is kind of business, in which
hundreds of women starve, and hundreds more go down to a life of infamy.
Cap-making (the great business of Water Street of New York) gives
employment to thousands of unfortunates. For embroidering caps, the
wholesale dealer pays seven cents each; and for making up, three cents. To
make a dozen a day, one must work for sixteen hours. The embroidering is
done in this wise: I received the cut cloth from the wholesale dealer;
drew the pattern upon each cap; gave them, with three cents' worth of
silk, to the embroiderer, who received three cents for her work; then
pressed and returned them; thus making one cent on each for myself. By
working steadily for sixteen hours, a girl could embroider fifteen in a
day. I gave out about six dozen daily; earning, like the rest, fifty cents
a day: unless I chose to do the stamping and pressing at night, and to
embroider a dozen during the day; in which case, I earned a dollar.

One can live in this way for a little while, until health fails, or the
merchant says that the work has come to an end. You will think this
terrible again. Oh, no! this is not terrible. The good men provide in
another way. They tell every woman of a prepossessing appearance, that it
is wrong in her to work so hard; that many a man would be glad to care for
her; and that many women live quite comfortably with the help of _a
friend_. They say, further, that it is lonely to live without ever going
to church, to the concert and theatre; and that if these women would only
permit the speakers to visit them, and to attend them to any of these
places, they would soon find that they would no longer be obliged to work
so hard. This is the polished talk of gentlemen who enjoy the reputation
of piety and respectability, and who think it a bad speculation to pay
women liberally for their work. So it would be, in truth; for these poor
creatures would not be so willing to abandon themselves to a disreputable
life, if they could procure bread in any other way.

During the summer of 1854, I took work on commission from men of this
sort. While in Berlin I had learned from the prostitutes in the hospital
in what manner educated women often became what they then were. The
average story was always the same. The purest love made them weak; their
lover deceived and deserted them; their family cast them off by way of
punishment. In their disgrace, they went to bury themselves in large
cities, where the work