with respect to dress, quite unstandardized.

Further, it must be remembered that the world in which the shop-girl
follows her occupation is a world of externals. The fortunes, talents,
tastes, eager human effort spent in shop-window displays on Fifth Avenue,
the shimmer and sparkle of beautiful silks and jewels, the prestige of
"carriage trade," the distinction of presence of some of the customers
and their wealth and their freedom in buying--all the worldliness of the
most moneyed city of the United States here perpetually passes before the
eyes of Zettas in their $1.20 muslin waists so carefully scrubbed the
midnight before, and of Alices who have had breakfasts for 10 cents. Is
it surprising that they should adopt the New York shop-window-display
ideal of life manifested everywhere around them?

The saleswomen themselves are the worst victims of their unstandardized
employment; and the fact that they spend long years of youth in work
involving a serious outlay of their strength, without training them in
concentration or individual responsibility or resourcefulness, but
apparently dissipating these powers, seems one of the gravest aspects of
their occupation.

A proud and very pretty pink-cheeked little English shop-girl, with clear
hazel eyes, laid special stress upon unevenness of promotion, in telling
of her fortunes in this country.

She was sitting, as she spoke, in the parlor of a Christian "home,"
which, like that of many others where shop-girls live, was light and
clean, but had that unmistakably excellent and chilling air so subtly
imparted by the altruistic act of furnishing for others--the air that
characterizes spare rooms, hotel parlors, and great numbers of