circumstance and her terror of destitution. As she told her story, she
sobbed and wrung her hands. In the next six months she had better
occupation, however, in spasmodically busy shops, where the hours were
shorter than in the cloak factory, and she managed to earn an average
wage of $6 a week. She was then more serene; she said she had "made out
good."

During her six weeks of better pay at $6 a week, however, which so few
people would consider "making out good," she had suffered an especially
mean exploitation.

She applied at an underwear factory which constantly advertises, in an
East Side Jewish paper, for operatives. The management told her they
would teach her to operate if she would work for them two weeks for
nothing and would give them a dollar. She gave them the dollar; but on
the first day in the place, as she received no instructions, and learned
through another worker that after her two weeks of work for nothing were
over she would not be employed, she came away, losing the dollar she had
given to the firm.

Another worker who was distressed by the dull season, and had witnessed
unjust impositions, was Katia Markelov, a young operative on corsets. She
was a tiny, grave-looking girl of nineteen, very frail, with smooth black
hair, a lovely refinement of manner, and a very sweet smile. Like many
other operatives, she wore glasses. Katia was a good manager, and an
industrious and clever student, a constant attendant at night school.

In the factory where she was employed she earned about $10 a week as a
week worker, a skilled worker making an entire corset, after it was cut
and before it was trimmed. But she had only twelve full weeks' work in