Katia Halperian, a shirt-waist worker of fifteen, had been in New York
only six months. During twenty-one weeks of this time she was employed in
a Wooster Street factory, earning for a week of nine-and-a-half-hour days
only $3.50. Katia, like Natalya, was a "trimmer."

After paying $3 a week board to an aunt, she had a surplus of 50 cents
for all clothing, recreation, doctor's bills, and incidentals.

To save carfare she walked to her work--about forty minutes' distance.
Her aunt lived on the fourth floor of a tenement. After working nine and
a half hours and walking an hour and twenty minutes daily, Katia climbed
four flights of stairs and then helped with the housework.

Sonia Lavretsky, a girl of twenty, had been self-supporting for four
years. She lived in a most wretched, ill-kept tenement, with a family who
made artificial flowers. She had been totally unable to find work for the
last five months, but this family, though very poor, had kept her with
them without payment through all this time.

She had been three months an operative, putting cuffs on waists. Working
on a time basis, she earned $3 the first week and $4 the second. She was
then put on piece-work, and in fifty-four hours and a half could earn
only $3. Laid off, she found employment at felling cloaks, earning from
$3 to $6 a week. But after twelve weeks, trade in this place also had
grown dull.

During her idle time she became "run down" and was ill three weeks.
Fortunately, a brother was able to pay her doctor's bills, until he also
was laid off during part of her idle time.