Page:Appeal to the wealthy of the land.djvu/21

Rh us see the result, and how far he is from being able to save wherewith to meet the casualties of sickness and want of employment.

This is a sample of a large class, whom citizens, wallowing in wealth and enjoying all the luxuries of life, vituperate for not saving enough when employed, wherewith to support themselves during hard winters and times of sickness!!! And let it be observed, that this calculation is for two children, whereas some of those persons have four or five.

There are, I believe, some journeymen in Philadelphia whose wages do not much, if any thing, exceed four dollars and a half a week.

Philadelphia, June 28, 1833.



we are gravely told, that some of the seamstresses ought to go to service—that servants are scarce; if they would condescend to fill that station, they might have comfortable homes, abundance of good food, light labour, and high wages.

That there may be found some individuals among those oppressed women who might go to service, and whom a false pride prevents from taking that course, I admit. But on a careful inquiry of the Matron of the Provident Society, and of the Managers of the Female Hospitable Society, I am persuaded the number is small, and bears but a slight proportion to the whole number of the seamstresses. There is among them a large proportion of aged widows, who are wholly unfit for service, and many young widows, with two or three small children, who are as dear to them, as theirs are to the rich; whom, of course, they cannot bear to part with; and whom their wages, as servants, would not support at nurse.

"Philadelphia, Jan. 5, 1832.

"On consulting with the Managers of the Female Hospitable Society, we have concluded from the experience which twenty-three years have given us, to return the following answers to your queries:—

"1. The number of women who apply for work in the winter season, is, on an average, five hundred.

"2. As to persons among them fit for house-maids, or service in families, not one in fifty.

"3. As to the number of widows, the proportion is as seventy-five to an hundred; the remainder, chiefly wives deserted by their husbands, or whose husbands do nothing for the maintenance of their children, who are too young to do any thing for themselves.

"4. As to aged females, one half are of that class, and one fifth of the whole infirm.

"Yours, &c. ".

",—As far as I can judge, from what the women told me last winter, I should think that at least six hundred of them were widows. At least two thirds of them said they had