Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/749

 TiVO WEEKS IN DEPARTMENT STORES 72g

our wages and compared index sheets on every possible occasion. Some sold very little and at the end of the week had no more than three dollars.' The mental anguish of some of the girls when they saw at night how small their sales had been is impos- sible to describe. One may elect to become a worker, and endure the hardships of the toil, and live the life of the laborer, and receive the same starvation wages, but he can never experi- ence the abject wretchedness of not knowing where to turn when the last dollar is gone. Three dollars a week to a girl alone in the city means starvation or shame.

The fourth day of the week was one I remember well. There had been special sales the day before, and everyone was more tired than usual ; consequently those in charge were more than usually harsh and discourteous. One girl was ill. She should not have left home, but she feared losing her place if she remained away. She found after an hour or two that she could not work, so she asked permission to go home. The answer given was that she need not return if she left then. The floorwalker, who had a spark of humanity in his breast, told her that she could go to the toilet-room to lie d own, if she would come out to her place once in a while to show that she was there. That poor girl spent the day on the rough, dirty floor, with a cash girl's apron for a pillow. At intervals she dragged her- self out to her place in the department, only to crawl back more wretched than before. We wondered sometimes why there was no large chair or couch provided for an emergency case of that kind. There were comforts in the customers' wait- ing-rooms, but discharge was the fate of the employe who dared go in there.

A shop girl might die on the bare, hard floor, while easy chairs and couches in another room were unoccupied. Surely it would not be unreasonable to require that suitable rest-rooms be provided for the employes. Undue advantage could not well be taken of such a thing, for we could not leave the floor with- out asking the floorwalker — a man — for a pass, and his injunc-

■ On Saturday night all those whose sales averaged less than five dollars a day were discharged.