=197. Lace Menders.= I called on M. W., a lace mender. "In New York, she has received from one store, Mme. G.'s, from $20 to $25 a week for work. She thinks in a few years very little work will be ordered from the stores; it will be done by those who make a business of it. The stores derive a handsome profit. She did a piece for one store for $3, that she knows the lady paid $5 for having done; and another piece at $3, that the lady paid $10 for--the storekeeper having such profits for nothing but merely sending it to the lace transferrer. She makes a comfortable living, but works at night as well as through the day. It has injured her eyes and made her nervous. She has had two little girls learning to mend, alter, and transfer lace; one received her board and clothing for her work for three years. One girl, that spent two years with her, is now obtaining a livelihood by her work. She thinks if a bright, steady girl of thirteen should spend two years at it, and then have friends to start her in business, she would be well able to support herself. Lace mending is a separate branch from lace making. In England, if a person can obtain the names of one or two wealthy families, it will at once establish them in business. In doing up lace, little girls can put the pins in the edges to keep it in place until dried. C. and Mme. G., she says, pay her as her customers would, but she prefers establishing herself, and does not so well like store work. Her customers recommend her to their friends, and so she will gradually become known. Lace mending is a nice, clean, respectable business, and can be done at home."
=198. Hair Cloth Manufacture.= "There is some competition in the sale of foreign and domestic hair cloth. The American is of a better quality, and on that ground only are manufacturers able to compete with foreigners, the duty on hair cloth being low. When the hair has been separated from the short hair used for curling, it goes into the more delicate fingers of the hair drawers, who sort it into lengths, each length corresponding to the width of the cloth to be woven. We have seldom seen any mechanical operation requiring more dexterity or constant attention than this. The girls engaged in this work make from $3 to $3.50, and sometimes $4 a week. The weaving is done by hand looms, each worked by two girls--one to handle the hook (answering the purpose of a shuttle), and the other to serve the hair. The prices paid for weaving vary from twenty to thirty-two cents per yard. The average, including plain and figured cloth, is twenty-four cents. A fair average day's work is four or five yards. But this requires two hands, you must remember; so that perhaps a fair estimate of the wages of hair cloth weavers would be from fifty to sixty-two and a half cents per day. The labor is severe, and we should think it impossible, without injury to the health, for young women to work at it more than two thirds of the time." At a hair-cloth manufactory in New York, I was told they employ one hundred girls. The proprietor says they have work all the year. He never knew a woman at the business that could not find employment. The first month they do not receive anything for their work, but after that can earn from $3 to $5 per week. It is paid for by the yard. The more practice a worker has, the better she succeeds. I think it must be dirty work. Another manufacturer told me it does not require long to learn to weave hair cloth, but some time to do it well. He pays $5 per week, but their time is not limited to ten hours. The girls, I saw, were pale and filthy. He thinks the business is likely to extend, and, consequently, the prospect of employment to women in that field of labor is good. He keeps his girls all the year. The Providence Hair Cloth Co. write: "Women are employed in weaving our hair cloth. Every hair has to be put in separately by the fingers of the girl. The only disadvantage to the health of the girl is the close application in sitting so long. We pay our girls thirteen cents per yard for weaving. It requires about two weeks or one month before a girl becomes sufficiently accustomed to the work to weave on full speed. We pay them while learning. No qualifications needed, only general neatness and upright moral character. All seasons are alike. We work only ten hours. Thirty girls have each one loom with which to work; one girl mends the cloth, and three shave and trim the same--making thirty-four in all. One half are American. Women are in all respects superior to men in weaving--same as in cotton looms."