Page:London - The People of the Abyss.djvu/252

208 she made 7066 match boxes, and earned $2.20½, less her paste and thread.

Last year, Mr. Thomas Holmes, a police court missionary of note, after writing about the condition of the women workers, received the following letter, dated April 18, 1901:

"Pardon the liberty I am taking, but, having read what you said about poor women working fourteen hours a day for ten shillings per week, I beg to state my case. I am a tie-maker, who, after working all the week, cannot earn more than five shillings, and I have a poor afflicted husband to keep who hasn't earned a penny for more than ten years."

Imagine a woman, capable of writing such a clear, sensible, grammatical letter, supporting her husband and self on 5 shillings ($1.25) per week! Mr. Holmes visited her. He had to squeeze to get into the room. There lay her sick husband; there she worked all day long; there she cooked, ate, washed, and slept; and there her husband and she performed all the functions of living and dying. There was no space for the missionary to sit down, save on the bed, which was partially covered with ties and silk. The sick man's lungs were in the last stages of decay. He coughed and expectorated constantly, the woman ceasing from her work to assist him in his paroxysms. The silken fluff from the ties was not good for his sickness; nor was his sickness