Page:Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887).djvu/113

Rh “We don’t run an establishment to teach women trades,” said another, in answer to my plea for work.

“Well, as they are not born with the knowledge, how do they ever learn?” I asked.

“The girls always have some friend who wants to learn. If she wishes to lose time and money by teaching her, we don’t object, for we get the work the beginner does for nothing.”

By no persuasion could I obtain an entree into the larger factories, so I concluded at last to try a smaller one at No. 196 Elm Street. Quite unlike the unkind, brusque men I had met at other factories, the man here was very polite. He said: “If you have never done the work, I don’t think you will like it. It is dirty work and a girl has to spend years at it before she can make much money. Our beginners are girls about sixteen years old, and they do not get paid for two weeks after they come here.”

“What can they make afterward?”

“We sometimes start them at week work—$1,50 a