenty-five sous, exceptionally
from twenty to forty; that of children being from six to fifteen sous;
of men from thirty sous for ordinary laborers, to forty or forty-five
for skilled work.

The census for 1851 gave for Paris 112,891 workwomen, 60,000 of whom
were sewers. Convent sewing, that of the prisons and reformatories, and
the competition of women who had homes and worked simply for pin-money,
kept the wage at a minimum; and these conditions still operate toward
that end, precisely as they do for all countries where the needle is a
means of support, the evil being felt most severely in our cities. The
facts in the life of a French seamstress are much the same as those of
the Englishwoman. To earn two francs a day she must make eight chemises,
working from fourteen to sixteen hours daily to accomplish this. The
income of the average sewer does not exceed, at the best, five hundred
francs, and most usually falls below. Rents are so high that a garret
requires not less than one hundred francs a year. In his researches into
conditions, Jules Simon[32] found that this sum compelled deprivations
of every order. Expenses were as follows: Rent, 100 francs; clothing,
bedding, etc., 115 francs; washing, 36 francs; heat and light, 36
francs. These sums amounted to 286.50 francs, the amount remaining for
food being 215.50 or a little less than twelve sous a day,--the amount
expended by two of our own seamstresses in New York in 1887, the items
being given by the earner.[33]

Existence on French soil, whether in Paris, the manufacturing towns, or
the provinces, has come to mean something very dif