is attention,
and promised to take up the complaint with the Police Commissioner.

But the arrests and violence of the police continued unchecked.

On the 5th of December the Political Equality League, at the instigation
of Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, held a packed meeting for the benefit of the
Shirt-waist Makers' Union. Many imprisoned girls were present, and gave
to the public clear, straightforward stories of the treatment they had
received at the hands of the city. The committee of the meeting had
offered the Mayor and other city officials a box, but they refused to be
present.

Again the arrests and violence continued without protection for the
workers. Nevertheless their cause was constantly gaining, and although
all attempts at general arbitration were unsuccessful, more and more
employers settled with the operatives. They continued to settle during
December and January until the middle of February. All but thirteen of
the shops in New York had then made satisfactory terms with the Union
workers. It was officially declared that the strike was over.

Natalya's shop had settled with the operatives on the 23d of January, and
she went back to work on the next day.

She had an increase of $2 a week in wages--$8 a week instead of $6. Her
hours were now fifty-two a week instead of sixty--that is to say, nine
and one-half hours a day, with a Saturday half-holiday. But she has
since then been obliged to enter another factory on account of slack
work.

Among the more skilled workers than Natalya in New York to-day, Irena
Kovalova, who supports her mother and her younger brother and sister, has
$11 a week instead of $9. She is not obliged to work on Sunday, and her
factory closes at five o'clock instead of six on Saturday. "I have four
hours less a week," she said with satisfaction. The family have felt able
to afford for her a new dress costing $11, and material for a suit,
costing $6. A friend, a neighbor, made this for Irena as a present.

Among the older workers of more skill than Irena, Anna Klotin, who sent
$120 home to her family last year, has now, however, only $6, $7, and $8
a week, and very poor and uncertain work, instead of her former $12 a
week. Hers was one of the thirteen factories that did not settle. Of
their one hundred and fifty girls, they wished about twenty of their more
skilled operators to return to them under Union conditions, leaving the
rest under the old long hours of overtime and indeterminate