Some of the women whose story I shall tell do not work for sweaters,
but are treated almost as badly by the powerful and wealthy firms who
employ them. In these cases the firm itself has learned the sweater's
secret, and through an agent of its own is sweating the life-blood out
of these half-starved victims.

Let us begin near at home with a South Boston case, which came to my
notice through the dispensary doctor for the district. It is a widow
with one child--a little boy scarcely three years old. The child is
just recovering from a troublesome sickness, through which the doctor
became acquainted with her. She has been sewing for a good while for
one of the largest and most respectable dry-goods houses on Washington
Street--a firm whose name is a household word throughout New England.
Her sewing has been confined to two lines--cloaks and aprons. For some
time she has been making white aprons--a good long apron, requiring a
yard, perhaps, of material; it is hemmed across the bottom and on both
sides, the band or "apron string" is hemmed on both sides, and then
sewed on to the apron, making six long seams. For these she is paid
fifteen cents _a dozen_! And besides that, this great, rich firm, whose
members are rolling in wealth and luxury, charges this poor widow
fifteen cents expressage on her package of ten dozen aprons, so that
for making one hundred and twenty aprons, such as I have described, she
receives, net, one hundred and thirty-five cents! If she works from
seven o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, she can
make four dozen; but, with the care of her child, she is unable to
average more than three dozen, for which, after the expressage is taken
out, she receives forty cents a day for the support of herself and
child.